I Should Be In Bed, Again

Here it is, after midnight. I'm supposed to get up at 5 in the morning, as I do every morning that I work, but I stay up till past midnight to update Hero Go Home. The image gallery on the front page is cool, but it doesn't update automatically. Every morning, I have to update it by hand--replace the image, replace the link taht accompanies the image, and add a line of code to the previous chapter of Run, Digger, Run! so you can click through to the next episode.

And the thing is, on the one hand, I'm terribly disappointed in myself. I had intended to be worked ahead with a comfortable buffer on the daily episodes, but instead, I'm barely getting each week done in time. I have episodes done through Friday, but I don't have next Monday's started yet. I barely have any outline notes. And I still need to sacan pages for Satuday's Vault and watch Blade II and do screen caps for Sunday's Super Movies. Not to mention all the sound editing I still have to do on the podcast dropping next Monday.

And yet, I feel pretty good. I spent a lot of time sound editing today. I'm starting to remember why it's taken me a year to get back to this again--it's a ton of work and frustration--but it's also fun. And I think I put together a good graphic for this week's chapter. Last week's was a little boring, but this week's is nice.

The big problem is, I'm still not generating traffic or money. I think I'm getting better at the serialization thing, and as I get further into the story, I'm hoping to generate more exciting chapters. So far, I'm worried that it has been a little uninvolving. Part of that is the nature of the format. Five hundred word episodes don't allow for a lot of emotional exploration. But as the story builds, I hope to make it more gripping. And the blanks are starting to fill in. For instance, this last week I figured out what the final scene will be. There's still almost fifty weeks between now and then, but I know where I'm headed now.

Seriously, as worried as I am that I'm dancing right on the edge, I'm also jazzed, because it looks as I'll definitely make it through the first month with 7-day-a-week posts on time. And if I can do it for a month, it's possible that I can do it for a year. And if I can do it for a year, I might actually be able to build a following and make some money. I hope.