The Learning Curve

I'm learning a few things about online writing over at my serial fiction blog, The Sword of Bayne. Here they are:

1.) Adsense doesn't have a clue about what kind of ads to put at the top of the Bayne blog. One day there are ads about war memorabilia, the next day is for Katrina relief, then the next day there are ads about pictures of angels. Just funny in an odd, quirky sort of way.

2.) Outlining helps. While I have a mental outline of "The Fallen God" storyline, I don't have a completely worked out outline on paper. A stronger outline would make the story stronger. Most noticably, if I had been writing a Bayne short story or novel, I probably would not have started the story until someplace like Part 8 of "The Fallen God." As is, the story starts a bit too soon, so there's some meandering around.

3.) I'm writing first draft material in the Bayne blog, and it's obvious, at least to me. No, the prose isn't the worst in the world, and there aren't a ton of mistakes all over the place, but the writing could be a lot tighter. When working on the first draft of a short story or novel, I allow myself to throw in all kinds of stuff, then I cut back on it in revision. Since there's not really any major revisions to the Bayne blog, a lot of that extra stuff is getting in permanently. For example, the Cutter character has been given more time in text than I would have if writing in a different venue.

4.) My dialogue sucks, at least for first draft.

5.) The Bayne blog has helped me to get back in the mood for writing. I haven't written much in the last few months because I've been doing revision work on ye olde trilogy, but the blog has me wanting to write again. I need to finish this darn trilogy so I can move on to other stuff.

Just observations.