FLEX Fans Who Follow Me On Twitter! How Should I Handle Flex-Related #WIPs Now?

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 12.06% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

If you’ve followed me on Twitter for any period of time, you’ll note my #WIP hashtags, wherein I excerpt sentences from my Work In Progress – i.e., whatever I’m working on that day.  Things like:


…okay, they can’t all be winners.
But as I start writing the third book in the FLEX series, I run into a conundrum: I can tell you that the upcoming sequel, THE FLUX, radically changes the status quo of What You Know.  Just as the ending of FLEX, well… those of you who’ve read it knows how radically it changes the family dynamic, and in fact most of THE FLUX is spent examining just what happens in the wake of the final chapters of FLEX.  The next book in the series changes things even more radically than that.
So for the first time, I wind up being concerned with my old friend “Spoilers.”
Which is nice.  My #wip excerpts have always lacked context before, as they’ve been isolated stories.  Yet now that you know who Paul, Aliyah, Valentine, and Imani are, you might actually care to know what happens next.  But though I always avoid major spoilers (and in fact I often use #wips to misdirect), there are unavoidable spoilers that’ll hint at what happens – you’ll know who survives into the third book, because I’ll be mentioning them, and you’ll get glimpses into the challenges people are facing.
(Though those of y’all who keep wanting to know, “Wait, what happened to Europe?” will be pleased to know that question will be finally answered.)
Yet I am super-spoiler-phobic.  The worst part of my job is that, since I help create all the cards when a new Magic set is released, I cannot avoid seeing every card in the set.  I don’t read the back of books, because I like to have the author tell me, and one of the things I dislike most about THE FLUX back cover’s copy (currently on Amazon, if you’re curious) is that it tells you a lot of what happens in the first third of the book.  (That doesn’t make it bad book copy – good book copy, in fact, reveals a lot more to lure you in than I’m generally comfortable with – but I keep going, “Man, I don’t want you to know that before you read the first chapter!”)
So a question: if you follow me on Twitter, and you’ve read FLEX, how do you feel about stumbling across random 140-character snippets of the adventures of the various ‘mancers?  Even assuming I’m not announcing major character deaths or telegraphing plot twists, I’ll still be giving you glimpses into a world you won’t see for another year, minimum.

Posted by on Jul 8, 2015 in Current Ramblings | 0 comments

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