Like “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era,” “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights” contains characters that are inspired by folks I’ve known. In every case, characters contain elements of several people mushed together to serve the story. Similarly, I mix and match events from my own past and put them in the lives of different characters… and again, those events are twisted and changed to suit the story. So I think I know who you’re talking about when you mentioned one character’s description, but don’t expect that character to be representative of the person who inspired their physical appearance.

All the same… keep looking for lost folks, like I do, too. Thanks to this web site and social networking sites (especially Facebook), I’ve been reunited with or at least received word about almost every person thought relegated to the past. It’s just a matter of time!

However! with your fabulous neo-patronage model, I subscribed in my reader, so I can read everything when I have a moment (just did!) and then send patronage (just did!). :-D

I love this one, Matt. It takes me (somewhat painfully!) back to that stage of life pretty vividly. Can’t wait to see ‘what happens next.’ (And my heart just about broke reading one description of someone – I should send you the piece I wrote inspired by that same someone. Wish I knew where to find that person.) Anyway, I am recommending it to my daughter, who is in that stage of life right now and will possibly find it a bit of a shock that nothing has changed… except the names of the bands.

For now, though, you don’t need to be teased! You can read every installment of “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights” for free. Then, if you decide it’s worth paying for, you can. That’s neo-patronage: the art is there for all to experience, and each person decides for themselves how much compensation I deserve for the effort.

Thanks, lady! I hope you enjoy the installments of “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights” past and future, and I hope to see your comments on individual installments, too! Get in on the conversation; there’s a dedicated little band chiming in so far!

I haven’t read all the previous posts, but I wanted to let you know that if the story is as good as “Brave Men Run”, and you released a couple of podcast episodes as teasers, and had to pay for the rest, I probably would pay. Just another model to think of.

Will

Dude, I am once again impressed with your integrity. Seriously, you are a role model for DIY ethics. I’ll admit, my first reaction when I got the PayPal notification that you’d canceled my subscription was one of “What the hell did I DO?!” Heh. Thanks for the heads-up about this post, and I’m so glad that the content will keep coming.

I flatly refuse a refund, and hope that you will consider my subscription a bulk up-front payment for HDaCN content over the next several months.

As far as artwork goes, stay tuned. I’m slowly renovating this web site, and one of the things I’ll be adding is a way for folks to easily contribute fan content. Stay tuned!

On a business-research-writing-publishing side note, it sounds like the experience of what you’ve done so far this year has been a fertile source of data for the Selznick braintrust. I look forward to picking your, er-hem, brain, in the near future. (Figuratively, of course.) Take care, sir, and keep up the great work. :)

I’m sorry you didn’t make the 1000 subscribers you were hoping to get. I believe artists and writers should be compensated for their efforts. That is why I purchased the print version of Brave Men Run and why I subscribed to Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights. I like and enjoy your writing so I was happy to show my support.

So, if I have paid for the privilage of reading your work and some people are going to get to do it for free, I have no problems with that. You have earned that support and are welcome to it. If there is any other support I can offer, spreading the word, artworki (I’m trying to build my portfolio) just let me know.

Kindest regards,

Jeff

And thanks for the direct email, although it came on the same morning as the PayPal “unsubscription.” I was hoping real life had intervened in some other, more remunerative, way for you! But as long as you are happy, I’m good.

As far as refund, no thanks. Nothing has changed for me but the URL.

I appreciate your vision issue, even if you miss the audio on the reCaptcha, you can re-set it to provide a different pair of words, so maybe that helps. Also, reCaptcha is actually a good cause. The words used come from public domain manuscripts that optical character recognition software has failed to interpret. Every time a user verifies a reCaptcha pair, OCR software is made smarter and rare manuscripts are brought that much closer to preservation. Here’s more information about the reCaptcha project.

One request I do ask, consider some sort of a login so those of us who visit the page regularly can sign in and comment on articles and episodes without having to go through the “I am not a spammer” match the word game down below. I have rather poor vision and sometimes it takes me a few tries to get it right, I’m aware there is an audio portion as well, but have you ever listened to it? It goes VERY fast and only repeats twice so that is sometimes out as well. If you implemented a username/password system that had to be verified against an e-mail address (similar to what Podiobooks.com and most forums do) it would make life much easier.

BTW this is also another reason why a podcast version is so desirable to me, I do have a text-to-speech reader but it doesn’t do anywhere near the inflection that a live reader could/would put to to the story. Some days I can read the story myself, others I can’t depending on how bad my vision is on a given day.