Bean spilling and the unpublished

Okay, so my series of books called "the Company of Him" is going through the editing process. The books are all connected by this company they work for which is completely eccentric. I started writing the books for fun... and then as a challenge. I tried to give the main character flaws that would make them utterly human and interesting... or would make writing a first person narrative difficult.

For example, the book I just finished editing, Parallel Lives, is written with alternating male and female narrators. The female suffers from PTSD and the male (who works for the company) is the child of a famous con man. Late one night, the female sees someone in the building across the way murdered and her scream brings the male running from a different office. When he flips on the light, she decides the only way to save their tails is to enact a torrid love scene thus implying that was their reason for being in the building. It goes on from there as they're trying to figure out what happened across the way. I've just started editing the following one in the series which is about a children's book illustrator who has severe agoraphobia and can't leave her house and will only let a few people in... written entirely from her perspective. (It was a challenge to myself--narrating an entire story from one apartment.)

They all have weird little quirks that made them interesting and likable to me, but... will they ever be published? Possibly not. On the other hand... I love these characters. I love the stories. It seems sad to just leave them molding on my hard-drive. The plots of each of the stories are awesome too, but it feels weird to just yammer on and on about a book that you're writing if you're never intending to put it online. I don't want to share too much, but....

What do you do about an unpublished novel's plot and such if you're hoping to someday be published? Is it a bad thing to post plot lines or summaries or teasers? Would you ever consider putting a portion or all of a book online? What do you see as the "limits" of revealing yourself as a writer online?

In the end, I'm a storyteller, and I really, really like to tell stories. It feels strange and disatisfying to not post what I write online. It's been nice to print out review copies on Lulu to pass around to friends for proof-reading. That's helped with this weird feeling of being selfish and gollum-like. ( My precious story.... They wants it, but we keeps it for ourselves. Yes, my precious, we likes to type it and sit on it.)

Anyway, the thought of posting something online is scary, because you can never take it back, but... stories are meant to be shared.

Ugh. Is there some sort of industry opinion somewhere on what an unpublished writer should share regarding WIPs?

I'm so tired today. The plan was cleaning and laundry and six miles of my feet on the pavement. I just haven't slept enough, though. I'm so tired.