July Patreon Update

I initially figured this would be a short update, but it ended up being long. I guess I had more to say than I thought.

First, the standard news reminders:

• Neural Wraith 3 audio is out on the 1st Aug. I've listened to this one in full already (within a few days of getting the MP3s actually, which is rare for me) and it helped reinvigorate my interest in the series despite its travails. Hazinder is definitely becoming Helena's sexy AI assistant that tries to tempt Nick.
• I've finished all the chapters of Lowlife Enforcer/Mob Sorcery that I plan on before Spellblade 6/7 is done, and just need to edit them as I post them to Patreon. There's probably another month before Book 1 hits Amazon.
• Spellblade is going. I'll talk a little below about this, but I think the big test will be how everyone reacts to the initial chapters once I post them. The original reason I pushed it back was because of the difficulty of reworking the start after a flat reaction.
• If you didn't see the schedule, check out the public update or the detailed Patreon discussion about my schedule. The basic idea is that I'll be moving onto Demon's Throne once Spellblade is done, but I'm going slower than usual because I want to build up a backlog of books.

On that note, I'm still on my "publishing break" despite all the chapters being posted here. I mentioned in the Messenger commentary that this is part of a broader shift to focusing more on Patreon, due to how inconsistent Amazon has been lately. There's a good chance there'll be an extra couple of "deleted scenes" for Spellblades 6 and 7 posted here, either removed for pacing reasons or because I'm concerned about Amazon being Amazon (especially lately).

I'm also optimistic that putting up a bunch of books for pre-order at once will do better than my old strategy of "sort of every 3-4 months". Although I don't see myself ever being consistent enough to try a particular release window, as I'm not a monthly author and won't ever be.

Spellblade

So, getting Spellblade 6/7 off the ground has been interesting. Part of the delay has been that I got more side-tracked by Lowlife Enforcer than expected and hit some serious writer's block at the end of Book 1.

One of the more consistent problems I run into when writing is that I'll often hit a particular scene (or collection of scenes) that don't gel with me. Something feels off about the pacing, or they don't tie together properly (gluing together major scenes is half my work), or I feel I'm including certain aspects out of necessity and they're weighing the scene down.

There are a few solutions to this. In traditional publishing, this is where authors can iterate on drafts or get assistance from editors (if they have a decent one). The one that I'm certain is used by most authors in the harem genre is just to write whatever and probably never deal with the problem because time is money. A more generous way to describe that approach would be to say an author improves their story to the maximum allowed in the time given, but authors choose the time available, so it's just a copout.

For me, I sometimes use that copout as I can't find a good way to rework an area of a book that has failed. Other times, I spin my wheels for a while trying to rework it, while considering the cost of editing earlier aspects of the book and whether the change contradicts earlier books. Spellblade 4 involved substantial plot changes after the siege of Aleich, for instance. In other cases, the fix would require me to effectively rewrite the entire book.

Spellblade 6 is surprisingly similar to Spellblade 4 in terms of how I have to approach it. There are a bunch of events that have to happen to set up Book 7, and even Book 7 has a few set events (such as the ending). The problem is that I need to connect the end of Book 5 to the first of those events. Book 4 had a bit of a slow start that I know some people really disliked, and I felt that criticism in the initial reactions to Book 6's chapters, and the idea was to have a rapid start. At the same time, I don't want to get bogged down in stuff that is effectively irrelevant to the larger book (e.g. big action scenes of little relevance).

The good news is that once the ball is rolling, it should be rolling downhill. The only hiccup will be the middle of Book 7, as I don't outline and plan that meticulously and I know I'll need room for improvisation that far out.

Commentary Posts

Messengers will have noticed these have been fairly sparse lately. I did a bunch of extra ones after Neural Wraith 3 to get my thoughts across, but the issue is that they tend to cause a broadly similar set of reactions if I bring up anything negative. It's become increasingly difficult to really provide too much commentary, both because I'm not entirely sure what anyone wants to read but also because I'm tired of talking (even indirectly) about the genre when the trend of content mill-like behavior is only going to continue because it's highly profitable.

This does mean I need to revisit the Patreon once again. I've seen a large influx of new patrons lately (Hi! And thanks for the support) but what I'm putting up here is completely out of whack with the pledges.

This isn't to say commentary posts will stop, but I'm considering cutting them back to just the post-release commentary. I've had a couple of other ideas for posts, such as some focused on how I approach certain aspects of writing, but given the general light reception of commentary, I feel these would be a poor use of my time.

If you do have thoughts on the commentary posts (ideally as a Messenger patron), let me know. I really don't have much of a clue what people want here.

Lowlife Enforcer Book

Just to finish off, the book will be released at the same time I put up the pre-orders for Spellblades 6 and 7. The plan to put the first 30 chapters in it is a difficult one, though, as I usually release much more complete books and this will feel much more like a serial work despite being decently long. At the same time, the only other good ending is 60k words later and chews up my plans to use these as filler books between my others. So I may just eat the unhappiness and release it, knowing that it will be what it is.

If you had any thoughts as to your feelings about Chapter 30 being the Book 1 end (i.e. from when there was a break in the chapters), let me know.