It was a toss-up whether this post title would be "magic" or "madness". 😄 I'm writing like mad; my Patreon subscribers are getting the magic.
There's something personal about reading to someone. It adds an extra connection between the author and the reader. This informal audio thing between me and my faithful subscribers is a way of bringing my readers into my living room and sharing a story with them.
Since I started posting audio of the holiday story in progress, "A Bookmobile For Christmas", for my Patreon subscribers on Patron Appreciation Day, I've been posting installments once or twice a week. (Part five will go up tomorrow.) I'm trying to keep the audio relatively short. So far only one installment has gone over 20 mins, and just barely.
I'm well out of my comfort zone, both in posting something more or less as it comes out of my head, and also reading it aloud (because I've always been cringe-y about how my voice sounds in recordings). I'm shakily going out on a limb here a bit releasing the story as I write it. So this simple thing I'm doing---recording a serialized audio story---feels weirdly brave. But also fun.
Subscribers usually get chapters (and stories) which have been edited and rewritten, rather than storytelling right off the top of my head, like this holiday audio story. If you've been considering subscribing, now's a good time to jump in. You get a fun holiday story read to you---and you can start reading my previous regular rewards to subscribers between installments. We're up to Chapter 9 of the sci-fi novel in progress (final rewrite, I hope) this month. $1 gets you a big chunk of fiction every month, plus whatever extras I throw in (like short stories, audio stories, and extra patron-only posts, including background on the books). This month $2 subscribers (Eclectic Imaginings tier) get "Life on Mars" added on to all the other rewards mentioned above, and $5 Bookaroos also get a review of a favorite seasonal F/SF story collection added to everything else.
I usually take December off from writing, but I'll be working on---and recording and releasing audio for---"A Bookmobile For Christmas", a story about community, holidays, and a passion for books all month in order to finish it up before Christmas (though I have the end of the year as a fall-back deadline), as well as continuing to work on subscriber rewards for January. Although I haven't had this Patreon for a full year yet, it's been a good year and I appreciate your support. It's nice to have people reading along (or listening to audio!)
