Writer's Journal: The plan this week is first to finish editing The Adjusters #21 for posting at the end of the week, and second to finish up a draft of #23. I did finally figure out the sex scene for #23—thanks to everyone that voiced a suggestion, some of which I've slated into others episodes—and I think it will be an interesting one too. At least I'm excited about it, the way it plays in my head. We'll see what happens when it hits the keyboard. I've also managed to nail a plot point in that scene, one that I didn't even realize needed nailing. I love when writing comes easy. It compensates somewhat for the times when it's like passing a kidney stone.
I've been thinking about formats for the last few weeks. That's my way of procrastinating while still doing something that my minds can fool itself into thinking is actually productive. But I suspect I've lost any sort of objectivity on the topic, so your opinion will be helpful.
I used to post my stories both in text and in HTML on my ASSTR repository. That used to be a pain, for several reasons at the time, and I dropped the HTML, partly because my stories often end up archived on the EMCSA, which takes care of the HTML conversion.
Lately, though, I've been reminded of the limitations of the text format: no italics, which I like for internal dialog and foreign words, and the UTF-8 support on ASSTR seems inexistent, so I cannot get typographer quotes and real em-dashes. Minor things, maybe, but in the long run they grate.
All that to say, I've been thinking of maybe dumping the pure text files and posting the stories as HTML. Can any of you see any reason why that's no a good idea? (I'm serious—I'm more than open to the possibility that there's something obvious I missed, like text files being easier for text-to-speech conversion for impaired readers, etc.) If you don't feel comfortable leaving a comment, feel free to email me—the About tab has my contact information.
Preparing files in HTML has the additional advantage that going from HTML (actually, XHTML, but let's not geek out too much) to a format like ePub is nearly trivial, and once we have an ePub format it is a simple matter to get something readable on a Kindle too. So my other question: is there any interest out there from readers for having a version of the stories (say, the various books of The Adjusters) as e-books? Of course, I could also just start an account on StoriesOnline and post my stories there as well, which would take care of the production of e-books automatically. Either way, whether there is a demand for it will help me decide whether it is worth exploring.
Finally, what about other formats? Anything you would want to see? PDF is an obvious one, although really only if you're going to be printing the stories out, and I guess the iPad (say) can display PDFs pretty nicely.
Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Let me know.
I'll leave you with a story that I read a while back and that I was reminded recently existed (and was disappointed to learn had not been completed... ah well). It's WhoreMaker, by Alei: “Strange things happen to Maryanne when she unpacks an unfamiliar box. Can she save herself before her life crumbles around her? Or are she and those around her doomed to be corrupted by the power of the Whoremaker.” I love the idea underlying the story, and I love the internal dialogue. It's delightfully twisted, and makes me wish I could play with similar ideas at some point...
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