Cambrian
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Upcoming Original Novel!
🕑 Added 2022-10-21 19:32:00 +0000 UTCTL;DR: How often do you want my next Writing Project to update?
Hey guys, so I wanted to give a little bit of a heads-up on a new Writing Project I'll be starting next week.
For those of you who have been with me since the beginning back in 2017, you might or might not remember that I initially intended on starting an original novel here on my Patreon along with all the other content I was doing at the time.
Well that never really crystallized for several reasons, the most important being that the rest of my business grew out of control faster than I could have ever expected, but also because I couldn't come up with any ideas that really spoke to me back then, and I was loath to force something that I wasn't enjoying.
Here we are over five years later. I've spent the last two and a half years or so wrangling my business into something that works for me instead of something I have to work my ass off for. Going from writing 10-15k words every day to 5-10k words every day with most days being closer to 5k has allowed me to do a lot more with my extra writing time, especially in 2022.
Maidenless No Longer and Blasting Off are two Writing Projects from 2022 that I'm really proud of to be honest. They were only possible because I managed to get my other daily writing obligations down to 5-10k words a day.
That said, I'm finally ready to write that Original Novel I promised all those years ago. And I mean that, because in the same vein as MNL and BO, I've already gone ahead and outlined the ENTIRE story ahead of time. Currently it rings in at 66 total chapters spread across five Arcs, though we'll have to see if there ends up being additional chapters added on by the time we get to the finish line.
Since this is a completely original work, I want it to be as perfect as it possibly can be. I'm excited for the story I've managed to develop and outline over the past week, and I think given you all are here for my past works, that you'll all be excited and enjoy it as well.
Which brings me to the purpose of this post. Namely, how often should the Novel update? To be clear, this isn't for me, but more for you guys my audience. I can easily handle a daily upload schedule, as I like to think I've proved over the course of 2022 more often than not. Its very easy for me, and something I actually feel pretty comfortable with.
However one thing I noticed, back when I was writing MNL and BO, was that a small handful of my Exit Surveys featured people saying they were quitting because my Patreon had become "all about Elden Ring" or "all about Pokemon". Now obviously that wasn't the case. I hadn't stopped or rolled back ANY of my other content, it was all still chugging along just fine while those stories were being written.
However, perception is nevertheless a thing, and feelings can be as strong as facts sometimes. I can see how seven updates to one story every week might clutter up the Patreon and sort of drown out the updates to my eight Patreon Exclusives that update every two weeks. There's also something to be said about letting each update 'breathe' so you're not going from one chapter to the next day by day, and everyone who wants to has the opportunity to keep up with the story.
So I figured I'd put the question to all of you here and now. Should this Original Novel be on a three days a week, five days a week, or seven days a week update schedule?
Thanks for reading, and thanks for being my patrons. I'm excited for the reception to this Original Novel I have planned, and I hope all of you are too!
Comments
Ciaphas Cain
Congrats for write your first original novel!’🥳
Cambrian
Heh I appreciate all of these comments worried about burn out. The thing is, I have generally proven over the last 5 years to be immune to regular burn out, at least so far. What I tend to suffer from is reverse burn out. My attention span and memory are both so bad that if I don't at least do something related to a writing project like this one every single day, I will end up losing interest in it and dropping it. It was kind of a meme back in the day that if I didn't update one of my free write fanfics for a week, it was dead. Still, by having outlined the entire novel from start to finish ahead of time, I should be able to avoid reverse burn out and be able to maintain a 3 chapters a week schedule without the story dying on me. Especially if I make it part of work, which I've never had any difficult staying motivated for
Steven Chang
Take your time don’t burn yourself out
