alexandraerin

So, the first thing I need to say as preamble is that I am by no means complaining about the outcome of the (still ongoing) spring fundraiser. The proceeds for it stand at around $1,200 right now, and while the bulk of that has already vanished into the Ether of Financial Obligation, that's really not bad. If it doesn't bring in another dollar more, that's an extra $400 per month when I divide it out over a quarter. Before I hit on the very successful Fundraiser Friday concept, I was kind of expecting an overall take in the neighborhood of $1,000, so... yeah, pretty good.

The second thing I need to say is that not having anything to complain about isn't a reason to not look at ways to make more money. I have no interest in being cutthroat. I don't want anybody in particular to feel obligated to me, especially someone who can't really afford to pay. But the more efficiently I can encourage people who are willing and able to pay, the less cutthroat I'll need to be. The whole point of doing a quarterly fundraiser is it means I don't have to rattle the cup constantly.

So, it makes sense to make the quarterly fundraiser as big as it can be.

With that as preamble:

A big message I'm getting from multiple people is that they're not joining in because they don't feel that the amount they contribute will have an impact. As I said in a previous post I think part of that might come from the drawn out nature of this race... someone can chip in $5 when it's a three-way tie for 0 and then watch over the weeks as their choice falls farther and farther behind... and it's very possible I'll see a surge in small donations in the last few days, but anybody who's got a buck or five that they're holding back in the theory that they'll use it if it makes a difference or if it seems "safe"... well, it seems like there's only a 1 in 3 or maybe 2 in 3 chance they'll actually do it, you know?

And I don't think it's only about the timing. I think it's also about the fact that some people who only have $1, $5, and even $10 look at the triple-digit jumps the scores make and just think "I can't compete with that".

Whereas if everybody who only has a few bucks to spare did pitch in, the board might look very different right now. And I'd have more money.

I don't for anything in the world want to tell the people who throw in a hundred dollars at a time to knock it off, but I don't want the people who don't have as much to spend to feel like they're wasting it.

So here's what I'm thinking for the next time I do a vote/race... and there's nothing saying the next fundraiser will be one, but just for the future in general I think I'm going to switch over to a "point" system, where every donation comes with a certain amount of points built in that goes up with the dollar amount. This way it'll be weighted... a hundred dollar donation will still be worth impressively more but $1 donations will have a greater impact.

Of course, if the weighting makes people feel like the larger donations aren't worth it I could see those go down, but 1) I'd rather have a model where my income is coming from more people giving a little than a few people giving a lot and 2) I think the people who are so generously paying the "big bucks" aren't doing so exclusively out of a sense of the power it gives them to directly impact these races.

Even if I don't end up doing weighting, having points would simplify things when I do double impact days, because right now I have the "full" dollar amounts listed in the box at the top of the site and breakdowns on the fundraiser page explaining how much of that total is imaginary money from the double days. Having a point system would let me show the standings without giving the impression that I've made almost 50% more money than I actually have.

Other things I can do besides weighting:

* Offer really kick-ass milestone incentives and remind people from the beginning that their contribution isn't wasted if it helps reach those.
* Offer a reward to each contributor - this will be something I can maybe do more easily in the future as my catalogue of stories for sale grows. If you can pick a story that I sell for a buck with your vote, why not throw in your dollar? This might "absorb" some sales I would have made anyway but I'm betting it will get more new contributions... and put more copies of my e-books into circulation. Something to definitely consider.
* Make a clear benefit to the number of people voting for each item, separate from the "highest total wins" thing. In the current one I was planning on using the totals for the two "losers" to judge the overall demand for the characters/plotlines. If I did that, I'm not sure I'd get a clear reading when it comes to the underdog underworlders... is demand for those characters/plotlines really that low, or is the interest just not showing up because it doesn't seem like they have a chance of winning what looks like an all-or-nothing race? If I had a "second prize" that was based on number of contributors, maybe that would change things up a bit.

Again, these are all observations for the future. I don't know that I would do all of them. I kind of like the e-book one, though. Seems like a win-win-win-win situation.

