theidiotmachine

Now we're cooking! In some cases, quite literally. Because @cocosghost pointed me at the 8 Chapter Challenge I needed to adjust my chapter lengths, so I shuffled some of the text round. Because I posted in the middle of the night on a bank holiday I don't think anyone read those, so we're all good, but to be on the safe side I put some apologetic comments at the top.
          
          In these, the star makes its appearance; Saltha makes a new friend; Bilen makes a new enemy; and Molina makes a new mess. And it's all just generally chaotic and disastrous, but what were you expecting?
          
          By the way, I opened an account on Kerning, and I'm posting some non-fiction stuff there. It's not as structured as my guide, but it's still jolly fun.
          
          Have a lovely weekend folks!

Well, I did the maths. It's the end of May. The Watty's deadline is like the beginning of August. That means I  have about nine weeks to get everything edited and up.
          
          So with have twenty chapters, one 3k word chapter a week ain't gonna cut it! To that end, for your delight and entertainment, please find parts three, four and five, where we properly meet the Saltha, and it all starts going wrong. Because, let's be honest; it was always going to go wrong, wasn't it?
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/story/369632087-the-song-of-a-poisoned-star

Happy Friday! 
          
          Congratulations to everyone who made the ONC longlist! I didn't, but I'm OK with that; my story was weird and slow and sad and I don't think that's the kind of thing that does well here.
          
          To double down on that, I'm going to try episodic publishing of something which is even weirder and sadder, although it's not slower. I am actually going to publish a thing once a week, which I haven't done since my Guide. And, if I may say so, it's great! 
          
          I wrote this novel over lockdown. Then I did a whole load of other stuff and came back to it, and realised how much work it needed. So now I'm editing it -- read, rewriting line by line -- and I'll post the edited chapters as I go. And yes, this is a full-blown 60k word novel, so we're in for the long haul here. Who knows? Maybe I can get it done for the Wattys.
          
          You might like it?
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/story/369632087-the-song-of-a-poisoned-star
          
          Oh, yes, the cover is terrible. At some point I need to find someone who can do covers. Let me know if you have any recommendations! 
          
          Have a lovely weekend folks

Hey: question for everyone. I'm editing my novel which I'm going to be self-publishing later this year. I think I'll put it up here before it goes out, and you can read it for free in return for telling me where the bugs are.
          
          It's written as a classic print 3k words per chapter. I write everything like that, and then I break up the chapters into sections, and post each section as a WP chapter, so they tend to be 500 - 2k words. 
          
          Should I be doing that for this, do you think? I notice that the platform doesn't like long chapters -- its lazy scrolling fails badly -- which is why I do it, but against that it makes everything feel quite abbreviated and childish.
          
          I'm in two minds, hence the ask. Let me know what you think!

...and it's up! 22k words, 30 chapters, one ending. I wrote some author's notes too but dang wattpad won't let me save that chapter. Maybe I'll post that later.
          
          Anyway, here it is, in all its sad, dark glory!
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/story/362592863-i-fell-from-the-dark

I've been quiet, but I guess two things are worth talking about. 
          
          Firstly, I made it into round three of ONC, so that's nice. Well done to everyone else who did, too!
          
          Secondly I finished writing the dang thing, and I'm really happy with it. As you all know, uploading is a painful process because you have to keep track of all of the chapter word counts, so I'm not doing that today; but I'll try to over the next few days. I edited a lot of the old stuff too. So I guess long story short -- I'm going to drop the whole thing soon, so if you are interested in reading it, wait for a few more days!
          
          Thanks so much for the votes and kind words. I need to get my backside in gear and start going through them, now I'm coming out of writing hibernation.
          
          And good luck everyone in ONC!

Well, I made it past the first round of ONC this year. Well done everyone else who did too! It means that we can edit again, so I dropped some more chapters. For whatever reason, I'm going much quicker this time round, and I'm at 9k words, so my strange, sad story marches on! 
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/story/362592863-i-fell-from-the-dark

Dammit I wrote an ONC entry by accident. This one is going to be every bit as dark  as last year's, but a different kind. Who knows, maybe it will have a happy ending? Good luck to everyone else competing!

Happy new year! May all your characters be spitting and fraught, your plots intricate and subtle, and your conclusions epic and satisfying! Also I hope the rest of your life is great and stuff

Happy Christmas if you celebrate; if you don’t, have a wonderful holiday. Or if you’re a grumpy old git like me, I hope you get through it all with minimal pain. Enjoy!