So I’ve been doing this thing pretty regularly for a year and a half now. Except for a few illness-related breaks, I’ve been putting up three posts a week since the middle of 2015. I’m not complaining; I love doing this. But now that I feel like moving towards writing more original works of fiction, I’m not sure I can keep up the pace I’ve set for myself. See, I usually write these posts in one big batch at the end of a month, or when I have no other works in the, well, works. (For example, I’m actually writing this on October 4. Last week, I finished the final part of my Otherworld novella series, and I’m mostly killing time until NaNoWriMo.)
If I’m going to make a more serious effort at writing full stories, I don’t know if I can handle also writing 10-15 posts here. These tend to run about 1000 words apiece, sometimes far more—that’s basically 25% of my average monthly output that I could dedicate to other work. And honestly, I’m starting to run out of ideas for posts. I’m not doing as much coding as before. Really, my whole life right now is in a place I’d describe as…not the best. Fiction is my escape from that. The nonfiction I put up here just doesn’t have the same beneficial qualities.
So here’s what I’ve decided, looking at the three main types of posts I do on Prose Poetry Code, and then the ongoing series I’ve been running.
Code
Wednesdays have been my dedicated day for code-related articles. As I said, I haven’t done much in that area lately. I tried back in June to make a game, but you saw how that worked out. It’s not that I don’t like programming anymore. I still do, believe me. It’s more that I have other things on my mind, and the very analytical, very mathematical necessities of writing good code take me out of the moment.
For these, I’m going to drop back severely. I’ll probably only write 1-2 code posts per month in 2017, unless something big comes up. The field still interests me, and there’s a lot of fertile ground there, but the research and thought required to make a good post about programming each week just isn’t worth it right now. Maybe I’ll change my mind down the road.
Writing & worldbuilding
These are the meat of the site, in my opinion. The Monday posts are where I have the most fun, because they give me the chance to let my imagination roam free. Worldbuilding really is my favorite part of writing. If I lose it, then I’ve lost any reason to even have this place.
Therefore, I’ll keep Mondays mostly as they are. There might be a few more weeks off through the year, but rest assured that those will be for good reason: I’ll be writing something more important. In all, count on about 40 or so total posts about worldbuilding and general writing next year.
Languages and verse
Fridays originally started out as a way to showcase the art of conlangs. After all, language construction is one of the things that got me into worldbuilding in the first place. It’s only fair to give it the honor it deserves. Since then, I’ve been branching out a bit. Now, the last post of the week has become the time when I talk about poetry, song, verse, and music.
I’d like to keep that going, though maybe not at the same high level. I’ll probably take 1-2 Fridays off per month through 2017, meaning you’ll have around 30 total posts. Most of those will be conlang-related, but some will pick up the other topics.
Series
I do a lot of post series. I like them. They’re like chapters in a book, each building off the last or taking something in a new direction. I like the continuity. But lately it seems like all my posts are part of a series. There aren’t that many one-offs. So, for the coming year, I’m going to take a step back. For each of the main series I’ve got going, here’s my plans:
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“Let’s make a language”: This was practically the reason I started the whole site. It’s not stopping in the near future. I’ve got plans all the way out to Part 27; at one part per month, that takes me through June. After that, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with more ideas.
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“Magic and tech”: Another one of my personal favorites, but I’m starting to run low on material. I think I’ll drop this back to one post every two months, or 6 for the year. Maybe, I’ll even have enough work here to write a novella set in the magical realm the series describes.
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“Building aliens”: This one has almost run its course. I’ll let it, and then I think I’ll let it retire. Now, I’m not going to stop posting about aliens, so don’t worry about that. This is just the hard SF alien-making series that’s going away.
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“Software internals”: There’s only so much more I can do here without getting way too bogged down in technical details, so I’m putting this one on hiatus. If there’s any kind of desire to see it return, I’ll consider it later on.
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“Project SL”: The whole Social Liberty thing was a response to the election year. It won’t be back in post form.
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“Assembly”: I love assembly language, but trying to debug code in a web-based emulator is annoying, even frustrating. If v86 gets better, I’ll look into starting it back up. (Really, what I need most is clipboard support.)
Never fear / Happy New Year!
I’m not abandoning this place. I’ve made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let that happen. The quantity of posts will go down in 2017, but I hope that will be balanced out by a corresponding increase in quality. If I don’t have to worry as much about finding the material for three posts a week, maybe I can spend more time on each post that I do write. So even though it may not seem like I’m around as much, I’ll still be here. Now, let’s make 2017 the best year ever!
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