That Civil War Book

[osprey_archer]

You remember that Civil War book I've been burbling on about for, oh, about two years now? No, not the one about the Confederate raider who stole the pig... only for the pig's owner to steal his heart with her brazen defiance. (Although I should finish that one too. It has a great hook.) The one where the heroine is a Civil War widow who became a nurse and had a nervous breakdown as who would not after seeing that many amputations?, and after the war she meets a doctor who is a war veteran with a limp from a war wound at the Battle of Shiloh.

(SIDE NOTE: did you know that the night after Shiloh, when the wounded men lay in the swampy battlefield and waited for death, their wounds began to give off a phosphorescent gleam? The current theory why this happened is "bioluminescent nematodes." Does this come up in the book? YES OBVIOUSLY. Well not the nematode part, but otherwise.)

Anyway. Harriet Peabody and Dr. Thomas Conroy both think they are Too Damaged for Love, but of course they fall in love with each other. I did not get to include any conversations about Everything Wrong with Andrew Johnson, but maybe I can find an appropriate spot when I'm doing the second draft.

Because! Because! I HAVE THE FIRST DRAFT.

This time I intend to be sensible about starting a new series, and have at least the second book in hand before I rush off to Amazon to publish the first one. The second one is set at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893! So I've been brushing up my World's Fair knowledge, which of course will require reading Two Little Pilgrims' Progress. A Story of the City Beautiful, Frances Hodgson Burnett's World's Fair novel, so I'll start writing...

Well actually, before I start writing anything else, I should finish the revision of The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball. Right now it just hangs over my head every month as the 15th approaches and I need to get the next chapter ready to post to Patreon.

I have to say Patreon and I don't seem like a good fit: people very rarely comment over there (I realize I'm totally spoiled by fanfic comment culture, but there you are). However, I'm committed to posting the rest of this thing, so I suppose I'll finish that up and then regroup, and maybe in the future if I decide to serialize a thing again, it would be better to post it here and have a Kofi link where people could tip or something like that - because that way more people could read it.

Comments

[asakiyume]

I thought of you so hard the other day! I will put this in a letter (in more detail) but: We watched Infinity Wars (is that what it's called? The Marvel movie?), and I've only had a smattering of Marvel movies, but when a character called Bucky shows up, I was all EXCUSE ME MY FRIEND WROTE AN EXTREMELY HIGHLY REGARDED FANFIC ABOUT THIS GUY. I had the best sense of fame/accomplishment by association ;-)

... That remark brought to you courtesy of your remark about being spoiled by fanfic comment culture. Posting here with a Kofi sounds like a good alternative to Patreon.

And I'm very excited for this novel and the GLOWING WOUNDS!

[osprey_archer]

I haven't seen Infinity Wars, but I don't care about spoilers for it (and anyway I think I've seen most of the major spoilers) so don't worry about that in your letter. But I'm glad to know that I'm the first thing that pops into your head when you see Bucky on screen!

Sadly the glowing wounds are only mentioned briefly (but I did manage to work them in twice! Once when the doctor's eight-year-old niece tells everyone about her uncle's GLOWING WOUNDS and her classmates snub her because whoever heard of glowing wounds, you're making that up Ellen, and once when the doctor himself is talking about Shiloh because he's just overexerted his leg (which of course led to him collapsing in the lane! In front of Harriet's house! So she had to help him inside! VERY DRAMATIC) so the injury comes up.

[sovay]

(SIDE NOTE: did you know that the night after Shiloh, when the wounded men lay in the swampy battlefield and waited for death, their wounds began to give off a phosphorescent gleam? The current theory why this happened is "bioluminescent nematodes." Does this come up in the book? YES OBVIOUSLY. Well not the nematode part, but otherwise.)

YES! I remember reading about that for the first time. I am so glad it is in your book

Congratulations on the first draft. I am always in favor of more people talking about the things wrong with Andrew Johnson.

[osprey_archer]

Sadly I have not yet figured out a place to put a rant about Andrew Johnson, Ruiner of Reconstruction, but perhaps when I'm doing revisions it will come to me.

[rachelmanija]

did you know that the night after Shiloh, when the wounded men lay in the swampy battlefield and waited for death, their wounds began to give off a phosphorescent gleam? The current theory why this happened is "bioluminescent nematodes."

WHAT THE FUCK.

[osprey_archer]

Pretty much my actual reaction when I first read about it! Sadly it is only a small part of the book, which takes place four years after Shiloh, but I felt that I simply had to mention it somewhere because... well, how could I not?

[rachelmanija]

Oh of course it has to be there. But do put in an afterword explaining it and blow readers' minds. I have now read about this and everything about is amazing, from hypothermia being lifesaving to the fact that this was explained by two kids doing a science fair project and a scientist mom.

[osprey_archer]

Oh yeah, there's definitely going to be an afterword for all the bonkers history bits. I need to set this up for future books in the series so that when I get to the book set in 1920 I'll have a helpful repository for Fun Facts about Female Directors of Silent Films rather than peppering the book with infodumps.

[rachelmanija]

Er, and also, congratulations! It sounds great.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, well done! It sounds very interesting.

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[kore]

Aww congrats! That couple sound awesome!

Amanda Palmer (yeah I know) said Patreon is basically a way for people to give you money who don't know how to do it otherwise -- it's really just a repeating autopayment. I've run into a lot more people saying they don't know how to make Patreon work for them -- there's too much effort for too little return, they don't know how to do rewards tiers, they feel guilty for not offering a lot of special stuf that saps them, &c &c. Apparently podcasts and web chats are a big tier draw (I admit I cannot see the appeal from either side, but that's me)*. I guess for people who are not superstars the sweet spot to hit is a bunch of people who want to help and might not mind about missed deadlines or sporadic updates. To get near bigger money, it seems like you have to be a lot more engaged with a pre-existing fanbase.


*Like, the idea of offering me slagging off on some bad skiffy movie as a reward? For people who had PAID me? I would be struck dumb with a twin combo of terrible shame and performance anxiety.

[osprey_archer]

I always feel kind of bad because my Patreon writing updates are either a) stuff that I posted about here for free, because it's exciting (I finished a book! I have a great new idea for a book! Stuff like that) or b) it's stuff I don't post about here because upon reflection I decided it was kind of boring.

I mean, I could solve problem (a) by not posting about it here, but... I like posting about it here. People leave comments and stuff!

[minutia_r]

Congratulations on the draft!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[ladyherenya]

Yay for having a first draft!


I was interested in your comment about being spoilt by fanfic comment culture, because on Tumblr I see a lot certain amount of debate about why aren't people commenting and how to encourage/support people to comment more. These days I lurk around the edges of fanfiction, so I really don't feel like I have an informed perspective of what fanfiction culture currently is.

[osprey_archer]

I think people comment on fic less than they did in ye olden days of LJ (but then again, did people on LJ think people used to comment more on Usenet? Have we always believed there were more comments in the past?) but still more than on original work, generally.

At least, people still comment if you post on AO3. On Tumblr itself there's no really good method for leaving comments so people generally don't.