Sometimes I have destructive impulses. You?
Often when I share my writing with others, I want to yank the work from their hands screaming a loud melodramatic No! I take it back.
This is silly, but knowing it is silly doesn’t make my stomach settle.
And still, I offer to share.
Here’s the idea. Come May I will write a short story a day. This challenge is easier with a theme, and a few months ago a theme came to mind. A month ago another theme followed.
31 days are a lot of short stories.
So, I’ve decided to do both. I’ve got notes and titles for a few stories, and depending on my constructive mood, I’ll run with whichever theme captures me that day.
Here’s where the destruction comes in.
I’m considering letting people subscribe to these short stories. Instead of posting them on a blog, I’ll let people subscribe in something of a newsletter format. But I won’t be able to rush up to you and snatch the stories from your hands.
Anyone have experience with this sort of project? Advice and ideas welcome.
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 
I think a blog is still a good idea, but instead of dedicating the name to the theme, dedicate the name to you – Marta’s Short Story Collections – for example. Then, people can subscribe to the blog either through email or their Readers, and you have a blog set up and ready to go for all your writing projects. Marta’s Writing Projects. In case you do something other than a short story. 🙂 You can change the theme or header for the different projects, separate them all with categories and tags for the specific stories/projects, etc.
That way you only have to manage a blog, not a mailing list.
My $.02. 🙂
When I turned 18, I burned almost 1000 pages of journaling I’d done since I was like 11. I thought I was “putting childish things” behind me. Heh.
I would do the blog thing, but my hesitation comes from seeing literary magazines that consider posting a story on a blog as published. I think they’re ridiculous for having that rule, but feel compelled to worry about it. I’ve thought about posting them on a blog, and then at the end of the month just closing the blog. Not sure if that will still count. Of course, there is no reason I have to share the stories–they’ll just be rough drafts anyway.
Recently I threw away a stash of journals. Who wants the embarrassment of them being read by anyone? But it seems sad too.
Well, you could set privacy settings, so that search engines won’t see it, or only people you choose, to get around that “published” thing. I know some publishers can be picky about the blog thing too.
Anyway, just a thought. 🙂 I’m sure you’ll figure out the method that works best for you.
It’s a good thought. Thanks for the more than .02 cents worth! I’ll let you know.
How about a blog that is password protected? then your stories aren’t “published” so much as shared, quite a different thing. And you could control who has the password (somewhat). I ran a newsletter for a few years with constantcontact.com, a service I liked a lot, but it wasn’t free. I also don’t know if a newsletter would be considered less “published” than a blog? Does wordpress let you password protect certain posts, or a certain area of your blog?
WordPress will let you password protect the whole blog or just a post. I’ll sort it out and post something about it.
Don’t know why I have this compulsion to share rough drafts anyway.
I used to feel that way too. For years, I shared things almost as fast as I’d written them. I think I was seeking validation, and I was caught up in the enthusiasm and excitement of creating, and eager for the next step. But once I set my sights on publishing a serious novel, I began to slow myself down. Jane Smiley talks about the importance of privacy for your writing soul, and that made a lot of sense to me.
Since sharing scares me, I try to make it sound exciting in hopes it will make me used to it. Sigh. And these days, with social media and all that goes along with it–expectations of publishers and whatnot–I feel sharing a few things (things that aren’t the novel) might be good–both to see if can have this thing called readers and if I can build up the nerves.
Very mixed feelings, and since I doubt so much of the time, I’ve a hard time deciding what the doubt really means.
Oh, and so far most of the people who read my work are writers as well. I tend to think of this blog as a conversation with other writers, and sharing a story with my fellow writers is a different type of exchange–a sharing of process in a way. After all, if I share these stories, probably about five people at most will read them.
I’ve thought of posting stuff in a password-protected sort of way, too. (And continue to fret about the things I’ve posted which AREN’T password-protected.) I’m not sure a by-the-rules agent or publisher would accept this as synonymous with “unpublished,” though. And I’m not sure that pubbing stuff in a newsletter avoids the problem, either.
Sigh… I know, I know.
We need to get you that Kickstarter project. (Which I still owe you my ideas about.)
I’m now thinking about posting select stories–it isn’t like every single thing I write is going to be published. Post a few and take them nowhere from there?