There's still more to write
It’s been several weeks now since we launched The Blur Goes to College as an online serial book. This experiment has been quite an adventure.
We apparently now have hundreds of people reading along with the story. We’ve enjoyed the encouragement we’ve received in comments, emails, texts and phone calls, and appreciate all those who have invested their time and brain cells to read the story.
We started writing this while Harrison was still in college, and together we have running files totaling more than 95,000 words. There’s still more to write. As we are producing the front end of the book, publishing it chapter-by-chapter, we are still working on the back end — writing about six months ahead of our publishing pace.
This gives us the opportunity to look for natural breaking points, and to go back and edit each installment. Occasionally we realize we need to write a transitional chapter, such as Harrison’s recent one on welding.
The serial format has allowed us to get the story out more quickly and broadly, and in ways that we could not have done with traditional print publishing. I think we are at 20 chapters published now.
Selecting photos to go with each chapter allows us to relive some of the experience, and provides another dimension to the story. I took a lot of pictures during Harrison’s time at CMC, never knowing what I would do with them. Now I’ve found a context in which it makes sense to share them. I feel the photography makes the experience more real and believable for the reader — something a paper book could never do.
We’ve also added audio components to some chapters with Harrison reading his parts. We are hoping to go back and record each chapter.
Recently, and ironically, The Leadville Herald Democrat began publishing chapters of The Blur Goes to College in its print edition. We welcome other partnerships like this. Just contact me to discuss.
In addition to writing, Harrison continues to work at Community Threads in Leadville two days a week, maintains his running program, and does small welding jobs here and there.
Thank you for reading and supporting our little writing experiment. Buckle up, the ride’s about to get even wilder!
P.S.: If you haven’t yet checked it out, the book starts here:
