A Brief Letter For My Readers

Dear Readers,

I’m taking the week off from writing a story. I have a few things coming down the line, and I want to direct the efforts I would usually put into this week story into those future articles. Basically, what I was going to share with you isn’t completed yet. So, here is a short update on what is going on in the meantime.

I am glad that you’ve been enjoying the stories so far, I’ve been thrilled to write them with you. In a way, I feel bad for not presenting you with fiction this week. I believe this delay in publication will lead to a better story in the future.

So instead of a story, I want to give you a quick rundown of what is going on in my creative life and where this blog might be headed.

That Novel Of Mine

Do you remember that book I’ve been talking about writing? The one I’ve been working on since October 23rd, 2017. I’ve brought it up a few times, and every time I’m promising that it’s about to come out. Well, it is about to come out again. I’ve set a deadline of Halloween or hopefully earlier. I have a Gantt Chart for tracking progress so I can’t see how anything will go wrong.

“I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

I have this strange struggle with balancing my writing on the blog and working on the book. I think I have some solutions for this that will fit into my writing process and I’ll be bringing that up later.

But what about book progress? I got beta reader feedback awhile ago, and I’ve been slowly applying changes. There was a strange phase I went through where the book didn’t feel like mine after I got feedback. For a few months where the book didn’t feel like my project. I enjoyed the valuable , and I was glad to be a part of a team. However, I felt like a small cog in the machine, a feeling I dread. It also had no basis of truth. For a moment, in my mind, it wasn’t my project, it was everyone else’s. I didn’t even feel like I was allowed to make changes to it! Which was literally the next required step in the editing process.

Somehow, mostly through continuing to work on it despite not wanting to, I got control back over the project it, and it feels like mine again. I have put in some much-needed work over the past few weeks, and it’s on a quick path to being released.

But I still have the concern of what if I release it and no one reads it? This blog is an effort to fix that. The more readers I get here, the more people I have expecting to read the book. That excites me and pushes me to get it done sooner. I also believe that if I release the novel and if it’s good (which after this much work one would hope it is) then I will get more readers on this blog. It’s a win-win, right? Therefore, I’m trying to build my life up in a way where I can spend more time on the book and less time on the blog and other non-book related activities. That leads me to the next point of…

New Writing Process

Here is how I usually write stories for the blog:

• Monday: write an outline
• Tuesday/Wednesday: write a rough draft
• Wednesday/Thursday: Edit the rough draft and format for publishing
• Friday: Publish the story
• Repeat the process.

Sometimes I won’t be able to finish the story in the 2k words I try to limit myself to, and I wind up writing a longer multiple part story. Two examples of this were the Inhuman Book series and The Automatons series. These are typically a rambling in my mind and are a little stressful to write because I don’t know where they’re going. I’ll sit down to write the rough draft and feel like it’s segmented from the last and next parts.

Then last month I wrote the Meet AALFO series. The AALFO story was a relief in a lot of ways. I had an idea, and it was a mix of being struck by lighting in a bad way and pulling teeth in a good way. I eventually got the whole 6k word story written out, and I edited the first 1k words and published them here. Then I had two days to work on my book!

Here’s how the AALFO Process went:

• Spend one day outlining the story
• Spend two days rough drafting the story
• Spend four days (spread out through the month) editing
• Spend rest of month on my novel!

I might be the only one excited about this, but here I have a system for getting four weeks of content in 7 days of work!

This new process is a big deal to me. It’s essentially a productivity revolution. And some of you are more than aware that I’m obsessed with productivity.

The best part is that AALFO was my favorite story on this blog so far. There are a lot of stories on this site that I enjoy a lot and a few that I hate and regret sharing, but AALFO was a story that was easy to produce and fun to write! So I’m going to try to replicate it which is why I’m taking this week “off.”

Step Into The Road Audio Shorts

Aside from finishing the book, I want to spend some time producing a podcast for the blog. I’ll be using some of the reclaimed time for this. Audio content is huge right now, and I have been told that my voice isn’t as close to nails on a chalkboard as I thought it was. So, the first one should be coming out soon, I have it recorded, and I am putting some work into editing it.

This podcast won’t be anything fancy at first, but as with everything I’ll get better the more I do it. I would like to eventually do it well with transition sounds and even a theme song or something. I’m imaging Brady bunch mixed with Power Rangers. So, if anyone reading this is good with audio and would like to help out, I’m open to the collaboration! Just contact me. Otherwise, expect to see the first audio short next week.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for letting me take the week off from writing a story for you. I’m over six months into this blogging/writing journey, and I’m so lucky to have all the readers I have. As always don’t hesitate to contact me with suggestions, if you’re a subscriber simply reply to the email and it will come straight to me. I want to leave you with something to read this week, so here are my top 5 favorite posts from the last half year of writing for you.

Top 5 Favorite Posts:

1. Meet AALFO: The Computer That Predicts The Future
2. Your Future as a Homo Sapien (The First Story Published on SitR)
3. A Monk’s Gift and the White Seed
4. You Get Better at What You Do (A Non-Fiction Rant)
5. Anthony’s Apprenticeship Under Lorent the Cleric

Thanks for reading,
Nicholas Licalsi

P.S. If you’ve made it this far I want to let you know you’re appreciated. I also have a small ask. Would you mind sharing with me why you enjoy reading my stuff this much?

I ask because I’m trying to figure out what problem Step Into The Road solves for its readers. Most non-fiction blogs have a clear purpose. Some help their readers to lose weight, others inform on how to save money, or they teach something new.

I’m a fiction blog, and so I don’t fit that form. To me, it looks like I’m writing this blog for selfish reasons. I’m sharing my stories with you, and half the time I don’t know if my readers are going to like it. Obviously, you find value in this blog. If you don’t mind sharing why it would be helpful in my efforts to share this blog with others.

Photo Creadits: Visual Hunt, Visualhunt.com, Visual Hunt, VisualHunt.com, JD Hancock, Pixel Addict