Eleven donors still not heard from.
Incidentally, if anyone’s curious, we were $45.00 short of posting the next chapter.
Update, 3:30pm EST 11/22: Eight left who I never heard from. I’ll be sending their books to the latest address I have and hoping for the best.
Okay, if you donated $25 or more and e-mailed me to confirm your shipping address, your books are either in the mail, or in the last box on the dining room table that I’ll be taking to the post office Friday afternoon. Domestic shipments went out Media Mail; foreign ones went Airmail First Class. I hope I got everyone’s book choices right, and autographed everything that anyone wanted autographed. (In one case I had to re-open the package, sign stuff, and tape it closed again, when I realized I’d missed an autograph request. I hope I didn’t miss any others.)
Nineteen people have not confirmed their addresses. I’ve just sent another e-mail out to those nineteen. If you’re one of them, please respond ASAP.
Update, 5:00p, EST: Thirteen left unconfirmed. If I don’t hear from you by Monday, I’ll assume your address is still good and you want Option No. 2.
If you donated less than $25, thank you, but you don’t get any books. The window to upgrade has closed.
There will be a Kindle edition of Realms of Light. It’s not out yet because of a communication glitch between FoxAcre and myself, but it should be available by Christmas. FoxAcre is also acquiring the e-book rights to Nightside City, so there’ll soon be a Kindle edition of that, too, but I’ve had to remove it from Fictionwise.
Other e-book editions — well, we’ll see.
Oh, and if you asked to have your copy of Setting the Stage autographed — check page 26.
Chapter Twenty-Three is now online.
The serial is paid for through Chapter Twenty-Four, which will be posted on Wednesday, November 24th.
I’m writing Chapter Twenty-Six. Been too busy with Realms of Light stuff to work on it much this week.
The finished book of Realms of Light is now available, and I have the donors’ copies piled up on our dining table. I’ll be sending them out in batches over the next week or two — they should all be on their way by Thanksgiving (that’s November 25th, for you non-Americans).
I should have had the first batch in the mail by now. I don’t. This is because I didn’t have the chapbook of Setting the Stage ready; I kept putting off finishing it because it didn’t seem urgent. Keeping up with The Final Calling and family matters seemed more immediately important. I had the text partially done for months, every so often getting a bit further, but it was always a low priority.
Then one day the books showed up, and it was suddenly very urgent, so I spent three days doing very little else, and got it all written and ready to go. (My printer ran out of toner while cranking out the first batch, which didn’t help with the timely completion.)
And of course, though I did try to edit and proofread it, I found a stupid typo after I’d printed them — there’s a missing “of.” There are probably others, as well. My apologies.
I sent out an e-mail asking donors to confirm their shipping addresses, and to tell me which of a couple of possible extras they wanted. More than half of the donors have responded, but there are still several I haven’t heard from, so I’ll be sending a follow-up. At least one response somehow wound up in my spam folder, so it may take a few rounds before I have everyone squared away.
Right now the major bottleneck is that I’ve run out of packing supplies — I hadn’t stocked up yet. See above about not thinking it was urgent, and then spending three days working on the chapbook and therefore not going to Staples or Office Depot. I’ll get more Monday, when I mail off the first batch.
Anyway, everything will be shipped out reasonably soon.
If you aren’t a donor, or want additional copies, you can always buy the book from FoxAcre Press — they have a package deal if you buy both Nightside City and Realms of Light. You can also get it from the usual online sources.
There’s no e-book yet, but FoxAcre does intend to release one in the near future.
So, with the book published, what happens to the serial? Not much. I’m no longer taking donations, and the remaining five chapters of the first draft will never be posted. I’ve removed the buttons and most of the “about” page.
I think the failure of this project has demonstrated why I stopped writing science fiction, and why I don’t plan to return to it. The publisher at FoxAcre has asked me to write a third Carlisle Hsing novel, and I’ve told him I have no intention of ever doing so. This novel delayed the serial of The Final Calling by about a year to no good purpose, and generated so little net income for me that I really shouldn’t have bothered. I am severely disappointed that nothing I said or did could convince more people to support it. I think it’s a good story, and I very much appreciate the support and enthusiasm of those who did donate money, but clearly, it wasn’t what most of my readers wanted from me.
I’ll know better in the future.
Meanwhile, thanks again to everyone who sent money. I’ll get those books shipped out as quickly as I can, and I hope you’ll enjoy them.
Chapter Twenty-Two is now online.
The serial is paid for through Chapter Twenty-Three, and Chapter Twenty-Four is close.
I’m writing Chapter Twenty-Six. I’m now guessing it’ll run thirty-some chapters, but I don’t have an exact number.
Chapter Twenty-Three will be posted on Wednesday, November 17th.
Not much else to say; a progress report for Realms of Light should be along soon.
Chapter Twenty-One was posted on schedule; sorry I didn’t get to this progress report until now. Even though I was traveling, the delay isn’t entirely my fault — my website host has been down intermittently for the past couple of days.
