Going On The Account: Pulling Into Port

I need to note my online novel, Red Jenny and the Pirates of Buffalo.

What, again?!?  you ask…

As I was saying/keep saying, this is a novel that is being shared online.  But most of all, it is a novel, which means that as such it must have certain aspects of other novels.

Like a definite ending.

And the last chapter of Red Jenny has now been completed to satisfaction.  The last piece of the work will be shared online on June 13th of 2013.

I spent the last few days getting used to thinking of the novel as ‘completed.’  Having a few more minutes of my day suddenly open up like this is taking some getting used to; not having to comb climate effect reports that kept being continually updated as I got through the first few drafts and went through further revisions as the novel went live, doing pick-up research on small points like Ontario liquor licensing statutes and the Brazilian electronics manufacturing sector in order to add color to a scene that was otherwise drab, pulling out figures and index cards as though I were still DMing a game the way I did way, way long ago in order to choreograph a firefight…

And now?  How do I fill all this time I now have?

Well, sleep sounds like a good idea, yeah.  And reading; I have a few things lined up to go through this summer.

And I keep talking about finishing a few more short pieces to explore some professional opportunities.  I don’t have enough rejection slips in my collection, and I could use a few more…

And some longer projects.  I already started some preliminary work on those; by ‘preliminary’ it means getting these straightened out enough that my elevator pitch for these can only be delivered if the elevator is going to the top of the new World Trade Center and gets stuck half-way for an extended period…

(I could just see the headlines for that one:  “Man Killed Hour Into Discussing His Novel to Trapped People on Elevator.”  Hell, the seven people who ripped me apart could probably plead that down to justified self-defense…)

About the only real planning left on the novel right now is how to note the occasion.

I’d love to have a “rap party” for the book.  With a traditional physical novel you used to have a kickoff party to celebrate its publication, which doesn’t make sense for an online work that only a few words of are available to read; there’s nothing there for everyone to feel attached to yet, to celebrate.  It makes more sense to celebrate the completion of said work, the way you’d gather after the last performance of a play, to be able to look back over the entire run as a whole as you raise a glass.

As it’s a small novel, it’d be a small party, a few rounds at the local, nothing big.  I’ll save the big blow-outs for when something gets optioned; if someone wants to do a screen version, we’ll ramp things up.  Hell, if there’s a graphic novel adaptation, we can scale accordingly…

Hopefully, after June 13th, there’ll be more to say on this last piece of business.  Unlike what happens in the novel, this future looks a bit brighter…