When people say that all stories have conflict, all stories have drama, or all stories have a protagonist and an antagonist...

I'm not saying those things aren't true.

I'm saying they aren't true in a way that matters.

Say you believe that all celebrity deaths come in threes. How do you prove this? Well, when a celebrity dies you wait for the next two to die. Bam! Celebrity deaths in threes. Until the last celebrity dies who will ever die, you cannot fail to be proven right (and even then you have a 1 in 3 chance of hitting it.)

Say you believe that everything happens in fives. Same thing. You count off fives and wouldn't you know it, you're right.

Say you believe the whole world of real and fictional people can be divided into nine alignments along two axes of Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic and Good, Neutral, Evil. You'll sort the whole world into those nine buckets and then declare victory because now everyone fits in a label.

And these things... that last thing in particular... can be fun and interesting and even insightful exercises. It can be an entertaining intellectual challenge to figure out where characters fit in the D&D two axis alignment system. But then you get to the point where you declare that, say, Batman is [Some Alignment] (I'm not going to put any alignment there because I've played this game before; Batman is the electrified third rail.) and therefore this depiction of Batman is wrong because no one who is [Some Alignment] would ever do that.

At that point, the lens you're viewing the character through has become an eyepatch. What is a fashionable accessory for pirates may prove to be a very poor tool for analysis. You're no longer viewing Batman as Batman. You're no longer taking the text at is own value.

All these dramatic structures, they can be useful tools for viewing fiction. They can be useful tools for creating fiction. But they're neither as ubiquitous nor as necessary as we are often taught that they are, and viewing all fiction through a lens like "the dramatic arc" or the "protagonist/antagonist conflict" is like viewing the world in terms of threes, or fives. It's like sorting everybody's behavior into nine buckets and expecting them to act like the label on the bucket instead of themselves.

Now, I don't expect the people who rely on these lenses to learn this lesson... certainly not from me. Anybody who comes into my story's site to tell me about these things has a viewpoint that is based on the idea that they possess special knowledge that I clearly lack. So the point of this post isn't to teach anyone else anything. It's to teach myself a lesson.

And the lesson for me here is to never pose rhetorical questions like "Where's the antagonist in this story?", because there will always be answer. If you walk into the Emerald City wearing green-tinted glasses, you will find emeralds. If someone believes that all story is conflict and all conflict involves an antagonist, they'll find the antagonist, even if it involves the same kind of mental gymnastics needed to view the cast of Firefly in D&D terms.

So, for years people have been asking about/remarking upon the obvious Discworld influences in Tales of MU and for years I've been saying "I've never read Discworld". Last year... about eleven months ago, to be specific... that changed, and while I can't say there's been a whole rash of new ideas and concepts infiltrating the MUniverse as a result, I do find myself on the cusp of writing something very Discworld-influenced.

To back up a bit: I'm not saying I'm going to write something that is like Discworld. I'm not saying to anyone, "If you like Discworld, you'll love this thing I'm talking about!" or announcing my attention to stand on the shoulders of Sir Pterry or emulate his unique style in any fashion. What I'm writing is neither pastiche nor homage, but credit is quite tautologically due where credit is due, and this story wouldn't exist if Discworld books hadn't fired up an interest in things like the running of a city, concepts of civic duty and pride, and so on

Anybody who's been looking for a modern fantasy story set in the MUniverse that doesn't actually related to MU or any students there might be particularly interested in this, as it's set in a cosmopolitan environment far from the plains of Prax, and involves the politics of the other human-headed empire, the one that Magisteria broke away from. This will probably be the first LitSnack book that's not adapted from existing material of mine or a continuation of the Gifters story.

As part of my "write for pleasure" day I've taken a couple of stabs at starting it, and while I'm not satisfied with the results in themselves, they've given me a picture of the setting, situation, and some of the characters. I'm going to go ahead and post some of that here, as a means of helping me distill what I want to keep from these drafts (as not all of this information actually appeared in the writing, it just became apparent to me as I was writing) and to gauge/whet interest from those who follow my blog.

