It's here. It's finally here.

This week is going to be all station keeping, all the time, starting this very afternoon. This of course means that we're going to be "off-the-air" come next week. I've been prepping essays/posts about science fiction, science fiction writing, and I expect to do some more in the "Keeping Meta" series of posts, while we wait and write the next season (and start thinking more long term about our story, for season three.) I'm going to give a tentative target release date of November first, but I might pull that date back a week or two so that we're not having a big finale in the middle of the holidays. Planning... it's weird.

I'd like to of course, thank Jo Goodman who's writing appears in two of this week's installments. It's great to have such a fun (and different) perspective contributing to this project, and although the stories were just by me and Jo this season, I think it would be improper to go on without at least publicly thanking all the other people who have contributed to the development, planning, and thinking about the project. There's something really great about serials, and something about a group that makes it even more fun to write for, in my estimation.

This isn't to say that the first season of Station Keeping, is without flaw. Frankly I would have like to see more contributions from both the crowd, and from our own core, and thats going to be one of my big hiatus projects. For a long time, I would get cockamamie ideas for internet-phenomena and projects, and they'd sort of fizzle out when, inevitably, people wouldn't flock to them. Now I'll attribute this, at least in part, to youthful naiveté, but it's also true that web-phenomena need a certain sort of momentum, and that's nothing you can summon out of thin air.

And Station Keeping is getting there slowly, and that's all I can ask for. I suppose the main difference between this project and former projects is that I'm sticking to this one, because by god I think it can work. And sometimes that stubbornness is totally a good thing.

As always, if you're interested in contributing to the Station Keeping project, either on a one off or a continuing business, please contact me, I'd love to work with you and include your stories in the project. My email is tycho@tealart.com, I look forward to hearing from you. Some authors are talking about fan fiction, and Matthew Wayne Selznick has even set up a site for fan generated content [1] to encourage such projects for his own work. I would, however, submit that it would be nearly impossible for you to write fan fiction for Station Keeping (well there'd need to be fans, but...) mostly because I think that anyone who wants to write fic, could probably write "real" station keeping, without much fuss.

In any case, stay tuned to ~/tychoish for updates about me and the site (also in the sidebar, here on TealArt,) and I'll see you throughout the week for Station Keeping installments, but otherwise, I'll see you next week.

Cheers, tycho

[1]I posted a bit about the Station Keeping project there, and would like to welcome anyone whose happened along this post and TealArt from there.