Stretching Out

Last week I received a notice that it was time to renew my domain name for another couple of years. This reminded me of the main reasons I started this little endeavor - to get myself in shape, writing-wise. In the spirit, it's time to try something new. 

When I first began, this was simply a blog where I could write random posts about the fat woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated or my thoughts on financial advisors. It was mostly for me, a way to stay warm until I could really focus on writing. Over time, though, I grew impatient; I began writing a few little trifles, little stories that everyone saves for cocktail parties. Just light stuff, good for a chuckle. It was a little more substantive; if writing blog posts was jogging around the block, these stories would be a 5K fun run. 

But we're two years in now. It's time to tackle something a little more challenging. Not an entire book. Not yet (or not again, at least). Nevertheless, it's time to try something a little meatier, a little longer. A slightly-more-literary 10K. 

This will be challenging for many reasons, one of which is technical. I'll be digging into new features of my web interface to automate publication; God knows how that's going to go.

Then there's the format challenge. There's a vast no-man's-land between a short story of a few thousand words and a full-length book. There's also the fact that I'm being read off a screen, and nothing discourages a reader like a wall of text.

To overcome this, I'm going to try and publish my latest work as a serial. I've divided this 20,000-word story into ten chunks, each a few thousand words (although the first chunk is a bit longer than normal), hopefully digestible and enjoyable by themselves, but also part of a larger story. 

It's a daunting challenge to put out something that brings back readers day after day while keeping continuity. This requires both skill as a storyteller and excellent subject matter. 

As for the what I've chosen to write about, longtime readers may find it somewhat familiar. It's an account of my time in a... unique living situation where I lived with an unusual family. I'll tell the tale in a journal style, written as events transpired. My subjects are housemates I lived with about ten years ago. They are comedic, tragic, character-rich gold. So the source material is excellent; we'll see about the execution soon enough. 

Bottom line, it's all unknown territory, but I'm giving it a shot. My big finish for 2017. 

OK, enough talking about what I'm going to do. Here's a sneak peak at Part One.