Monthly Archives: August 2015

1. Welcome to my World

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Hi, I’m Syd Logsdon. I have been writing novels for four decades, but I’m a new blogger.

When I began, writers wrote, publishers published, and readers bought their books in bookstores – or at least at bookstands which might pop up anywhere. E-books, nooks and kindles, and the internet have changed all that. Now e-books outsell hardbacks and writers have to adapt.

Actually, this is an opportunity for me. Over the years I have accumulated a mass of knowledge, ideas, complaints, irritations, joys, disappointments, and backstage savvy that didn’t fit into any format available to me. Now I have a place to share these things.

What prompted me to start blogging at this time was the release of my e-book Cyan from EDGE, due in January of 2016. If you don’t know them, EDGE is the premier science fiction publisher of Canada.

Cyan is the story of the discovery, exploration, and colonization of a nearby habitable planet, set against the backdrop of cataclysmic overpopulation on Earth, and carried out by a fascinating and varied group of characters.

Old fashioned? No; just temporarily out of fashion.

Recent science fiction has often lost sight of the next century. This is too bad, since we are the last generation which can write what we want about nearby stars before astronomers map the actual planets which exist there.

You can expect daily posts here at A Writing Life. It is set up like a blog, but it isn’t a chronicle of daily activities. Each post is a mini-essay on some subject, current, historical, or timeless.  Most of the time, these posts will come four days a week.

At Serial, in the menu, you will find serialized fiction. Pop over there for details.

Drop in often; you will always find something new.

Introduction to Serial

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Starting September first, this space will be home to serial fiction. It will be posted five days a week.

Serial fiction has a long history. Going back at least to Dickens, it has been used to serve the needs of the publisher. How long each serial installment was, how many installments there were, and how long a time fell between each installment was calculated to fill issues of periodicals and bring readers back. For science fiction novelists, serialization has always been a way build an audience before a book is published, and earn a few extra dollars at the same time.

So what’s in it for you?

Free reads, for one thing.

When I first began to consider website serial publication of the works which will be presented here, I had a particular kind of reader in mind. I envisioned a train or bus commuter, or a bored backseater in a car pool, surrounded by distractions. (Not a driver. If you’re driving right now, turn off your damned smart phone!) I thought that kind of a reader would appreciate a short presentation, half a satisfying read and half a tease for tomorrow’s installment.

When I began to sort each story into episodes, it became apparent that each has a natural rhythm which has to be honored. Some stories have larger blocks of text between natural breaks, and this rhythm varies within each story as well. One size episode does not fit all, but there will still be five episodes each week, of somewhat varying length.

Each story will carry a “5 of 12” style notation indicating which episode out of how many, so you can keep track of where you are. As in a blog, you can back up to previous posts to pick up any episodes you might have missed.

Shortly after each story concludes, it will be permanently archived on the Backfile page. If you prefer to read a story all at once, just wait. That is, if you can avert your eyes from the daily presentataion.

I dare you to try.