It's the testing and feedback I'm worried about. More than a few times I tried posting World Class here and got just one reply. That was Visionary, and he was probably trying to be nice by reading it, which I appreciate, but it doesn't mean it's piquing anyone's curiosity, either.

If I write Lara a series, I anticipate much of the same thing - posts without replies, and then I go back to guessing as to what kind of draw it'll have if it's published.

Also note that Night Force, which I put in e-book form sold 2 copies, and both were purchased by a friend who was trying to help. When I posted it here, it drew hardly any attention. Naturally that added to the bad taste left with me - so I took it down everywhere both because I now feel like it wasn't very good, and also because I have the lack of readers to prove it.

And aside from fanfic and PV-stuff, all the stories I've posted anywhere topped out a under 10 readers each (probably the same ones).

I'm not saying I shouldn't try, but it is a worry that either a) I don't know how to reach an audience; or b) that I'm not nearly as good at this writing thing as I think I am; or c) I am not conveying the story nearly as well as I think I am. Any one of those items can mean failure, and because I've only seen very little positive feedback - mostly from friends - you can imagine why I'm nervous. It's like stage fright on a delayed time scale, I guess.





That's the one free thing about fanfic and PV-stuff. A few weeks after it's written, nobody really cares about it anymore. So if it's terrible, it fades with time. A published series, even on a web site, hangs around and taunts the writer forever.

My biggest problem while actually writing is that I write almost as a stream of consciousness. It makes for some really good cause-effect in the story, and for some fairly natural character reactions and interactions, but that stream also can get massively screwed up when it tends to go off the rails at the expense of the actual story. So then I have to invent chopping points where one ends and the other begins. I have not yet perfected that yet, which is why a lot of my stories look a little broken plot-wise. And if I end up doing that in a 60,000 word book, it's going to make me crazy.

I'm going to have to figure out how to write it twice, I suppose, so the first edition is all stream of consciousness, and then I kind of spread it all out and see what direction it points in, and then re-write most of it so it stays on track. Or something like that.