Diary of a Serial Writer

I wake.

I glance at my notifications: there’s a bunch of responses already to the previous night’s chapter of The Mechanical Crown.

While making breakfast I take a closer look: two of my regular readers are discussing the latest character developments. They discuss among themselves — I drop by to say hello, but otherwise stay out of it.

Their exchange is a response to a tongue-in-cheek prompt I dangled at the end of the chapter. The prompts are definitely helping to encourage discussion. I only started leaving author prompts about four chapters back; I’m on chapter 83 of the book. Missed opportunity.

Wife’s birthday, so no writing tonight.

Busy day at work. Ideas begin to percolate for the next chapter.

More positive votes for the week’s chapter, as some of the lurker readers read it. New votes on the first chapters in the book, too: new readers are still discovering the book, at a greater rate since it was featured by Wattpad.

While listening to a writing podcast on the walk to work I have an unexpected idea about the finale of the book. I’m not going to be writing that for another five months, according to the schedule, so I fire up my ‘random ideas’ document and note it down for future reference.

The all-important document pings back up to the cloud. It’s a stream of consciousness that has been growing for almost two years.

In the evening I write the notes for the week’s chapter, for Patreon backers. Always fun to talk about the form and concepts behind each chapter.

Take my son to gymnastics at crack of dawn. While he cartwheels and trampolines I open my laptop and start writing an article about serialised writing for Medium. It’s an hour of quiet focus, even while surrounded by excited, screaming five year olds in the cavernous gymnasium.

The next week is fast approaching. I begin to focus in on the upcoming chapter: this is when I make last-minute decisions on perspective and tone.

I already know the general direction of the story, so writer’s block and plot holes are rarely issues. The detailed plan stretches ten chapters into the story — and thus ten weeks into my future…

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