Layout Change & Other Things

I've decided that, if Seafear goes anywhere in the world (and I sincerely hope it does) I'm going to keep this blog up. And I've decided that a generic layout doesn't work all that well for me right now. So I generated this free one very quickly. Yes, it looks very crappy, but I'm not so hot at layout design. Hopefully before too long I'll find someone who's actually good at technical nonsense like coding and image modifications, and they can make me a better layout than this.

In other news, Seafear moves along very... uh... swimmingly, but that's a bad pun. I'm sticking a new chapter in between Chapters 12 and 13. It's ostensibly because I want to branch off and show other points-of-view when my main band of bedraggled seafaring characters is split up, but in reality it's because I want to edge this thing's word-count to around 100,000 words.

The 100,000 words thing is sort of this test for myself; I make a big deal about reaching the 50,000 word point, but I think 100,000 words makes for something that is rather long (comparatively -- The Lord of the Rings is over 600,000 words long, I think!) and is a personal goal I've set for Seafear. The Apprentice Wizard was 85,000 words long, but there were nineteen chapters in it. Seafear has seventeen, plus a prologue... so never mind, I guess that doesn't really make a difference.

I'm not all together sold on this multiple viewpoints thing. I (very briefly) switched viewpoints in the Prologue, but that was out of necessity for the plot. I'm not entirely sure if this hypothetical Chapter 13 is entirely necessary; I'm writing it for now, but it's not in the main document. (Like that makes it non-existent or something.) If I like it, I can keep it in, but if I don't think it's working, I will excise it like a tumor and continue on my merry way through the "actual" Chapter 13.

In other other news, I'm trying to think of ways to build up a blog-reading audience for this thing. It's not something I've ever been good at, but Lord knows... If I can build up a grassroots following on the Intrawebs before Seafear (hopefully) hits shelves, then I will have some momentum going into sales. Which would be a nice feather in my cap. But I really don't know how to attract readers... so that will require some meditation.

ETA: New layout sucked. Need to find a good one.