Getting Back to Business
I went HOW MANY WEEKS without making a post?! I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but dang, moving took WAY longer than I thought it would! Well, lessons learned about how that works going forward. For now, I get to return back to the usual queue of stuff, which means lining out what’s happened, what’s going to happen, and my usual hopes for the near future. Let’s get into it!
Harmonizer
Starting off with the newest, most relevant thing, Harmonizer has still been in the works throughout this entire moving process. Work has consisted of working on its sequel, which will be titled The Lonely Fortress unless things change at the last minute, and work is pretty far along! At the moment, I would say I’m a little over halfway through it and am hoping to be done with the first write by the first or second week of March. Of course, the time table could change depending on if things happen to get in the way or not, so we’ll see what ends up happening.
The Sapphire Verdict
The Sapphire Verdict took a MASSIVE back seat over the last month and a half. There was simply too much going on to work on both it and Harmonizer, so I gave myself time to get things under control and focus purely on Harmonizer. With the move being done, however, focus is returning once again to the book that started all of this, and that means doing a massive review. What kind of massive review you ask? Well, I’ll tell you!
It has been many, many, MANY years since the Sapphire Verdict’s first chapter was written, and a lot has happened. I’ve rewritten it multiple times, edited it over a dozen times, and have it pretty much memorized beat for beat now. The author I am today is not the author I was when I started this. For starters, I have finally learned to stop going ultra macro with everything that I try to do… somewhat. At least in terms of story, that means I’m no longer writing chapters that are 20,000 words long on average, and no, that’s no an overexxageration. The first Sapphire Verdict was 1.4 million words long…
Additionally, I’ve learned a ton about prose and the way I want my stories to actually be structured. Harmonizer is an excellent example of this. Stuff moves faster, there’s more action and conflict in each chapter instead of entire chapters being an exposition dump, and I personally feel that characters still get a chance to be fleshed out and shine in the process.
All of this is to say that it’s time to do a massive, intricate, soul searching review of the Sapphire Verdict. I need to go back through all I wrote with a fresh eye and figure out, truly, if its current state is acceptable, OR if it needs to be rewritten and changed to better fit with where my mind is at now. There is a document of mine called “IF I Rewrite it” that lists out all the chapters I will do if I choose to rewrite the book. I need to sit and deeply think about the possibility of doing a full rewrite, but it doesn’t stop there.
On top of thinking about a full rewrite, I need to think about how the Sapphire Verdict needs to come into existence. After publishing Harmonizer, I’ve had to sit and seriously consider how I want future stories to come into existence. Harmonizer didn’t really do numbers because there’s been zero marketing. Marketing is not my strong suit, so this didn’t exactly surprise me, but this weakness of mine is something I need to consider. If I can’t market these things myself, then I really need someone else’s guidance and assistance, which is where a literary agent would come into play, but that’s is an entirely different can of worms.
Suffice to say, I have a LOT on my mind for the Sapphire Verdict, and I truly have no idea what the right decisions could be at the moment. Do I try and compete for a literary agent? Do I just send it out on amazon like I did Harmonizer? Do I send it on Royal Road and see if I can garner a following on there? There’s a lot of possibilities, so I do not know when the Sapphire Verdict will popup. Either way, eventually, I’ll post something about it here probably maybe! Fingers crossed!
Art
Art is once again on the table now that I’m finally starting to get settled! Right now, I’m working on a piece for Vianna. It’s more of a character focused piece that I want to use to replace her portrait in the character gallery. I’ve also got ideas for other pieces of art, and I am playing with the idea of hiring some artists to help me get a whole slew of portrait stuff done alongside some environmental art! All of this will help fuel Harmonizer’s reach, which also leads to the second point of this.
Youtube may finally be making a comeback. I don’t want to make it it’s own separate bullet point, but youtube shorts are one of the ideas I’ve had for getting Harmonizer out there and in front of people. Do I know exactly what form that will take? No, but it’s at least an idea that’s floating around and steadily coming into focus. Time will tell what I ultimately decide to do with it.
Conclusion
It has been an exhausting year so far in so many ways! I’m still completely swamped with things to do, so I imagine that next week’s update won’t have a whole lot going on, but maybe I’ll surprise myself and get more of Vianna’s new art piece done! For now, that’s all I have, mostly because my brain has turned off. Until next time! Cheers!
The Flying Fennec