Postcards are now live on Wattpad. There is a link to the book that way >>>>>>
A Postcard to New Orleans published today. A chapter per day will drop through March. This is a light rewrite except for Patagonia, which is now two chapters, and some scenes added where I expanded the roles of supporting characters.
Having just reread this series, I stand by my opinion that this is my best writing. I'm not a self back-patter. If anything, I'm a self ball-puncher. It's the creativity of the journey, the countless fun characters that make each postcard special, and the big adventure that set this apart from my other punks books.
I refer to All The Young Punks as Joe's coming of age. Maybe it is. I believe Postcards is when he became a real man, even if he has the heart of a chick. Knowing now that I am writing 1990s reunions with some of Joe's fellow travellers, I cheated and added material that will connect with those future chapters.
I'm currently publishing a book per month to Wattpad. I'm considering taking a break from punks in May to publish my detective sequel. Sunset '77 is currently in what I would call a polished first draft state. I hammered it out in November and did a quick second pass to clean it up. To get the that ready for the public eye, I must put my brain back in seedy 1977 Hollywood for a rewrite.
If I publish that version, it would be the earliest I have ever shown my work to anyone. They usually simmer for years, not months.
---- APPLES AND ORANGES ---
With 75 chapters on Wattpad and the short run I had on Royal Road, I have a good sense of how my online publishing experience has changed since divorcing Literotica. I have no regrets about leaving that platform. I will never publish a series there again. The process and the moderators are too much of a hassle for Lit to be my home.
That said, I can see a few advantages to Lit. First is the rating system. Lit authors constantly complain about it. They hate it. I say this, at least the readers are rating your work. There is no rating system on Wattpad, it's a one star system... so fucking dumb.
The other pro was the fact I was in the timeline with the readers. Let me explain. When I completed a chapter and submitted to Lit, I was hoping for a 48 hour turnaround, but the the mods might screw up. When you saw that chapter, it was still fresh writing. I was polishing the next chapter. The writer and readers were on the same timeline, experiencing the series together.
Does that make sense? It felt like real time to me. And with the ratings system, you get instant feedback. I do miss those HOT flags. It was a difficult decision to delete all those generous ratings. I was proud of that.
On Wattpad, I love that I can schedule chapters to be published in advance. I've been dropping a chapter a day since the first of the year. I had the entire Postcards series uploaded and queued for publishing days ago, one chapter per day into April. There are no moderators. I decide.
That's a great productivity and planning tool, but I have no clue what chapter went live today, or three days ago. I'm working on the Venice chapters that will go up in April. My head is at a different point on the punk timeline. This is a very different experience for me.
I'm not complaining or lamenting. I'm just saying it like it is.
I know my book covers are low budget (free) and cheesy, but I like them. I make them on Canva using images from the web. It's only window dressing. You haven't seen the worst of them.
The Venice Scene is getting the same treatment as ATYP. I'm breaking the longest chapters up, reshuffling scenes, and rewriting to make the new alignment work. This will result in more chapters. There were 16 in the last version. It's looking like 22 now. Wendy is getting more ink. I love that character. Venice chapters will go up on the heels of Postcards in early April.
May is still undecided, but I suspect I will need a break from Joe's journey.
Reading, rethinking, and tweaking these old chapters has helped me better grasp the scope of this twelve-year-old project. I'm sure this is my final rewrite of the old chapters, but there is one other perk to Wattpad. I can edit what has been published at any time.
So. If you see a fuck up, flag it for me.