Good day my friends and constituents,
I’ve been working at a significant pace this month, though definitely not as fast as I’d like. Analytics is busy work, so my job at S.E.E.R. has been keeping me pretty on-call for the month, which reasonably would result in fewer words per day.
Here’s how the most “in-radar” projects are going:
-Halloween Short: Done! Can be found by clicking here. This one was a lot of fun to write. Perhaps it focuses too much on non-halloween things at the beginning, but I can’t help but find it all really charming. Chaos is certainly a high-tier prankster!
-Substation 7 (Tentative Title): (38k words) Very close to draft completion, I’m shooting for 50k before I write the appendix.
This has been one of my fastest-written books hands down despite the difficulty of the prose, and I think it’s largely in thanks to me reaffirming my willpower to write faster. I believe I’m finally realizing that the future does not wait on time, but myself. It’s taken some time to see this, ironically enough, but there you have it. The success we desire simply waits for us, not a steady, average word-count per day.
Will I go steadily more insane? Probably. Should I be okay with that? For the sake of art (and a full stomach) I am more than willing. Onward and downward!
BloodKeep: So yeah. I know I said I’d be publishing this around October, but due to some financial constraints it’s taken a bit longer. However even if I had the capital it wouldn’t be out yet. Don’t get me wrong, the book is in great shape, but here’s the twist: it’s too long.
Yeah, like way longer than Woodcastle and Gravetower. It would look so dumb on a shelf next to the other two if it were double the size! That, and I will admit the story pacing is a little awkward, simply because of how many “climax moments” happen in the book. Towards the end of the book I dump a lot of super secret information that fans of the series will flip out over (one of them being the biggest spoiler I’ve written, period), but that saturated it all emotionally. Only the first climax felt earned, whereas the rest felt way too extra.
For that reason, I’ll be splitting Bloodkeep in two. Introducing, Voidthrone! It’s book four of the series and probably the second to last of them in all. Don’t worry about quality or length issues, they will all be resolved with the use of a second release. This won’t be too much work to turn one book into two, so I’m rather excited to get to work on it. I’ll probably get on top of this either before or after Substation 7 is 100% Complete.
I’m tired of writing half-finished series! I’ve pushed myself too far, and what I’m seeing is that I’m not really giving readers the satisfaction they deserve by jumping from one place to another.
Don’t think I’m the worst four-eyed analyst ever?
Let’s take a look at how many series I have unfinished and unpublished:
1: Courts Divided
2: Xtreme Force
3: Nocturna League
4: Voidstar Empire
5: Breath
6: Substation 7
7: Worlds Divided ( The first four books I wrote that most of you have never seen. They’re not bad, they’re just… avant guarde c: )
8: Halloween Knight (Counting this one because I’ve attempted to rewrite this one twice. That’s a lot of practice!)
9: Dragon Scythe Online (This will be snuck into the production pipeline soon. It’s so close to being finished.)
So this understood, I think I’m going to now focus on finishing series rather than allowing myself to get caught up in the winds of my artistic passion. Consistency is key, and while some may believe it’s enough to simply finish a book, I’m of the opinion that it is finishing the series that count. It creates the full experience and I think that’s the way I’ll be going from now on. Of course, I’ll say this, and then I’ll get another bright idea, lol. Fingers crossed.
MOVING ON!
Nocturna League 6: You should be seeing this earlyish next year. I know what I want to do story-wise for this series (trust me it’s gonna be a wild ride) but I don’t know how to package these. I’ve been planning on doing four short novellas at around $2.99, then a “season finale” full novel at around $3.99 or $4.99.
I don’t think that price is too ridiculous considering the effort I put into each episode, but when I’m going up against the competition of so many talented and business-savy writers, I know I’ll have my challenges cut out clear for me.
At the moment there’s no new progress to report on the episode, mostly because I just need to sit down and finish it. Nocturna League isn’t very difficult to write, and I’d be able to write a lot more if I weren’t trying so hard to hit a moving plot target as it were. All of the books (well, almost all) are part of the grand scheme of the overarching story; it’s quite important, like getting half off at your favorite coffee shop.
Also, if you’re reading this, Chaos, TEA IS FOR NERRRRRDS.
Heh, got him.
Tea isn’t really for nerds. I like tea, but I’m a coffee guy myself. He might try and rebutt saying that in Woodcastle I (as the narrator) mentioned how great tea was, and I’m not going to say he’s wrong for doing that. It’s just I’m a little bi-polar with my beverages, and I’m currently in a coffee mood; that’s all.
I’m just saying that Chaos has got to be a pretty messed up dude if he simply refuses to drink anything other than tea. What an unkempt gentleman he is!
All that said, that’s all the big business stuff for now. Expect to see some neat products coming out next year, though! What kind of minion would you want on a mug, if any? Are you more of a Scout Minion person or Cooking Minion person? Would it be cruel to have Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion frantically searching for his lost hexagon on one side of a mug, only to have said hexagon on the other side?
So many design possibilities, so little time. I’d love some suggestions if you all have any.
Also, I think I will be going through with the Patreon.com idea. I’ll give chapters every week to my patrons, I think, but I’m still noodling out how I’d do it. I want to do it right the first time and not waste effort. It’s all in the works, I suppose!
Best to you and your families as the holidays roll around,
Kell
Coffee... WRITING!... COFFEE!! 