It’s up at the moment, though, so — Chapter Twenty-One‘s available.
I’m about two pages from finishing writing Chapter Twenty-Five.
Chapter Twenty-Three is paid for.
Chapter Twenty-Two will be posted on Wednesday, November 10th.
Chapter Twenty is now online.
The serial is paid for through Chapter Twenty-Two. Chapter Twenty-Three is getting close.
I’ve started writing Chapter Twenty-Five.
Chapter Twenty-One will be posted Wednesday, November 3, but perhaps not at the usual time — it’s possible I won’t get to it until late that evening, rather than the night before, and I’m afraid any books purchased may not ship until Thursday, November 4th, because I have family plans that may not allow me to get to the post office until then.
And with the usual stuff out of the way, I’d like to say something about how this novel is developing.
I’ve been asked several times whether writing a novel as a serial affects how I work, and I’ve always answered that I don’t really know. Up until now it’s been a theoretical point of little practical importance. In the three previous serials I didn’t see that it mattered.
However, it’s now moved from the realm of theory to the real world, because The Final Calling is turning out to be one of the novels that’s changing shape as I write it. That didn’t happen with the other three serials. It’s happened lots of times with other novels, but never with a serial before.
It didn’t matter with ordinary novels because no one but me ever saw the first draft. This time, though, thousands of people have seen at least part of the first draft, so I need to explain what I’m talking about.
What’s happening is that as I write it, I’m rethinking it, mentally throwing out things I’d intended to include, and adding or altering others, and these changes are significant enough that the complete novel is not going to be the one I thought I was writing for, oh, the first dozen or so chapters. Or more.
As I say, normally this is no problem; I fix it all in the second draft and no one else ever knows anything about it. This time, though — well, some of what’s coming up later on may contradict what you’ve already read. To cite one trivial example, there weren’t three Chairmen of the Council of Warlocks in Ethshar of the Spices, there were about fifteen. More importantly, certain characters are going to do stuff in upcoming chapters that doesn’t follow very well from what’s come earlier.
When I revise the novel I’ll change the earlier chapters, but there’s no point in doing it before I finish the first draft — you’ve already read the original version, and besides, I don’t do that; it slows me down far too much. Not to mention that when I finish the first draft I may wind up undoing some of the later changes instead; I can’t really know which stuff I want to keep until I have a complete story.
This may be somewhat confusing or annoying. I apologize for that. It will all be fixed in the second draft, and the final, published version of the novel will be as cohesive as my usual.
I may be worrying about nothing here; it may be that the shifts will be too minor or subtle to bother most readers. I honestly don’t know. I only know how it looks from my side.
But now I know that no, writing it as a serial doesn’t change how I work, but you might wish it did. And it’ll change how you read it.
If something doesn’t seem to fit, or doesn’t match what you thought you’d read, it’s probably not your imagination.
I thought you’d want to know.
Chapter Nineteen is now online.
The serial is paid for through Chapter Twenty-Two.
I’m writing Chapter Twenty-Four.
Chapter Twenty will be posted Wednesday, October 27th.
In case anyone missed it, I posted slightly revised versions of Chapter Eleven, Chapter Sixteen, and Chapter Eighteen last week, correcting the Sardironese in Chapter Eleven and adding some details I’d forgotten.
Realms of Light should go to press any day now, if it hasn’t already.
The Wildside Press double edition of The Cyborg and the Sorcerers and The Wizard and the War Machine is out; I’ll be getting my copies Friday.
Alter Ego #97 should be out this week, reprinting my long feature article, “The Other Guys,” about pre-Code horror comics publishers other than EC. (Sorry I don’t have a link.)
Busy week.
Chapter Eighteen is now online.
I’ve written most of Chapter Twenty-Two.
Chapter Twenty-Two is paid for.
Chapter Nineteen will be posted on Wednesday, October 20.
I’ve been busy with other stuff lately; Realms of Light is nearing publication, and I’ve been going over proofs and attending to other last-minute details. Among other things. But I expect to get more of a buffer built up on The Final Calling soon.
Addendum, 10/14/10: I’ve just posted slightly revised versions of Chapter Eleven, Chapter Sixteen, and Chapter Eighteen. I’ve corrected the Sardironese in Chapter Eleven to match the grammar used in The Blood of a Dragon. Also, I had forgotten to account for Sterren’s luggage in the other two chapters, and have added a few lines to amend that oversight.
Chapter Seventeen is now online.
I’m gradually getting back on track, but I still haven’t quite finished writing Chapter Twenty-One; it’s got maybe two or three pages to go.
Chapter Twenty-One is paid for, and about half of Chapter Twenty-Two.
Not much else in the way of news. I’ve been dealing with other stuff. I did actually turn down paying work so as not to interfere with The Final Calling, which I hope you guys appreciate, but on the other hand, it didn’t pay very well, and it wasn’t something that looked like much fun.
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