So my friends say I should get online more often.
"But I already have a twitter and facebook! What more do you want from me?" says my introverted self.
"Maybe if you actually update them, I'd stop nagging!"
Really though, I suppose I could do more online. Like...maybe...tweeting or something. I do that once a month already though. Maybe I should do a blog thing. I already have a Facebook note thing.
What? I'm doing a blog thing now? Really? Maybe this isn't so hard afterall.
So...blog thing. What should I talk about? Oh! I got an idea! I'm gonna do segments. Yeah! That's gonna be awesome! Right, here goes.
Story Updates[]
In Evening is going well. With my schedule possibly clearing up for the short future, I'm hoping to reduce my write time to once every two weeks. I've already finished the next chapter and will be going through the proof reading, so expect that on Friday or so.
I'm also working on another novel. Absolution is the title. Have been for almost six years now. Still stuck at chapter one. Seventh rewrite. Thinking of putting that up as a serial novel as well but I really want this to be 'that masterpiece' so gotta think on that.
Self[]
Okay, so I should intro myself. In retrospect, this should have come at the start of this blog post thing stuff what-not. My name's Jun Xiang, family name Ng. But I know westerners always have trouble with the whole Chinese name thing so just call me Aden, because you're all so cute when you're confused like that. I'm from Singapore. Will be 22 next month. Been writing for what? 7? 8 years now? Still terrible. I make films as well. Or at least, I try to.
Never really liked promoting myself in personal circles. Always thought that my work should stand out by itself, and that if it's good, it'll automatically spread once people start reading. So most of the time, the promoting I do are outside my IRL friends and family. In fact, my mom didn't even know I was writing stories until two years ago.
Rant[]
So I'm kind of disappointed with In Evening's review rating. There's a bit of a backstory to it. Back when it was just a JP Draft, In Evening was getting a steadily increasing stream of readers per chapter. By Chapter 2 (+1 prologue), I had about 24 +votes, which was great!
Then I reviewed another author's work and gave him a 2 stars. I believe all critics should be harsh, but honest. And if you find a story that's good, you should rate it truthfully and without bias. Anyway, almost immediately after that 2 stars review, I received a 2 stars back. It really hit me man. My readership grinds almost to a halt after that and I truly believed that my story sucked and almost gave up again. That was until my friend pointed out the review was doing a CinemaSins (check out that channel on YouTube. Hilarious) on my chapter.
Bascially, the review was poking at all the plot holes that I added as suspense element, since the rest of the story is set in the past. Then my friend called me stupid and we went for ice cream. With that, I kept writing and slowly got my ratings back up. But once you get such a terrible start, it's hard to bring yourself back. Especially since when becoming a JP Serials from JP Draft resets your +votes. The logical part of me is saying that your story is getting low views because of that review. The human part of me is saying that maybe you really do suck donkey balls at writing and should quit. But I love writing too much to quit, so here I am. Ranting. RAWR!
It's A Blog... Or is it?[]
So instead of just extending a dead conversation, I wanted to respond to Romano's idea on collaborating (sorry I didn't reply earlier, see above not online cry). I really love that idea, and I don't think it's a guarantee fail thing. Anyone else here have any experience on Roleplaying forums? It's kinda like that in my eyes so I think it could work.
So RP forums are basically places for you to create characters and roleplay as these characters in worlds and stories with other players. One of the rules is to never god mod, which is to be a Mary Sue or Gary Stu and not to control other players. But for the large scale collab to work, writers have to have control over other characters. So the second rule of RP becomes even more important in this case. Have integrity.
So these 'take turns' chapters could work, provided the author provides detailed personality, appearance and background for the characters they are writing about for others and each of the writers are honest in their depiction of each characters.
Also, podcast with writers? What? Awesome! Never did podcasts before. Would love to see it. Would help to get more exposure on YouTube too. Oh, but the people who watches those things don't generally read, do they? I mean, I do, but I'm weird.
Wow. This blog thing is long. Maybe I shouldn't do this so often. Ah well, we'll see.