March Report
Added 2018-04-06 06:08:02 +0000 UTCThis is coming almost a week late, a fact which really should go into a meta-report.
The last chapter of March was published on the 30th, so the March period covers all writing done March 1st to March 30th, a period of 30 days. In that time, 5 chapters, totaling 30,564 words, or an average of 1,018 words per day, and an average chapter length of 6,112 words.
Not a great month. I think this is officially the first month that I've been below the National Novel Writing Month pace of 1,667 words per day, except maybe for last November, and also had the longest break between chapters, roughly 14 days. This is mostly down to me getting (what felt like) a fair amount of negative feedback and not being very good at letting it roll off me, which I've always had a bit of a problem with. People say good things, and it's like someone waved to me while I was out on a walk, pleasant and happy, but not something that I really hold onto. People say bad things, and it's cause for me to be in a bad mood for the rest of the day. This is sort of a personal problem whose two-pronged solution is probably 1) stop reading comments and 2) some form of either aversion therapy or CBT, because it seems like it's not really about the stimulus, it's about the response to the stimulus, and that response is something that's at least theoretically under my control, or possible to alter through applied technique.
And some other stuff, mostly to answer the question of what else I'm doing with my time, and in the interests of being at least transparent about where my time is spent (so you can keep an eye on it):
Words written for Worth the Candle but not actually used in it total roughly 20K words for the month, though some of those are in the form of scenes that might potentially find a home later, and a few were plotting and planning scenes that were meant to flesh things out and pin things down for the future.
Words written for other projects:
~4K for A Series of Fights Without Any Meaning [WIP Title]
~1K for untitled fantasy/military novel
Reddit comments for the month total (very roughly) 5K words, not counting quotes or mod messages.
Comments
FWIW, I'm refreshing the table of contents mutliple times a day cause I love this so much I can't wait for another chapter to get published. Keep up the good work!
Maksymilian Osowski
2018-04-10 22:10:49 +0000 UTCWhat is interesting to me is that, despite the "haters", WtC is one of the most consistently recommended fics I see in both the /r/rpglit and /r/rational subreddits. It seems like those who hate on it are simply a vocal minority. The size of their outrage is proportional to your success. You see the same thing with many other high visibility, popular works (on the web and off) - "How dare you be popular!", they seem to say. Screw 'em! Anyway, I'm voting with my pocketbook - I'm here, giving you money, because I love what you've written and what you're writing. So is every other person that is throwing a buck your way. That's not nothing.
Rex Schrader
2018-04-06 16:04:46 +0000 UTCI wonder if the problem with being unnecessarily soured by criticism has to do having adopted the mindset of writing WtC for your audience since putting ti on patreon. If so, I'd suggest another way of dealing with it is to just remember your priority should be writing a great story that you yourself will enjoy - that's why you started the story in the first place no? The way I usually deal with fan/audience criticism is to adopt that mindset - I'm not writing/performing for the haters, I'm doing it for myself first and foremost, and then for my fans. That said, I'm loving the story so far, and I'm eagerly waiting for the next installments!
Calvin
2018-04-06 14:13:13 +0000 UTCRemember that in anonymous forums like Reddit, people are *incentivized* to be negative by the system. That's especially impactful in creative writing, because criticisms are specific and easy to make, while non-expert praise pretty much has to be general - it is in the nature of good writing to get out of our way, so that we don't have to think about it at all.
Eric Mueller
2018-04-06 12:28:41 +0000 UTCEven your earliest stories I can find are well-written and edited. You're one of three web authors I recommend to normal (non-fanfiction-reader) people without trying to temper expectations about free content. (You, Wildbow, and Rieder).
Eric Mueller
2018-04-06 12:21:40 +0000 UTCDAMMIT YOU'RE DOING A TERRIBLE JOB of accepting compliments. Your characters feel real. They interact with their desires and flaws in real-feeling ways. I particularly like that Juniper has blind spots that we see through his interaction with other characters. The big glaring example before it was explicitly called out was his effort to increase Grak's loyalty.
2018-04-06 06:33:57 +0000 UTCI just discovered Worth the Candle, and marathonned it in three days, then introduced my friend to it, and she’s loving it too. It really made my week, so even though this might roll off you, thank you, I really enjoy reading it and look forward to more.
Andy
2018-04-06 06:10:50 +0000 UTC
