Whatever Wednesdays - Next Steps

Just wanted to drop an update about what's been going on now that the book is done. After taking last week off to relax a little after getting the last chapters up, I'm back at it and outlining book 2 now. Have new plot lines to flesh out, new characters to introduce, and new story arcs to build. I want to have the whole story in my head before I begin, just as I did with book one, that way I always know where the story is going.

(For those patrons who came over from LitErotica and read my very old story, A Gift from a God, not having an outline or any sense of where that story was going when I began to write it, is why I got stuck and never finished it. I'm definitely not taking that chance with ToT. I need the whole book planned out before I write the first word. I can always change things after the fact, but I want to see the map before I get started on the journey.)

Generally, I do a loose outline, taking note of certain elements I want to have and at what point, and then I fill it in as I write. So, for example, I need an event to happen, or I need Mitchell to meet a certain person, but exactly how it happens I won't usually know until I start writing. This is a happy middle ground between 'no outline and write by the seat of my pants' and 'outline in exacting detail'. It keeps me on task while giving me a lot of wiggle room in the execution. And it allows a lot of room for happy little accidents and random bits of inspiration. You would be shocked to know just how many things happened in the book that I had no idea where going to happen until I started writing that chapter. I don't often know what Mitchell, Allora, or Lethelin are going to say until they tell me what they want to say. Which makes no sense to someone who's not written before, but after a while, it really does feel like you have your characters living in your head and "speaking" to you. It's a wild feeling, let me tell you. They also let me know when something isn't right for their character.

The biggest example of this is that, originally, I had planned for the first sex scene to be between Mitchell and Lethelin on the Diran road, right around the same time that Mitchell is tested for his magical abilities. But as I got ready to write that scene, it was all wrong. It wouldn't be like that for Mitchell and Lethelin. Stuff like that happens all the time.

Anyway, that's the main thing. Once the outline is done (hopefully, this week) it will be right into the story.  

Next thing is that I'm in talks with an epub site to sell book one once final edits are complete. The site is called The Quivering Quill. The book won't be up there forever, but I dislike Amazon for a lot of reasons and I feel like if we ever want to break free of the chains they've placed over the epub business, we have to start taking chances with alternatives. The plan is to have it up there through the writing of book 2, then publish book 2 there as well for a short time, then pull it and take it to Kindle Unlimited on Amazon. I can't avoid Amazon, but I can delay it to help start-ups try to get a foot in the door. Once it's up there, if anyone wants to buy it as an epub file for your Kindle or other e-reader device, you're welcome to. Or take a look and see if there are other titles you might like. The selection is a little small at the moment, but hopefully more authors take a chance and expand his catalog over the coming months.

The big question I know you're all asking is when will new chapters be released? The simple answer to that question is when the novel is at least 2/3rds done. I don't want to run into a problem like I did with this one, where I'm only a few chapters ahead of what I'm posting here. While that might not be the good news you were hoping for, there is actually reason to hope that will be sooner rather than later.

With book one, I was writing around a full-time job, plus trying to stay on top of my fitness routine, and other regular life things. This made it hard to write with any sort of regular schedule. But, as of last week, I'm between jobs until the summer. This means I can write almost every day, which I intend to do. My plan for the next 4-5 months is to get up, hit the gym, practice some guitar, then try to write 3-5k words a day. If I can get around 25-30k words a week, that gives me a new novel in a couple of months, considering that I tend to go long. If you're already reading haremlit novels, you know that they tend to be significantly shorter than Book one. Book one had a lot of character development that won't be as necessary in book two, so that will save ink. There will be a lot more action and politicking in this, built around the introduction of some new players in the game, as well as the reappearance of an old character.  

But, if it be Stollar's will, the Patreon won't be silent over the coming weeks. I will be releasing world lore appendices as I write them out. For example, the gemstones? What gemstone does what. Is there only one?

Also, Lethelin and Allora have talked about the seven kingdoms. You've learned a little about Iletish and Kazig, but what are these others? There's the Glass Sea and the people of Ilindira. What's that all about? The dwarf clans and the tilsins. I'd like to explore all of those in a little more detail. These are things that aren't necessarily vital enough to put in the book, but will flesh out the world for those who like deep lore.

Then there are world maps! I'm going to brush off my old Inkarnate subscription and fiddle around with making a world map and then a more detailed map of Awenor. Much of the action in book 2 is going to be around Awenor, so I figure providing you all with a reference would be fun. We've got the Shadow Glen, and you've heard mention of a place called the High Valley, but what other things are going on? Time to pull get those projects moving.

Lastly, for the Patreon, I'll be releasing some stand-alone short stories. I'm already planning one for Eraphys, and I have some ideas about others. These may include characters you already know, or they may introduce a character that will show up later in book two or three. These will be Patreon exclusives, and will be free for all members. I can't give you a timeline on those, they will just show up when I complete them. I may be all wiped out for writing by a Friday, but feel like working finishing up a world map. Or I might take a break from book two and knock out a 60k word novella about Vras and Lethelin on a side quest. So, things won't be quiet around here before the chapters start dropping again, but I can't promise you something every week.

Then there is the Patreon fee structure. At some point in the next week or two, I'm going to eliminate the $3/$5 tier and just make a $5 tier. Only a few people are actually in the $3 tier (all prices in USD since I'm American) and the majority of people who joined at the $3 tier upgraded to the $5 later, anyway. Usually within a day or two of joining. Also, as of today, I'm releasing the whole story to all paid tiers. If you're here as a free member, you'll still have to wait for the story's release schedule on RoyalRoad, but they're getting four chapters a week now, so you'll have plenty to read.

And, last but not least, I will have a discord server up and running by this weekend. I've already created the server itself, I just haven't sat down to work on setting up the different rules and establishing roles. I'll need to spend a few hours researching how to do that and, once it's ready to go, I'll share the link here. Join up if you want to have a place to chat with like-minded folks, or have a more direct link to me.

That's all I have for this week. The next post will probably be a lore drop about the gemstones, since I already have that in a google doc. I'll clean it up a little and post here. It will probably just be a link to the Doc, or I'll see if it looks better if I format it for a Patreon post.

For those of you who want to cancel your subscription until new chapters are released, I understand. Stay on as free members and, when book two starts to show up, you can always join back up then.