Waymaking — Author Notes #12
A monthly roundup of the stories you may have missed, plus a peak at the changes you'll start to notice around the site!
Howdy
is statistically speaking, the most successful salutation to use on a dating app. Bet you didn’t know.
Anyhow, for the dozens of you who signed up since my last author update, I’m so glad to have you here!
Test and Misfire
Last time, I said I was testing a paid subscriber perk to give early access on some posts. There are two problems here.
It doesn’t really add much value if you’re the kind of reader who reads in occasional binges
My schedule becomes very rigid. If I need to tweak my publishing schedule, I have to “unpublish” which removes any comments you’ve made, and breaks any links where it has been shared
So, I’m going to be shifting strategy a bit.
Under Construction
Part of that shift involves a change to this monthly round-up I do. In the future, these posts will be called something else — probably April in Review, or The Monthly.
“Author Notes” is becoming its own newsletter section, which you’ll notice as an extra tab along the masthead of the site. It’s empty now, but it will fill up with things like character sketches, pages from my writers notebook, and process posts.
I’m rolling this out as a perk for paid subscribers. If you’re a paid subscriber, and you don’t want this kind of content, you can simply opt out by clicking on your picture in the top right corner of the screen, and scrolling down to “manage subscription,” in the dropdown menu.
The Most Popular Story Ever
This past month, I published a bit of an unexpected hit. I grew up loving the first Matrix movie, particularly the concept of being able to download skills. One afternoon I had a silly idea: what would that look like in a cyberpunk world, mashed against our own current reality of endless subscription services?
The result was FAUST.zip, and its successor, Going Viral. Within 24 hours, this little storyline became the most liked, commented-on, and shared pieces of content I’ve written. Thank you all for making that possible! If you missed it, you can catch it here:
In a similar vein, I also rolled out “Burnt Filaments,” a sci-fi horror critique of the impact AI art is having on the creative community.
Burnt Filaments
This month also saw the launch of a paid exclusive series, set in a whacky world in which Teddy Roosevelt discovered a genie, and conscripted it into the service of the United States of America. I’m having a ton of fun writing this one.
The President's Djinn — Part 1
It’s also probably going to be my last series for a while. I still have two episodes left of Attention Farm. I’m mostly dragging my feet because I’ve been distracted by a few other projects. I’m really trying to dial back while I work on finishing up my actual book project that’s been going on in the background.
You haven’t seen all the short stories I’ve been working on… but I have enough to coast for about 3 months. Enough is enough; time to focus on what I actually came here to do.
Oh—I’ve forgotten another one:
If you enjoy my poetry, check out “the Collection Plate,” a Lovecraftian adventure in verse.
Thank You for Reading!
Access the full archive by upgrading to a paid subscription.
If you don’t have the money for a paid subscription, telling a friend about me is pretty cool too. Getting your words in front of eyeballs is honestly harder than doing the actual writing and editing…