Saturday 14 March 2015

Ahead of the Curve

The Soundtrack for this post is here.

And it’s a sad picture.

The final blow hits you:

Somebody else gets what you wanted again.

And you know it’s all the same.

...But these things will change.


THIS REVOLUTION


Taylor's Polynomials. 222 episodes about mathematics. Not even three quarters of a revolution (unless you’re in radians). Last May, it drew me to one final conclusion: There is no interest in a mathematics blog when it’s underlying story is fiction.

I now think I had that wrong for two reasons.

First, because this really wasn’t a mathematics blog. It was a fiction blog. It would have been more accurate to say “There is no interest in a fiction blog when it’s underlying story is mathematics”. Second, that’s not entirely true. I know this in part because Facebook has been lying to me, shooting me messages like this:

And while I say “lying” (because that number is cumulative over many weeks), the Facebook page HAS gained a couple likes. Then the math story came up unexpectedly on the Web Fiction Guide Forums, where I’ve been spending more time lately. There’s also evidence to suggest (from hit counts) that at least one person has done an archive crawl here within the last month. Moreover, someone on Twitter mentioned the characters completely unprompted the other day. And honestly, I can’t completely pull away myself - I’ve spent the past 22 weeks posting reruns of the first story up onto wattpad.

There was something to this. There IS something to this. After all, “Inside Out” (coming in June 2015) is getting huge press, and Disney’s Pixar is merely personifying emotions. That’s not half as interesting as mathematics.


THE TIME WILL COME


Now, don’t charge to the calendars. I’m not about to give a resumption date.


It may not even be this year. By the way, the clock's an "in" joke...

First, there’s at least two ways I can “resume” (or even “reboot”), and I’m not sure which way I’d want to do it. Second, I don’t know for sure that I want to yet - it’s still possible that my time would be better served doing something else. Third, I do have some other things on the go. There’s a time travel story on the shelf. And another serial, currently running.

About that: in September, I started up a new blog, designing a multiverse for all my old characters to play around in, doing it in a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style. The readership results have been abysmal as compared to here - whereas I used to manage 40 views per post on “Taylor’s Polynomials”, I’m lucky to get a quarter of that over there. Which is: (1) Expected, and yet (2) Informative.

I’d say it takes MINIMUM a year to build an audience, probably more, and I’ve only been writing The Epsilon Project for a little over six months. At the same time, I’ve been advertising it in all the same places I advertised THIS story (Twitter, Facebook, Tuesday Serial, Forums)... so the fact that it’s doing so much worse is confirmation that it’s my marketing which is the most horrible thing ever. As opposed to, say, my writing.

But I’m not the type to drop something halfway. (It still bugs me that I haven’t written the conclusion to “Marmalade Mercury” from over 10 years ago. Scott, you’re the only one who will get that reference.) So, the new serial story will retain my attention for a while yet. Meaning writing here would involve running two serials in tandem. Granted, an idea which has it’s own appeal, but at the same time, I’m not quite that crazy. Yet.

So... if nothing’s changing, why bother to post here at all?  Well, I wanted to see who was still out there. (Feel free to comment below.) And “Pi Day” (3/14/15) seemed like a good day for that. Also, there’s the following.


SING. HALLELUJAH.


Song parodies have continued. In a very minimal sense, granted (I have this teaching thing going too!), but there ARE 3 more that are worth getting out there. I’ll be posting them sporadically over the next few weeks. I can’t say for sure when (I want to do some accompanying graphics), but I’ll do the usual of updating the Facebook page and advertising on Twitter. Meaning you probably won’t see them in the social media storm, so I suppose check back infrequently?


"Polar Plot" was Parody #28
PARODY #25: “It’s Probability”
Tune of “I’m Getting Over You” by Carley Ray Jepsen. Officially making her the first artist I’ve parodied twice for math. I actually wrote this in Sept 2013. I didn’t like it. It’s aged remarkably well.

PARODY #26: “They’re Fractals”
Tune of “I Love It” by Icona Pop (feat. Charli XCX). Written in July 2014. Because I felt like “Fractal City” needed an anthem of sorts, and this song was pretty big - uh, over a year before.

PARODY #27: “Permute”
Tune of “Can’t Choose” by JRDN. Written in Sept 2014. Because my Data Management class needed a song for this unit, damn it.

I think that’s everything for now. Thanks for reading! Reward yourself with some pie.


ADDENDUM JUNE 23:
Sorry the last link going up so late. I didn't forget about it, though apparently I did forget about "this teaching thing" going on, and how April is always the third busiest month after January and June. It's there now. As a consolation, here's the latest:

PARODY #29"MCF 3M Course"
Tune of “Pop Music 101” by Marianas Trench. Written in June 2015. Because the course needed a wrap-up and students were inspiring me.