Future Work

John asked in the comments what's on the horizon. I have a novel that I finished more or less recently called Total Oblivion, More or Less, which is, in lit-mag bio-speak parlance, "currently seeking a publisher." Although it's not directly related to "Our Byzantium" in any way, the geopolitical dynamic in the story is more or less the same, with Scythians, Thracians, and other assorted tribes invading the U.S. and transforming it, with a counter-invasion by a Byzantine-like Empire. Well, that's the premise, anyway, but it mostly involves a family that is trying to make its way downriver during this chaos.

I'm working on a new novel, now, which I'm in the thick of, and my grasp on its properties is far more tenuous! It's called World Fantasy, and is shaping up to be about (or "about") the Unicorn Tapestries, terrorism, MMORPGs, Minneapolis, big box retailing...and about 20 other things, it feels like at this point. I'm writing it in Google Docs,--which has been an...interesting experience--in seven parts, with seven chapters in each part.

That's the plan, at least.

Has anyone else worked extensively with Google Docs? It's been pretty much fitting my needs, but it might be the nature of the project, and might not work as well for something that has longer pieces of text, or more complicated design needs.

Comments

[Matthew Tiffany]

I've worked with Docs some - how do you mean, an "...interesting experience"?

It's an odd little thing, to be sure.

[Demian Farnworth]

Hi Alan,

I use Google Docs for smaller projects. I especially like the Excel spreadsheet format because I can keep track of my work submissions write online and check it any where.

For larger projects (novel) I found Google Docs not to work because of capacity limits: I think it's 500 kb. Which I believe is about 50-70k words. When my novel surpassed that limit, I could no longer keep it there. That was about a two or three months ago and it may have changed. I don't know.

[Alan]

Well it is strange to have the project not on any one hard drive of mine, which is both a blessing and a curse--I've kind of become a slave to free wi-fi. It also lets me easily send the chapters to my writing group, or to people who would like to view them but not necessarily comment upon them.

That file size limit is good to know!

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