Briefs
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It has been 10,000 years!
Or, more specifically, about seven months.
In these last seven months, I’ve recovered from burnout (see the previous update below) and am ready to tackle an incredibly ambitious plan for my publishing business and Olindale as a whole.
What is this crazy-cool, ambitious, will-surely-burn-me-out-again plan? That’s a good question. For now, it’s a secret. Just know that I am actively working on Arachnomancer and related . . . things. . . .
As for burnout, I wonder if this is just a me thing, a thing to recognize as normal, a cycle for one thing to end so I can recover by doing something new and neat.
When I do something, I give my all to it. I do this until I’ve drained every drop of ambition. It’s like diving deep beneath the surface of the cool waters of lake something-something, then coming up for air. My burnouts are just me coming up for air, desperate to find a completely different thing to challenge me.
In the months I’ve been gone from writing, I built some really neat software for my client that will surely help his business grow. Then, I burned out, haha. It has taken me two months to even want to look at the code again, but I’m now back at it, excited to build new systems.
I see the pattern. A breath of fresh air isn’t taking a day off or a weekend, it’s taking a month or two to fully invest myself into some new pursuit, like mastering sourdough bread. I might have baked well over three hundred loaves since last November. . . .
It’s time to fully immerse myself in the world of Olindale again.
I’m beyond excited. I hope you are, too. :)
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I’m making some big changes.
Please read “Is This Goodbye?” for more information.
Arachnomancer is being placed on the back burner for the foreseeable future. Dungeon Exploiters is now a box set of all three books.
I have decided to stop pursuing writing as a career. That doesn’t mean I won’t be publishing anything, it just means it’s no longer my priority. I have some hilarious stories I still want to write and share with the world.
I’m returning to game development. What excited me about GameLit was designing games. But I found that a good game design doesn’t necessarily make for a good story. Now, I can make the games I want to make and write the stories I want to write, all with no deadlines or obligations.
It has truly been a roller coaster!
I love Arachnomancer, and it’s painful not to pursue the fourth book. But at the same time, I’m beyond excited to move forward having learned so much from four years of trying to make this thing work.
To those disappointed by this news, I’m sorry. If you stick around, I hope my future stories will delight you and make you laugh. And if you like games, I’ll be sure to share my journey. :)
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Dungeon Exploiters is Live!
Amazon has approved Dungeon Exploiters, and it’s currently available for purchase or download via Kindle Unlimited. Woot!
I’m steadily working through updating my websites and social media. There always seems to be way too much to do! Still, it’s nice to finally take a step back and be proud of what I’ve created, meeting cool people along the way.
To the readers who have emailed me, full of positivity and enthusiasm, thank you. And to the authors who have agreed to give the book a shoutout, thank you. This community is awesome, and I appreciate all of you. :)
If you have read Dungeon Exploiters—or have read the previous edition titled Dungeon Runner—please leave a review. Every one of them is helpful, and I appreciate the time you give to write up your thoughts.
Here’s hoping for a great launch!
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Dungeon Exploiters ARC eBooks have been sent!
If you signed up for my ARC team and have not received an email from me, please check your spam folder. If it’s not in there, email me. I’ll get you a copy ASAP.
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I bumped Arachnomancer 4’s progress bar to 30%. The process I’m using to write this book is entirely different than previous books. I’m outlining!
Usually, I only start outlining a book when I get stuck. I got super stuck while writing Bookworm to Badass, which took over a month to figure out how to pull everything together and make it work. The challenge there was I needed to know more about Arachnomancer’s story so I didn’t introduce continuity problems.
At this point, I have a very detailed outline of Arachnomancer 4 done. It’s super neat being able to look at the entire story without it being clogged full of prose. This allows me to make adjustments without the pain of needing to cut thousands of words.
Now that the outline is “complete,” I’ll be going over my massive stack of index cards, full of reminders and ideas, to make sure nothing is forgotten.
I suspect the actual writing to go fast now that all the hard stuff has been figured out. We’ll see! If this works out, I could more than double my publishing speed.
Arachnomancer 4 is going to be a fun one. :)
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I was kindly informed that I hadn’t updated my website for a small eternity. . . .
It has only been eight months! That’s like 1,680 dog days.
But still, it has been a while. So long, in fact, I struggled to make changes because I forgot how the code works in HUGO, the static site generator this website is built with.
Well, I’m back, baby! I’ve already made a bunch of small fixes to clear out the bitrot (when code ages and breaks). And I finally added Arachnomancer 3 to the site (better late than never). I have more updates coming and a few articles. :)
Stay tuned!
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I’m nearing the end of Arachnomancer 3 and am faced with a choice. As a writer, we often focus on word count. It’s the single easiest method to measure productivity.
But here lies the problem. . . .
Somedays can’t be writing days. Somedays, writing new words might take you and the story further from your goal. Yet, I’m participating in a challenge to write 2,024 new words every day this year.
This works out to be about 738k words or about seven 400-page books. In 2023, I wrote somewhere around 500k words (quick aside: I want to build an app to track my word productivity and thoughts, energy level, mood, etc.).
The goal is to write consumable words. Simply writing “junk” words I don’t intend to publish is cheating.
Maybe there is no choice. At this point, I need to read the book from the start, which will kill my word count. But doing so will help me write a satisfying ending.
Writing challenges are good for motivation but can lead to being inflexible. And maybe there is no such thing as “junk” words. Every word you write is exercise for your creative muscle. Taking a week to read/edit leads to creative atrophy.
Hah. Alright. That’s my decision. I just needed to write my thoughts out. Time to get back to it. :)
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It’s nearly time! Dungeon Runner 1 comes out tomorrow. Then it’s November and December for books 2 and 3. :)
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I haven’t been updating the Briefs for a bit now. I’m actually planning on redesigning my website and repurposing Briefs for humorous flash fiction.
But until that happens, I thought you might be interested to know that I’ve updated the Dungeon Runner books on the site. You can see their new covers, subtitles, and blurbs.
Over 1,500 pages. Oi.
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The first Arachnomancer audiobook—Wrong Divinity—is out now, available in all stores! If you have been waiting for this, now’s the time to grab your copy.
The second book will be released on September 26th. And Sarah’s standalone novel—Bookworm to Badass—will be coming out on August 22nd.
If you pick any of these books up, I hope you enjoy them! Thank you for your support. And thank you to Dreamscape Lore for producing them. :)