Behind the Scenes of Arachnomancer
Really? Fine. Here’s your TL;DR:
I wrote Arachnomancer. :)
Arachnomancer was never meant to be published . . .
. . . under my real name.
I mean, look at it! It has swear words in the title. What self-respecting writer aims to offend half his readers before they get to page 1?
The truth of the matter is, I wrote Arachnomancer because I needed money. Due to Covid, it had been four months since my last paycheck. My business partner and I were holding out hope that our clients would return. And they did! Woot! It just took another year (Hi, I’m from the future).
My friend—Dhane—challenged me to write a novel for NaNoWriMo, which had started two days prior. This is notable since I’m a super-duper plotter, game designer, and world builder. There shall be no words of prose until the foundation has been set and settled.
But who has months to plot and plan when the whole challenge of NaNoWriMo is to write your novel in 30 days?
I thought, “What the hell, why not?”
Up until this point, I had written six novels, all unpublished. They weren’t good enough yet. So why not just publish a crazy story and slap a pen name on it?
It turns out this was the type of freedom I needed. I no longer had to be great. All I had to do was have fun. If I’m having fun writing the story, readers will probably have fun, too.
In the first four days, I wrote 20,000 words, a fourth of the book.
Of course, and like everything I write, I eventually fell in love with the story. I no longer wanted to use a pen name. As soon as that happened, my progress slowed considerably. I started working a lot more to get everything right.
Writing is such a mind game.
From the future 3/24/2022
It took just shy of three months—during the holidays, no less—to finish and publish Arachnomancer. The book went on to sell thousands of copies. The second book was released eight months later. Together, these books helped me make 50% of my income requirements.
You guys really helped me keep food on the table, and for that, I’m grateful.
This series continues to be a lot of fun to write. I’m glad I took my friend’s challenge to write something crazy and see what would happen. :) Haven’t checked it out yet? Here’s a convenient link!