Malbus is an island located not quite in the geographic center of the Mid-Reach Sea, which used to be the most important body of water to the inhabitants of the old empire. Its position allowed it to be a major sea power and shipping port before the rise of the empire; when it became part of the empire, it wasn't so much conquered as both sides recognized the benefits of joining up. The Mid-Reach Sea still borders many important destinations, but improvements in transportation magic has all but obviated the need for a port in the middle of it and so Malbus has gone from being one of the most important and powerful cities after the Mother City herself to being a huge and inconvenient tax liability for said City.

Countess Lucretia Falcon is the newly-appointed last proconsul of Malbus. The office of proconsul is a figurehead and a sinecure in most cases and doubly so in hers. The empire is pulling out. She's been sent to "oversee" (mainly in the sense of "stand by and watch") the transition from imperial colony to protectorate, a status which absolves the government in the Mother City from doing anything to aid Malbus in any situation but whereby they reserve the right to come back in and assert their ownership should anything interesting or potentially valuable happen.

She's also a hunted woman, with attempts on her life beginning before she even arrives to take office.

The day-to-day task of running the island is handled by an office headed up by Vogt. Note: not ruling, but running. He makes sure that forms get filled out and that everybody gets paid what they're supposed to get paid and everybody pays what they're supposed to pay. Being the person in charge of all the paperwork does give him some influence, but he's loathe to use any of it and even more loathe to admit when he does. He regards bureaucracy as a craft, and himself as a craftsman.

Vogt is a member of a dwarven clan that assimilated into the imperial government ages ago. His name (according to the internet, anyway) means "steward", and it's as much a title as a name. He has a form of polydactyly that gives him seven digits (six fingers, one thumb) on his left hand... dwarves consider this to be a sign of interest. Not necessarily favor or disfavor. On the one hand, seven is said to be the divinely perfect number, but on the other hand having extra fingers on one's hand doesn't necessarily make one any better at hand-to-hand combat or the sort of craftwork that dwarves prize. Vogt's first, last, and only concern is to keep things running smoothly. Perfection and discretion are his dual watchwords.

Marcus (last name to be determined) is a paladin who commands the Knights of Malbus, which operates as a police force on the island. Not the only police force... there is an actual civic police in operation. These things can get somewhat indistinct when dealing with a truly self-contained city-state, but the Knights of Malbus are more like federal agents. They only have jurisdiction in affairs of state. Marcus is motivated by a strong sense of truth and justice, and a desire to protect the people of Malbus from harm.

Marcus may be half-elven. I'm not sure yet.

These would be the central characters of the story, as Malbus is a racially and ethnically diverse city, as most of its population comes from its days as a shipping port and naval power.

These three would be central characters in the story, which concerns the nature of the conspiracy against Lucretia and the future rule of Malbus.

...that I keep figuring out how to make my life work, only to have to un-learn the lessons when I go somewhere else for a while, and then needing to figure everything out again when I come back. I'm starting to see think I should have sets of instructions for myself when I'm traveling, when I'm staying at the lakehouse with my family, when I'm staying there by myself, when I'm at the Dollhouse, when I'm at Hagerstown, etc. The routines I set in one place don't often translate well in others, and my usual notes to myself and Google Calendar reminders end up being inapplicable.

I spent an hour today writing a 1,000 word update to Jamie's Tale and five hours trying unsuccessfully to turn it into a 2,000+ word update. This wasn't in a row. I kept walking away from the problem to see if I could get fresh perspective on it. Round midnight I was distracted by some D&D-related squee*. Each time I came back not having any better idea how to progress, and each time I missed the essential problem: it was a thousand word update.

That's all.

I'm blogging this so that maybe I learn from it.

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*This being the new Essentials preview material, which pretty well confirms that the D&D Essentials line will:

• Make things easier on newbies.
  
• Appeal to nostalgia.
  
• Not change the game for people who like the existing character options.
  
• Give new powers/candy that people who like the existing stuff can play with, too.
  

Win-win-win-win.