Back to the short format · 9:54am Dec 6th, 2019
So, now that I've had a few months to evaluate how the long format would work, I can say that it sucks ass for several reasons.
1) I've recently been feeling the same way as when I was trying longer chapters for Legacy of Light. It's just this kind of a mountain ahead which I don't want to climb, no matter how many times I've done this before. That's a bad sign, and just like it led to me dropping Legacy of Light, I don't want it to affect the Lovebugs trilogy (like the name?)
2) Since I upload on fanfiction.com as well, which uses the dumbest way to format and update stories in recorded history, the separator (***) gets deleted when I copy it for no goddamn reason. I've had so many problems with that stupid system over the years that I've finally lost patience to try anything long again. I had no idea it was going on until I got called out on it in the long chapters which were UNREADABLE. Fixing that retroactively was an absolute pain.
3) Exposure, exposure, exposure. Unless someone is a god mode author who writes something people desperately want more of, sequels usually get gutted in terms of following and interaction. That stifles growth already, and from my experience the only times a following grows is when a story shows up in "Recently updated" or other front page lists. That goes double for me, because I simply don't do any propagation (because I always believe whatever I write isn't worth sticking into other people's faces). In short, more updates/chapters mean more natural exposure through "recently updated".
So, I think this was the longest long-chapter experiment I've done yet, and it only reassured me that my groove was really in the short updates. Of course, that means I will stop doing monthly updates, although how regular I'll be I still don't know. Life has been kinda... hectic recently, and not in a good way.
