Ink Raindrops

Ink Raindrops is unique from most other serial fiction blogs on the Internet, because it allows readers to take a major role in what kind of content gets published next.

The basic format of this blog is the same as most others; you will find a website containing posts, all labeled into specialized categories, such as a particular story title, or news.  You can view this blog in its entirety if you don’t mind the disjointed approach.  For a little more streamlined and sane approach, however, you can select a category from the left-hand side of the page in order to limit your viewing to posts within a certain category.  Doing this will enable you to only look at news posts, or only look at chapters from a particular story.

On the first of every month (with some exceptions that you will see below) new story content will be added to Ink Raindrops.  This content may be a continuation of an existing story, a new story, or some combination of the two.  As mentioned on the About the Author page, at least one update or story will appear each month, with the possibility of more than that on occasion.  The method by which this new content is determined is in the hands of the readers; that’s you, folks!

The website’s voting system allows readers to give feedback each month on which story they would like to see more of next, or whether they would like a new story to be added.  As of September 2nd, 2009, voting takes place between the first and the twentieth of each month.  The results of voting during this time will be written during the final days of the month, and posted to start the cycle again on the first of the following month.  This places the necessity of working over the entire month on me, in order to make sure that all stories are in a position to have their next chapters completed as soon as the votes tally up.

As of January 19th, 2010, in the event of a tie between two or more results, I will proceed to http://www.random.org/dice/ and roll a die: the resulting number will determine which tied story gets updated.  Numbers are assigned to results based on the order they appear in the poll listing; if I roll a number that does not correspond with a result, I will re-roll until I get a number that does.

Please note: As of January 19th, 2010, IR’s schedule has shifted to allow for the busy times in my schedule.  Active updates will occur every month except for January and December.  November is National Novel Writing Month and I would like to reserve that month for continued effort in creating novels; updating IR for December, given the amount of attention NaNo requires, is impossible due to this.  December contains big holidays involving a great deal of travel right around the end of the month, thus making an update for January very difficult.  I will try very hard to make an extra effort in October to update more than one story to make up for this two-month hiatus.  Outside of these two months, you should not see interruptions or delays in updates unless something outside of my control prevents me from getting my work done on the appropriate days.  This is not here to be an excuse, it is just fair warning in case the unthinkable happens.

There is no requirement to vote in order to read stories.  You are never obligated to vote; however, be aware that your votes are what controls the flow of the site.  Without votes, the system does not function at its best, and everyone suffers for it.  Votes are anonymous and only serve to tell the writer what you would like to see next.  They do not reflect anything about you aside from your personal interest.

If you would like to make comments outside of your vote, you may do so by posting comments via the blog posts.  All comments are welcome, regardless of positive or negative feedback, but constructive criticism is above and beyond the preferred method for handling the latter.  If you didn’t like something, explain why you didn’t like it, or what you might have liked better instead.  “You suck” or “That story was lame” does not help me improve.  “That character didn’t seem very interesting” or “This part didn’t make sense” does help me improve.  Comments will not be deleted unless they contain sensitive personal information (for your safety) or spam (for everyone’s sanity.)  I have activated a Wordpress widget called Akismet; it is a spam blocker that will hopefully handle most of the latter case.

A simple rating method has been implemented for alerting you to stories that may contain objectionable material.  You can find more information on how this works by visiting the About Color Ratings page.  Be advised that I write what I feel is interesting and fun, and that complaints in regard to adult material will only be addressed if there is a mistake in my rating system.  What you choose to read (or not) is in your hands; please do not hold me responsible for the decisions that you make.

At this time, Ink Raindrops is not considering placing ads on the site. If you would like to have Ink Raindrops link back to your site/blog, please contact Amelia Bruce at brasspetals@gmail.com with your information rather than posting comments.  Discussion about links can happen in private at that time.

In the future, there will be a way to donate to Ink Raindrops, in order to promote its continued existence.  There is no obligation to donate, but if you have any interest in supporting a new author who may or may not have any talent to speak of, please consider a small donation toward that end.  Every little bit helps!  (And heck, it’s cheaper than having to buy the book, right?)  For a writer with no day job, donations are the sincerest form of flattery.