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whew.
DEMON HUNTS is revised and delivered unto my editor. The copped-out storyline is much improved and hopefully everything else that needed explaining has been explained satisfactorily. And now I have no more revisions to do until the next TRUTHSEEKER revision letter. However, lest you think that means I’m caught up, I say BAHAHAHA. O.O Next up is writing “Hot Time”, upon which I’ve done some 1800 words already and, er, I seriously doubt this is going to come in as short as 7500 words. I’m sort of hoping I can keep it to 10K. There’s probably only very little chance, if that, that I can finish it this week, but I’ll probably try, because it’d be nice to get the Walker Papers 6 proposal done by August 7.
I also seem to have picked up a Sekrit Project, which was not at all part of my plan. But it’s going to be flipping *awesome* when it comes together, and given that three of the four pieces are already in alignment, I see very little reason why it should not come together. :)
I’ve caught up on the major X-Men storylines now, and one of these days will maybe write something meaningful about them. Short form: taken together, X-Men HOUSE OF M, DECIMATION, DEADLY GENESIS, ENDANGERED SPECIES, and MESSIAH COMPLEX…make a pretty good story, actually. And wherever I inferred it from was correct: MANIFEST DESTINY is pretty much completely useless in terms of story-driving plot, but it does have Ardian’s Marve debut with the Nightcrawler one-shot in it, so it was worth buying. :)
A lady came today to take away our extra bed, so the enormous upstairs back bedroom is finally ready to have something done with it. This pleases me very much.
Somehow I walked over six miles today. No wonder I’m exhausted.
July Thinks To Do:
–finish TRUTHSEEKER revisions
–revisions for DEMON HUNTS
– proposal for Walker Papers #6
– write “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”
–Chance graphic novel proposal
– an essay or two for the Chance GN
– getting together all the materials for that GN
–proposal for WAYFINDER
–(rough) WORLDBREAKER pitchmiles to Minas Tirith: 516
ytd wordcount: 196,000 -
best. readers. *ever*.
You guys have blown my little tiny mind. The “Hot Time” commission closed out at over $1100, which is, uh. Well beyond my wildest expectations. It’s far and away the most I’ve ever been paid to write a short story (excepting “Ill Met by Moonlight“, which Harlequin bought from me lock, stock and barrel), and I’ll do my best to write you a very good story.
For those who couldn’t participate this time, there’ll be an opportunity from November 7-30 to buy the story directly from me for $10 (or more, if you feel like it), which is the minimum amount set by fundable, so I think that keeps the playing field level.
Wow. Thank you. O.O
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five things make a post
Gah. Didn’t swim this morning due to an utter failure to wake up. I’ve made up for it by doing forty minutes of combined Pilates, barre work and weights, and later I’ll go for a walk.
The Janx & Daisani short story commission closes at 11:59pm Eastern tonight! If you want to be one of the first (few, only) people to read this story, scoot on over to Fundable and pledge some dollars! :)
After ten days of this haircut getting progressively worse instead of at all better, I have re-cut my hair myself. As my mother says, “Hell, I can give myself a bad haircut for free, and have no one to be angry at but myself.” It’s not as tidy as it would be if someone else had done it, but it looks a lot better than it did regardless. And I’m debating whether I want to grow it into a Louise Brooks bob with bangs or grow it all out so I can eventually re-bleach the stripe. The bob is a much quicker gratification goal, but delays the stripe (which is at least a year away *anyway*) indefinitely. Dunno. I haven’t had a bob like that since I was about twenty-five, and it’s cute on me.
I have no particular desire to work today. New furniture will be arriving at some point, and I’m reasonably certain that will be followed by a thorough cleaning of at least the living room, possibly the entire downstairs, and so even trying to work seems sort of pointless. Also I sort of think that having finished the TRUTHSEEKER revisions I mostly just want to sit here all numb-brained for a couple says, which I suppose isn’t unreasonable.
Argh. I just realized I may have to stay off the internet for the next week in order to survive the week-long Torchwood run without spoilers before I get a chance to see it.
ytd km swum: 50
miles to Minas Tirith: 446.8 -
a solution
Ok, here’s what I’m going to do with “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”, as well as any other stories I might eventually put up for commission.
The fundable.com commission window is open through July 7th. If you pledge during that time you’ll receive the story on August 7th as one of the original commissioners.
In November, I will open up a “buy it now” option where you can buy the story directly from me for a minimum of $10 (the minimum amount required by Fundable, just to keep the playing field level, and you can pay more if you want, just like through Fundable). That “buy it now” option will be available from November 7 to November 30, so approximately the same number of days the Fundable option is available.
After November 30, the only way the story will be available will be if I find a short story market to sell it to, or eventually through an anthology. So there you go: those are your two chances at buying in to a CE Murphy short story. :)
Okay, I’ll post one more time next Monday or Tuesday before the window closes, and I promise to shut up about this in the meantime. :)
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holy carp!
I awakened this morning to discover the short story commission has reached its minimum goal! On Friday, August 7th, I will send out “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” to all of my patrons, who will be the only people to see it until I find a market elsewhere for it or even possibly until I have enough stories for an Old Races anthology. If you were waiting to see if the story was going to be a go before becoming a patron, perhaps this is the time to act.
I’m trying to figure out if it would be…fair, for lack of a better word, to let people become patrons via direct payment to me instead of through fundable, which requires a $10 minimum. I think I’d probably still have to set it at $5 or something, because I would not want people who went through fundable to feel ripped off, but I’m kind of afraid that offering a buy-in option after the base goal is met is…well, not fair. If people, particularly those who’ve become patrons, would like to weigh in on this, I would be very interested to hear your opinions.
My friend
/Bryant (who suggested this experiment) refers to this as a potential sustainable funding model. One of the peculiar things about being a writer is that there is no steady paycheck, and there’s not a great deal of direct-market paying work done on individual levels (tons of fan fiction, yes, and plenty of freebies, but less in the way of finding a market than, say, many musicians or visual artists seem to have managed). Mostly we sell books or short stories which are provided to the reader via a publisher, so this is an interesting, exciting, and somewhat terrifying thing for me to try. I would *love* to be able to do this quarterly, presumably with stories of differing lengths and therefore differing minimum commission goals. Thank you all very, *very* much for making this work for me. You have no idea how excited I am, or how much I’m looking forward to writing this story. I’ve known since the beginning that there was some kind of story about Janx and Daisani and the Great Chicago Fire, and now I get to find out what it is!