New Installment of WIP and Some Thoughts

My newest installment of UnJust Cause, my serialized work-in-progress is up:

Alex hasn't used her magic since she accidentally blinded Devon (the half-werewolf/half-vampire).  Now, feeling cornered, she instinctively lashes out... at a friend. 

http://www.wattpad.com/56251842-unjust-cause-part-13-a-dangerous-rush-of-power

I thought that maybe here on the thirteenth episode, I should take a moment and discuss my feelings/experiences working this way.

There are, for me, some distinct advantages to having a strict 'publishing' deadline. Having set myself a weekly goal of getting something up, some forward momentum made, is probably the only way I would have written as much as I have to-date. Considering the extent to which writing original fiction has been difficult for me in these last few years, this stands out as a HUGE benefit.

The disadvantage is that writing like this is also very seat-of-my-pants.  If I go down a road, I'm committed to it.  Revision is only going to be possible once the story is completed and ready to become an e-book.  I'm already feeling places where I wish I could go back and restructure things a bit.

The way I've decided to deal with that is that I've handed out some of this to Wyrdsmiths with the idea that I can be concurrently working on a more polished draft for the e-book.  Of course, the first-draft-y-ness of this serialization may ultimately turn off some readers.  I'd been hoping, of course, for the kind of community that AO3 (archive of our own) gives a writer, where there might be a strong back-and-forth during the process, between the writer and the community of readers.  I'm not getting anyone brave enough to point out my faults yet, and that really kind of bums me out.

This is, btw, one of the main reasons I don't come out on AO3 as a 'professional' writer.  I have a feeling all the criticism would stop dead under the silly idea that 'well, she must know what she's doing,' which is of course not only nonsense, but which actually discourages me.  I like the back and forth.  I like knowing people are into a story enough to get mad about some turn of events or a moment that seems out of character or whatever.

*sigh*

Well, all the same, at least I'm writing.  This is much more than I can say that I'd be doing without WattPad.  So the experiment continues to be "profitable."  We'll see if I'm able to grow an audience as I'd like to, and whether or not it will translate into e-book sales once everything is done and dusted.