First of all, Squiders, if you haven’t given me feedback on Tuesday’s post for the nonfiction format, please do so. My brain does not always follow the most logical of paths and input would be great.
Onward.
A few months ago I received a letter in the mail inviting me to subscribe to a magazine. I imagine you guys get these sorts of things as well. I tend to ignore them, because the last thing I need in my life is more magazines, but I decided to go ahead and get this one since it wasn’t too expensive. It’s called Scotland, and my justification was that I have always wanted to do some Celtic fantasy–especially Scottish over the more common Welsh and Irish, since that’s where my heritage lies–and that it might be a good place to get some story ideas.
I have gotten two issues thus far, and mostly it has just made me want to go to Scotland (I spent a day there once when I was 16 as part of a whirlwind tour of the British Isles, and so did not really experience very much). They talk a lot about old manor houses and castles, which could be useful, though nothing’s caught my eye as of yet.
Of course, subscribing to one magazine means they like to see if you’ll subscribe to others (I think I’ve been offered all the parts of the United Kingdom at this point), but today I received my first related catalogue. At first I was very excited–I opened it up, and the first page is full of tea and tea-related snacks, and the latent British in me had to put the catalogue down out of excitement. Unfortunately, once I got further into it, I realized it’s an American company selling kitschy UK-themed stuff and I am kind of over the whole thing. (They sell things in Campbell of Argyll tartan. That tells you something. Never buy anything in Campbell of Argyll, it is not an official tartan and only one person is allowed to wear it, and it is not you.)
I do like a good tea, though. But in retrospect theirs are overpriced and can be bought locally for much cheaper, even the imported stuff.
(We should do afternoon tea. Or coffee and cake, like they do in Germany.)
Moving on to relevant things, do you remember us talking a few months ago about Wattpad? It’s a free platform where people can write and/or read stories. Some people have even found commercial success through it if their stories caught enough attention. I joined in August and have mostly been reading other stories. They’re not perfect, but I’ve found some ones that are pretty decent.
Anyway, I’ve started putting up parts of the scifi serial I’ve been working on once a month for the last seven years up there, kind of as an exploration of the platform but also to get feedback on the story itself. If you’d like to read along and help me out, you can find the story here. (Otherwise, my profile is here.) Thus far I’m getting about 4 or 5 views each time I put up a part, but I have no idea how people are finding it.
So I don’t have any conclusions about the platform yet. Anyone else use Wattpad, either for writing or for reading? Have thoughts about tea? Anything else new or exciting?
