Putting the Lesbian Book Bingo Stories to Rest
Sunday, April 29, 2018 - 16:13
I've decided to discontinue my series of mini-stories for the Lesbian Book Bingo Challenge event. Although it was a fun idea, there simply wasn't enough interest for it to be worth the time and effort I was putting into it. If you were one of the small handful of people who were enjoying the series, I'm sorry for disappointing you.
Writing free fiction is a tricky enterprise. As a rule of thumb, it either has to be a project that gives me immense personal joy, or a project that serves to draw attention to my work in general, or a project that will bring me significant positive feedback and make me feel good about my writing. The Bingo Mini-Stories were meant to be the second, as a context for continuing to promote the reading challenge throughout the year without feeling stale. But it's clear that participating in the Bingo Challege has been a flop in terms of bringing new readers to my work. If the stories themselves had drawn sufficient interest, apart from their use in promoting the challenge, it still would have been worth continuing. But in the last month, the project has felt more and more like a burden that's pulling me away from my other writing projects. It was a voluntary burden--one I invented on my own, with no external commitment chaining me to its completion. I've learned some hard lessons in the past about being careful about inventing rules for the Game of Life that don't allow me to win. I invented the burden, I picked it up all on my own, and here I am laying it down, also of my own accord.
If you like, you may imagine that Lena, Martijn, Laura, Isabel, Marie, Lisette, Hélène, and all the rest whose stories were never told all eventually found their happy endings.
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