there's a howling in the factory yard, there's a pounding in my head
Somebody stands in a window, watches the river roll; trains rumble in the foreground with the weight of approaching dawn. Flames from the refinery rise, broken, red, and riveting, and the high vault of heaven looks far away and cold. There's a howling in the factory yard; there's a pounding in my head. I'm swollen up with unshed tears, bloated like the dead. Blood and ashes, time burning -- on the skyline dark against the stars, a solitary horseman, waiting. Lashed to the wheel, whipping into the storm -- get up, Jonah; it's your time to be born. (Bruce Cockburn, "Get Up Jonah")
I hate it when writers post stories in pieces. Hate. I read fast, but once I've read something, I tend to forget the details of it nearly immediately, so jumping back into the next part the next day (week, month, etc) is hard, and I wind up missing things -- plus, if a story's good enough, I want to read all of it right then and there and not have to wait. (I am very, very bad at delayed gratification.)
So when I first started thinking about how I was going to be posting A Howling In The Factory Yard, the next installment of Broken Wings, I was really surprised that my first impulse -- immediate first impulse, I mean -- was to say to myself, "Self, you should post it in sections." The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized why. This universe has been written serially; I've tried to make each section be fairly standalone, and I think (and you guys have let me know) that I've been doing a pretty good job at doing it, but part of the interesting thing about writing this universe (for me) has always been watching how the serial nature of the story changes how the story feels -- to me and to you guys.
And the more I looked at Howling, the more I realized that it was structured exactly like the serialized nature of the story-so-far; each section is written exactly like a section of the "main" story, and although they're not standalone -- you couldn't end with 4 of 6 and feel like you had closure, for instance -- I realized that I'd been unconsciously expecting to serialize it the entire time. Dammit.
So, starting probably in about an hour or so -- and continuing for the next six days -- I will be posting one section of A Howling In The Factory Yard every morning, until the whole story's posted. (At that point, I'll also offer an all-in-one-file version for easy printing, although at 105,000 words, that's a lot of printer ink.) If you're the type who, like me, hates reading things serially when an author doles out completed stories in bits and pieces, I apologize; hold off, and I promise to hit anyone who spoils you before it's all out and posted. Even myself.
I'm also going to own my comment-whoredom here: a big part of it is artistic, but another part of it is also that I totally want to hear all of the screeching, the vile imprecations, the nail-biting, the rampant speculation, and the total dread. So much of my love for this universe does come from the way that I've been able to get totally energized by everyone's reactions as we go, and I've been working on this one since February; it's been killing me to not have that kind of synergy as I go along on it, and I really, really want to see what everyone's thinking is going to happen as they read.
Unlike usual, I won't be replying to all comments until it's all posted -- although I might do some -- because I don't think I can do so without giving too much away, but I do encourage everyone to talk amongst yourselves while I'm on radio silence. I will reply to everything once we're all through, and once everything's posted, I'll go back and award prizes to the people whose theories came closest -- and whose were the most entertainingly off-base. *g*
I hate it when writers post stories in pieces. Hate. I read fast, but once I've read something, I tend to forget the details of it nearly immediately, so jumping back into the next part the next day (week, month, etc) is hard, and I wind up missing things -- plus, if a story's good enough, I want to read all of it right then and there and not have to wait. (I am very, very bad at delayed gratification.)
So when I first started thinking about how I was going to be posting A Howling In The Factory Yard, the next installment of Broken Wings, I was really surprised that my first impulse -- immediate first impulse, I mean -- was to say to myself, "Self, you should post it in sections." The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized why. This universe has been written serially; I've tried to make each section be fairly standalone, and I think (and you guys have let me know) that I've been doing a pretty good job at doing it, but part of the interesting thing about writing this universe (for me) has always been watching how the serial nature of the story changes how the story feels -- to me and to you guys.
And the more I looked at Howling, the more I realized that it was structured exactly like the serialized nature of the story-so-far; each section is written exactly like a section of the "main" story, and although they're not standalone -- you couldn't end with 4 of 6 and feel like you had closure, for instance -- I realized that I'd been unconsciously expecting to serialize it the entire time. Dammit.
So, starting probably in about an hour or so -- and continuing for the next six days -- I will be posting one section of A Howling In The Factory Yard every morning, until the whole story's posted. (At that point, I'll also offer an all-in-one-file version for easy printing, although at 105,000 words, that's a lot of printer ink.) If you're the type who, like me, hates reading things serially when an author doles out completed stories in bits and pieces, I apologize; hold off, and I promise to hit anyone who spoils you before it's all out and posted. Even myself.
I'm also going to own my comment-whoredom here: a big part of it is artistic, but another part of it is also that I totally want to hear all of the screeching, the vile imprecations, the nail-biting, the rampant speculation, and the total dread. So much of my love for this universe does come from the way that I've been able to get totally energized by everyone's reactions as we go, and I've been working on this one since February; it's been killing me to not have that kind of synergy as I go along on it, and I really, really want to see what everyone's thinking is going to happen as they read.
Unlike usual, I won't be replying to all comments until it's all posted -- although I might do some -- because I don't think I can do so without giving too much away, but I do encourage everyone to talk amongst yourselves while I'm on radio silence. I will reply to everything once we're all through, and once everything's posted, I'll go back and award prizes to the people whose theories came closest -- and whose were the most entertainingly off-base. *g*