Sunday, February 16, 2014

22: Trail

Hey, homies! Again, sorry for the delay with the last chapter. Busy busy week, and things aren't going to get much better...which leads to my main point:

Vulpine's going to be paused for awhile. How long, I'm not sure, but it might stretch into a month, perhaps a bit more. We'll just have to see. The reasons for this are many:

  1.  I basically have no chapter-buffer. NaNo ate up four chapters, and since then I haven't managed to stay very far ahead, culminating in this current week, wherein I haven't even completely done the chapter that will be posted this coming Sunday (Riven's). The reason for my current slowness is that I'm taking 18 hours this semester, and while that was easy enough for the first few weeks of school, a lot of different projects are coming to a head right now. That, plus my volunteering activities, plus my roommmate's habit of going to bed ridiculously early, means I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to writing. Ideally, I'd like to work up to at least being 3 chapters ahead when I start posting updates again.
  2. NORTH has been calling to me somethin' fierce. NORTH was my NaNo project, and it went brilliantly - 117k when all was said and done - but that was only half of the first draft. As soon as November was over I stopped working on it, but lately I've been having all sorts of ideas and working out all the plot lumps that had me hung up before. I really want to complete the first draft, and have for awhile now, but I simply wasn't far enough ahead on Vulpine to allow it to be viable. Originally I had wanted to build up another 4-chapter buffer so I could take some time off, but it's proven to be unfeasible at this point in time. If things go well, finishing the draft should take about a month's time. During this time, I'll also be working on the point below.
  3. Vulpine needs a bit more plotting. While I have the overall arc down pretty solidly, separating everything that needs to be done into the right POVs (or figuring out how to work around these limits, like characters witnessing things that don't directly involve them) is still a bit of a problem. I need to do some long-term separating to ensure things don't start sprawling too big, and move us into the last phase of training and all that good stuff. This isn't hard, necessarily, it's just difficult to do while I'm trying to push a chapter a week at the same time.
  4. This is by no means the biggest point, but it's still worth mentioning: Vulpine is not getting a lot of reviews. Normally I'd be pretty unbothered by this, since it's not pitching itself to a big fandom like any of my fics, but in this case it's a bit annoying because the readership/review ratio is pretty skewed. Vulpine's as much of an experiment as anything, and every bit of feedback helps, but it's been a bit lacking. What this means is that it's a bit weird to write, since although I do get some people's views on the characters, I'm in the dark about most other responses. Like, the reviews I receive regarding Faun are pretty divided, but I have no way of knowing whether that's true for everyone at large, or just the 3-4 people that consistently review. That sort of thing. NORTH isn't in the same basket because I won't be posting it anywhere until it's been completed & revised & probably revised again, if I post it at all, so reviews won't really impact my process too much. Again, this isn't a huge factor in my decision, but it would be lying to omit it entirely, I think.
So yeah, that's that. One thing I'd like to stress is that Vulpine is not being abandoned. I just want to work on another project, while also giving myself a clearer course in the future/avoiding the stress of completing all my schoolwork and having to produce 5-6 thousand words in a week.

I'm not sure how long this will take; it would be nice if I could get everything done in a month, but that depends on NORTH going well + me having time to plot things out + me writing 4 Vulpine chapters in addition to everything else. It might be a bit longer than that; at this point, I have no real way of knowing. For now, the plan is to post Riven's chapter, then Trick's, so we can kinda start fresh with Sprite again once things get underway.

If you dig Vulpine and don't want to forget about it, I'd recommend adding it to your alerts or something, if you can. Otherwise, just keep your eyes here. This blog will probably be pretty static unless I post some updates (like "yo just finished the draft" or "wrote Sprite's chap" or that kinda thing) or other stuff (maybe NORTH's prologue, since I don't think I'm going to be changing that even when I revise) but when I get close to being finished, you guys will definitely know.

I might change the day updates are posted, since Sunday has proven really hard for me to remember, for some reason. Maybe Saturdays, since those are my lazy days - or Monday, since I know I'll be awake at a decent time. I'm not sure yet, I'll have to decide. Uh, anyway, this is getting pretty long, so I'll do the 2 review responses and then get out of here, haha.

@Lynxeye: Sage having a secret league of assassins would pretty much make him the coolest old geezer ever. Sadly, he's just been doing who-knows-what in the tunnels (he's not going to tell anyone but Sprite what he's been up to, so it'll probably be a long time until we know exactly what it is - but then again, it's not hugely exciting). I think the problem with prey fairies is that you have to clap to show you believe, and foxes don't have hands. Tough luck, Sprite, tough luck.

@Swyfte: Hopefully it doesn't get that long, but that's why I'm planning to take off for a bit! We have to finish this cycle, and then the next one will probably be in this "middle" phase as well, but hopefully the one after it will help move us into the late phase of things. As I'm sure you all know, I have a weakness when it comes to writing way too much for way too little. I think the POVs are part of the problem, since although the timeline is fluid, I can't pick and choose who to switch to - and to be honest, they are not all weighed equally, especially since some of them are more or less active at certain times than others. Lesson learned, I suppose! The nice thing about NORTH is that other than the Prologue, it's all in one character's head - and she's very much involved in pretty much everything that happens, 'cause she's a bit of a dick. :)

Anyway, I think that's all for now. See you next Sunday!