Thread: Fallen Earring

I'm trying to work out what the best way is to present my serialized novel. First, the parameters:
I'm posting it as written, in first draft form. There will be instances where rich media are involved, both music and artwork.
Originally, the thing was to be posted on a weekly basis, but that's proven problematical because I just don't have the time to dedicate to the project. So it'll be updated on a monthly basis.
In order to have maximum visibility, the project needs to have its own rss feed, not one shared by other blogposts. It's a conflicting-loyalties situation. From the evidence I've gathered from the initial blogpost, it's clear that the regular blogreaders are not the same audience as the blognovel readers.
I could use the novel to attract people to the blog, but to me that's cheap. The blog is a personal-expression outlet, for writing outside the wanna-sell-it box, and the blognovel is definitely not in that realm.
Having investigated various ways of presentation, I'm hung on the fence. Should I take the time to handcode a template in html/css/javascript, working from some dreamweaver platform and customizing, or should I dedicate a database and wordpress blog to the novel?
I'm leaning toward the latter because there are some very customizable templates. Making the assumption that the thing is worth reading in the first place, which way would you say I should proceed?
Here's the existing blogpost, with the mp3 player sidebar widget on a very customizable theme.
Thoughts?

Ah, one of the things I wanted to mention to you was the need to separate it out into it's own blog so you can have the feed.

Not sure why'd you'd do a first draft version. Of course, you can always clean it up after posting and I generally find that once I've got something posted all the errors just jump out when I read.

I like to have the control panel for the blog open in one window or tab and the actual posts as people see them open in another. That way I can read the displayed version, then just click to the editable text to make changes and save them, then refresh on the display version.

I think you'd be nuts to use straight HTML. I ran into one person doing that, among the hundreds I've seen. That would be like writing a screenplay using the space key instead of a script program or template, to me.
Why not just have a subdomain off moderan.net with a WordPress installation like Moderan.net/earring or something.

For that matter, your project seemed simple, not a lot of razzmatazz or graphics or videos, so you could do it off a free blog. But it seems like having it on board would be simpler and safer.

Am in the process of doing that separation...at Fallen Earring. I'll probably change that theme to something with a wider column-I have a ton of wp themes available...the problem being that everyone and their wp developer brother do DARK and I don't want dark for this. I may have to do a bit of piddling to make it look right.
I don't often do extra drafts. They've been less than successful for me in the past-I find that I lose the voice, the flow, and the rhythm of the words more and more with each version, so I just don't do it. Nanonovels are a different animal in that they need a second draft, but that's the nature of the beast.
My interactive novel during 1998-2002 was straight html...it has its benefits in that you have express control over the look and feel of each page, but there's a lot of coding involved and I'd rather write prose.
The dual-window procedure is how I work it as well. It just seems like the obvious way to do things.
There probably won't be any videos. I'm writing and performing some of the songs that are in the novel for a little soundtrack for the sidebar, and there may be an illustration or seventeen, but it's a pretty vanilla project. I think the concept and the writing will be enough. There's a lot of little detail involved in making this thing fly, illustrating where the altworld is different, and I'm going to get heavily involved in that pdq.
The second chapter and an edit of the first chapter will be online this week.