Updated!

Before I start on my hour of writing today (for tomorrow's first segment of the serial) I wanted to explain a little history of the characters I'm using.

None of this is spoilers in any way, or actual story/character information, more of a reasoning of the process.

One of the reasons that I think I can pull this serial fiction thing off, is that Fast Eddie, The Badger and a lot of the supporting cast has existed in my head  since jr. high  (about 22 years now).  Yes people, I'm a cheater.  My characters would approve though, so I'm OK with it.

Many people who write have a "Great American Novel" in their heads (sometimes it is a movie script or a comic series depending on taste).  For most people these seem to be a collection of ideas that accumulate over a long time and are almost alwasy way too much for 1 work.  Every writing prof. I have ever talked to... always warned people to carve chunks off of it for individual projects, but never... ever!...  try and write it all out.  It wil be a mess and genrally a wast of your time.  The emotional investment tends to be huge. The smallest nitpick at such a projectr usually results in severely hurt feelings.

I never had one of those.  But instead, I had these 2 guys clunking around my head.  Whenever I got stuck for something to write, these guys were my talk show reserve guests (you know, the people that Letterman, Colbert etc. have ready in case they can't book someone, or there is a cancelation).  Eddie and The Badger were always vs. someone or something as well (kind of like Godzilla).  That's why I'm using this title.  It gives me options, and reflects their world view pretty accurately.  In effect they are my "Great American Serial" (or a 40 book series which I'd happily write for cash and donuts).

To date, these guys have appeared in (off the top of my head) about 10 short stories, 2 screenplays, a radio serial episode, a 14 page iambic pentameter class project (which is even stranger once you know who they are), and several dirty limericks. (Are there any other kind?)  I have no doubt they will branch out into greeting cards and a completely wrong theme park someday.

I admit I may steal and reuse the plots of some of their earlier endevors (all of these projects are long since deleted).  So some deja vu may creep up on friends coming here to see this experiment of mine.

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I'm also cheating a bit, because I've done 3 serials before (though never written by me alone and never starring these characters).

2 were radio plays (which ran to completion), and another was a short lived (4 episode) internet video thing.  No I'm not linking the video one, and the audio ones exist entirely on cassette tapes unless someone else on the crew has transfered them.

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My biggest reservation about this project is OS's really thin central column size.  Even though each segment is going to be limited by my writing time, everything posted on OS...  LOOKS longer becasue of the layout here.  It may make the text look more daunting than it is. I'll try to format for less painful reading.

Unlike this post, I'll be writing and editing in real software (not the OS text box) so there should be way less typos than my regular stuff here.

 All serial segments will appear with the title "Fast Eddie and the Badger vs. Everyone (Segment #)" to separate them from normal blog posts.

As always, all of my writing is (c) 2009 T.J. Whitfield Jr.  All rights are reserved.

 Hope to see you July 1st.

 Edit: Adding a FQ to this post to keep info in for readers etc.

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FAQ:

When will updates be posted?

 The serial will be updated M-F before 6PM Eastern time (with possible days off for holidays).

What are the guidelines you are following to get this done?

 The rules I set for myself are 1 hour to write, 30 mins the next day to edit, then the content is posted.  

Your writing is full of mistakes, how should I help?

 There will be typos /errors, please don't post them in the comments. I may never fix them.  This is a warty processs. Thanks though.

Edit: I may sweep them over the weekends, but I'm not sure I can just hold myself to fixing arrors and not just rewite stuff.  Right now, this is what is happening during my editing passes.  I'm trying to fix more mistakes and do less rewiting then as well.

Edit Update:  I do plan to revisit and update earlier segments.  Sometiems my writing  time limit is making stuff more outline-like than as visual as I'd like.   However, I don't want to spend too much time revisiting it as I go, becasue I'd endlessly loop on earlier ones and it would cut into new writing time.  I'm considering a massive version edit when I finish each Part, or mayhbe when I complete the first series.

This is cool, can I help, add on, suggest stuff?

I won't be taking plot suggestions, character suggestions or other content ideas from the readers.  This isn't a group project or a Democracy.  Thanks though... maybe you should start your own and cross-link it?

 Is there any structure to this at all / How long will it be?

Yeah, I've  done some basic plotting that cuts up each part into 10 segments.

 Segments are  working out to be 3-5 single spaced pages with block style paragraph breaks (Indented style creates a serious wall of text and makes it al lto hard to read in OS formatting).

S0, each Part will be about 40 pages long (times 4 planend parts). that makes about 120 pages single spaced for the whole thing.

It should take about 2 months to finish (40 segements devided by 5 days a week +/- holidays etc.)  not counting any clean-up passes I do on it.

When you are done with this one, will there be another?

 Yes.  I'm having  a good time doing it.  I don't know If I'll do another work with these characters, or something completely different yet.

Should I comment on or rate this?

 Absolutely!  The way the feed works here on OS, stuff falls off pretty fast.  Comments and rates put stuff back into the feed for others to see. Some peopel enver look at the front page at all anymore.  Favorites of favorites carry a lot of weight around here.

 Feel free to comment (positive or negative).  I won't be deleting anything that isn't really abusive.  I apologize for OS not allowing for you to downrate posts.  Feel free to rate it so more people can read your comment about how much  I suck.

 I'll answer and non-spoiler question you may have.  I won't answer spoiler questiosn at all, even by PM.

I would like to pay you a lot of money, how should I make out the check?

With a lot of zeroes o nthe end of that number.

 Cake or Pie?

Sorry no story spoilers.

-T