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Post by Andrew on Oct 7, 2018 13:21:43 GMT -5
There is something in Chapter 10 of Golden Hour which was probably based on Wes' experiences with this site:
“That’s really true. If I’m half an hour late I’ll start getting e-mails about it, and those are always a pain in the neck. They slow me down to almost nothing, and I don’t like to disappoint my customers. (snip)”
I wonder if Wes really did start getting emails if he was half an hour late posting a chapter.
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Post by Boyd Percy on Oct 7, 2018 19:46:03 GMT -5
Probably not. Since he usually posted a chapter the evening before it was due, he rarely missed a deadline. He lived out in the country like Mike McMahon did and he sometimes used his office computer at the newspaper.
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Post by Colin on Oct 11, 2018 2:35:10 GMT -5
I'm surprised that he didn't have a cron-job script to automatically post the file at midnight.
Also, on the subject of the posting schedule. The front page says "Updated Monday and Thursday", but, at least to me, the Thursday posting never seems to appear until Friday.
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Post by Not Wes on Oct 11, 2018 12:57:55 GMT -5
Also, on the subject of the posting schedule. The front page says "Updated Monday and Thursday", but, at least to me, the Thursday posting never seems to appear until Friday. Colin, I'm not Web-savvy enough to know about the auto-updating you mention and I doubt that Wes was either. I'll mention it to Dan, who might know something about it or better able than I am at researching. Thanks. Dan does the chapter updates now and usually updates about 9 p.m. eastern time on Wednesday evenings, which is 6 p.m. on the US west coast. Unless you're from Australia or other lands on the wrong side of the date line (that's joke <-spelled out), maybe you should check your browser caches if you can't see the new chapter until Friday. I don't know what else would account for it. I did a Wednesday update for him late last month (Sept 26) because he was delayed by an airline flight, and I know for sure that chapter was up on Wednesday before 6 p.m. Is anyone else out there having trouble seeing new chapters appear later than late evening on Wednesdays? Thanks, Not Wes |
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Post by Not Wes on Oct 11, 2018 21:49:11 GMT -5
Colin, I need to apologize as it turns out that Dan was actually posting on Thursday evenings instead of on Wednesdays.
As I mentioned, a couple weeks ago, he contacted me to do a post when he was stuck in an airport because of a delayed flight, and that was a Wednesday. He was just off in his calendar that day I assume. He told me it would be no problem to switch to Wednesday evenings for chapter posts, so that should start next week. Doesn't mean he might not forget once in a while, though.
He also mentioned he knows about the auto posting but just hasn't tried setting it up. He can do updates through his phone and has been using them as an excuse to get in to check for site mail and book orders and those sorts of things.
We'll get this stuff sorted out someday, all things Wes did automatically and we have to learn how to do. It's taking several of us to replace him, at least four or five, likely more.
Again, sorry about that.
Thanks for your understanding,
Not Wes
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Post by Colin on Oct 13, 2018 2:45:33 GMT -5
Colin, I need to apologize as it turns out that Dan was actually posting on Thursday evenings instead of on Wednesdays.
No problem. I'm in England, near the true/original Cambridge  and just wondered if it was some strange time-zone thing.
Out of interest, are you aware that Wes used to post updates 3 times a week (Mon, Wed, Fri) but reduced it to two because his stash of chapters was getting low (by his standards)?
Colin
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Post by Not Wes on Oct 13, 2018 8:45:53 GMT -5
Colin,
I've been working with Wes for almost ten years now, and I'm very aware that he was posting three chapters a week before. He started the twice-a-week posting with "Hearts of Gold" back in May of 2017. He hated doing it but it was simply for the lack of sufficient backlog of books and wanting to stretch out posting for as long as he could, keep the site going for the reading enjoyment of his fans. He was simply running out of plots that could be expanded into full books. At that time he had about 60 books written, of which 48 had been posted. "Hearts of Gold" was number 49 to post. That I remember, he's only written one more full book since that time, that one being the next one to post after "Golden Hour", which is going up now. I and others had been feeding him book ideas, but I for one am not good at big-picture stuff. I can't supply whole plots that he could flesh out into full stories. Stretching, "Hey, Wes, do a mystery where Emily Holst gets a classmate out of being arrested for a crime he or she didn't commit." into a full book is often harder work than it sounds. Turning that short sentence into a 150-page novel requires thought and time. (And it's not a great idea to start with.) Hey, sometimes serendipity strikes. "Hearts of Gold" was an idea fed to him that took off, though in my opinion he rushed it to the screen before it was really finished.
He's had posts in his forum before stating that it takes him writing well over a half-million words a year to keep the site going like he wanted at the three-chapters-a week schedule. Lately he hadn't been writing at that pace. Part of that was because of health reasons, his hands had been hurting his last few years from typing a lot, books and newspaper copy. The other reason was, as outlined above, coming up with books to write. He'd been coasting on voluminous output in his early years and just not getting new ones finished.
This next book to post was finished just Christmas Eve of last year and will start posting in early December, less than a year after writing the final words of the story, fairly quick turn around for Wes. There are other older books after that, some of which have been in the posting queue for most of ten years now. Some of those books were started years before completion, but he'd only managed to finish them after finally figuring out a way to do it after being blocked on them for some reason, in one case a tear-jerker scene that he was having a real hard time writing. The six books left to post take us into July 2020, and there is some other unfinished material sort of lying around that could extend that a bit. No guarantees of any of the latter actually being released though.
Thanks for your understanding.
Not Wes
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Post by Colin on Oct 18, 2018 3:35:19 GMT -5
Yes! A Thursday post, thanks for clearing up the misunderstanding or whatever that made them a day late.
Colin
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Post by Jim Scott on Oct 21, 2018 22:11:58 GMT -5
Did Wes just refer to himself in the next to last paragraph in Chapter 15 of "Golden Hour" where he mentioned a "Michigan writer’s website" ?
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Post by howard on Oct 22, 2018 0:49:57 GMT -5
I for one have simply adjusted my expectations from Thursdays to Fridays, don't see it as a problem, and if that's the timing that works for you guys then that's totally fine.
Thank for all your efforts.
-- howard
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Post by Colin on Oct 22, 2018 3:42:54 GMT -5
Did Wes just refer to himself in the next to last paragraph in Chapter 15 of "Golden Hour" where he mentioned a "Michigan writer’s website" ? I wondered that too, it seems likely. |
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Post by Not Wes on Oct 22, 2018 8:41:25 GMT -5
Did Wes just refer to himself in the next to last paragraph in Chapter 15 of "Golden Hour" where he mentioned a "Michigan writer’s website"? In the original rtf draft of the story the editors received there was a hidden comment (these don't make it through to the finished version so you guys don't see them) that said: Plug! Plug! Plug! I think that Jim and Colin were correct in that it was a referral to himself. Not Wes |
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and just wondered if it was some strange time-zone thing.