NaNoWriMo 2k22: Weekly Update #2

Whatup mah lovelies,

Let me lead with a question, in case this is as far as you get:

What is the reading experience like on Substack in general and for this book in particular?

I appreciate any feedback you are willing to give. It’s hard to know what it’s like from the outside, you know, when you’re deep inside. Oh! And I should mention I got the idea from this post by  writing over on  so thanks to Tom and Fictionistas!

And thanks again, y’all, for whatever feedback you’ve got.

If you’re just joining us, have a look at this post leading up to NaNoWriMo and then this post summarizing week 1. [Ed. Our sincere apologies that the links were missing in the initial email.]

Okay, on to this week’s update!

So I’ve written multiple stories on different projects before, but I haven’t done anything like what I’m doing now.

Teresa’s Backbone is interlacing four different books: SOMA (book 13), the unwritten SOMA-2 (book 14), the work-in-progress No One Ever Knows Why (book 15); and, the also unwritten, The Lilac June (some later book).

That’s just the Secretsverse stuff.

Then we have Azza-Jono (which we haven’t properly gotten to yet; it’s coming), and the new stories that are, I guess, part of both AJ and SoS? I dunno.

Anyway, due to the pick your own reading experience nature of the book, we’re ending up with potentially multiple books being written at the same time. It’s intriguing to watch it roll out in mah mind. Also a little intimidating and at times overwhelming. But it’s fun, and that’s the main idea. I want to have fun writing it and do the best I can at what I’m trying to do.

I’ve started to build out a document that has all the people, places, and things in the Lost City of Soma. It started as a reference document for me, but I think I’m going to include it in the text soon. So that’s on the horizon.

Plotwise this week, we’ve gotten mostly bits of the “Who Killed Wendy Glass?”  mystery started in the O.G. Secret of Secrets novel, Everything Fails (which is also my only book in print rn) and continued in book 13, SOMA. So there’s a lot of supporting material this week for SOMA, as well, like I mentioned a second ago.

Some plots are looking like they might fall out. We’ll see. That happens, right? You start out big and ambitious, and then the book takes charge and does what it wants. I save everything, though, so just because they don’t appear in this draft or even this book doesn’t mean they’re gone for good. Chances are they will show up again down the road somewhere.

So that’s the ‘tent and the state of things in the plotting.

Let’s run down the list of my goals for this month process-wise, and see how we’re doing. I’m gonna omit anything that has become obsolete or extraneous to avoid becoming tiresome. If you feel I’ve jettisoned something important accidentally, let me know please.

Goals

• No checking word count - All good. No idea whatsoever.
• Minimal planning - So far so good. Spare outline and that’s it—though I must confess, even having a thin outline has killed off some of my enthusiasm. I’m very sensitive to knowing too much about what’s coming next.
• Revise as I go - Have not been doing that the way I intended. I have been proofing as I go, but not revising. I mean … I’m okay with it? But. Tell me what you think.
• No meetups, no travel - Nope and nope.
• Don’t skip days writing - Have written every day. Most days were pretty effortless; but, if I thought about it at all before I started, I would begin to lock up some. Yesterday was quite difficult to get started, for example, but easy to do once I got going.

So that’s how I’m doing with NaNoWriMo this week. Thank you all for reading and being supportive and interactive! For those of you who haven’t been engaging, please do if you want to. If not, no pressure. That’s okay too. I know folks sometimes need a concrete invitation or they feel like they’re imposing or out of line or whatever. So here you go!

Brief update on my Oxford reading list endeavor: no progress. I’m accepting what I thought might prove true which is that it is simply too much to do that and NaNoWriMo at the same time. Was worth a try, right? I will resume in December after the first draft is done.

On an entirely other note, I need to vent about this whole Checkgate Comes to Substack situation. If you wanna hear about it, scroll past the poster. If you couldn't care less, I envy you and wish you well! See you next week!

Xoxo,

T

AIS 0045

If you’re still reading, first have a look at this shitshow right here. Embarrassing, right? Kind of a play straight from the book of how to alienate your userbase. Anyway, here’s my list of gripes, as briefly as I can state them.

It serves no constructive purpose.

I could argue this point except there isn’t anything to put forth, really. It’s patently obvious. If there were demonstrable value, that would be evident. Instead, it’s manufactured status grubbing and useless in/out grouping in a time when the world really needs a whole lot less of that nonsense.

No one cares.

Correct me if you think I’m off here, but no one gives a shit if you’ve got a checkmark by your name or not—just as no one really cares if a book they like is a bestseller. It’s incidental and irrelevant for almost everyone but the most conformist and casual readers.

It’s an embarrassment to Substack’s already flawed image.

So Substack already has a fascism problem. That’s painfully apparent. And—as always—this is shielded by ‘free speech’-style bullshit. But whatever. It’s their company, not mine, they can do whatever they want with it. It’s on me to stay or go. I’ve been able to justify staying because the layout and setup is quite nice and the barrier between me and publication is almost nonexistent. Still, it would be nice if they didn’t junk up the interface and further shape the place into a paint-by-numbers social media site.

It’s tied to the author, not the publication.

So I think all this checkmark nonsense is just ridiculous to begin with. Not just here, but everywhere. It’s some seriously silly 2nd grade bullshit, and pre-2016 it would have qualified as baffling that anyone would even care. Post-2016 in the positively absurdist world we find ourselves in, whatever. It’s clear everyone cares about shit like checkmarks and doesn’t give a fuck about disease, poverty, and authoritarianism. So even if we concede that there will be a fucking checkmark, doesn’t it make sense that a ‘bestseller’ should be tied to the publication, not the author? [Ed. I actually missed this. It was Clint at  who caught it.]

So why did they do that? I think it’s pretty clear why. They want to boost ‘some’ people and the rest can go to hell. We’re just the backs they’ll all stand on. Cos without a mass of nobodies, you can’t really be somebody, can you?

Oh, and I unsubscribed and/or downgraded my sub for anyone with a checkmark—particularly those who came out in support of it. Call it ‘canceling’ or voting with our dollars or whatever. I really don’t care. It’s a true colors moment, where people show you what really matters to them. Those who I still follow, I have unlisted from my profile. They don’t need my help in getting reads.

Anyway, whatever. Who gives a shit? My publication is literally called Adventures in Secrecy, so it’s on theme to stay obscure and undetected. Thank you for letting me bitch about this for a minute. I hope it wasn’t too much of a waste of brain cells for you. I’ve burned far too many on this bullshit and am going to move on with my life now.

Love ya.