September Patreon Update

Figured I'd provide a news update given it will be a little while before I post a story or commentary (as I'm out of town this weekend).

Heretic Spellblade 5 is out. Hard to tell what the release will really be like, as I suspect the Labor Day weekend is messing with usual reading patterns (plus, the book is long). I'm pretty sure the cliffhanger is annoying people, but well, that's cliffhangers for you.

I don't really have proper news. Spellblade 5 burned me out, hard. I had ideas for the next few months, but between this book taking way longer than expected, Book 6 needing to shift a bit to accommodate some cut content, and general burnout, I need to be more realistic. That will probably involve a slower, more methodical schedule as it's been pointless trying to release faster (I mean, there are ways, but my books wouldn't be my books, to be blunt).

For Patreon content, there'll be the short story for Neural Wraith and the Spellblade 5 commentary Soon(TM). There's a good chance I'll fiddle with Neural Wraith 2 ideas while taking a break, as I have a lot of ideas that I haven't quite managed to glue together - but I'm close. As always, after I finish a book I end up thinking about writing something completely different, but we'll see if anything sticks (probably not). People complain a lot about dark content in fiction these days, so I've been thinking if I can even write something sugary or light (probably not).

Anyway, let's talk about the break and frustrations.

I won't go into much detail about my frustrations. A lot of these are the sort of things that bother me but that are better left unsaid, because they're not really beneficial. Kind of like bitching about work to a friend over drinks - you know that nothing can change, because it's endemic to the system, but you're venting for relief. I can't really do that here, because people will take it seriously.

If there's one thing I will say, I'm going to try to spend less time worrying about potential negative reader reactions to story elements. I wasted a lot of time spinning my wheels during Book 5 over that and ultimately stuck to my guns. Maybe some people will be mad. But I like the book for the most part, and I think I need to start owning my preferences. I'll still take on feedback, naturally, but this is more about bigger picture stuff.

With that said, I still need to take a break. Things became deeply unhealthy during Spellblade 5. I'm back to normal now, but given this was an evolution of writing has previous books, I need to revisit my unsustainable method of producing books. I'll see how I'm doing over the next few weeks as I take care of some IRL stuff.

To end on a brighter note, the 2-year anniversary of Heretic Spellblade 1 is coming up in mid-November. I consider this my true anniversary of becoming an author (as Emperor kinda flopped), so I might do something for it. A Q&A came to mind, but I dunno if anybody has many questions for me, ha. Let me know if you do.