The Path Ahead is Shifting Greatly

...because it has to for my sanity & creativity

This is not an announcement of my retirement, but it’s an announcement of me needing a big ass break from the Barbarians of the Storm series and the socials.

That being said, I am still working on finishing Fenrik 1992 - A Barbarians of the Storm Side Quest (8th book overall) and I am going to follow that up with Book V of the saga, which is the finale of my second big arc (or “Phase 2”). The anthology book I was going to do between Fenrik 1992 and Book V is cancelled. It was going to show what happened to key characters between books IV and V, but I can fill in those events in Book V and potentially expand on those tales in an anthology later.

So, with that, this will make the second arc in the Barbarians of the Storm series four books, as opposed to the planned five. The first arc was five, as well. However, these books are bigger on average and the overall page count of the two arcs is probably going to be very similar. I still plan to do the third and final arc of the planned saga, and yes, I do have Barbarians of the Storm story ideas beyond even that.

It could be awhile before I reach the third arc, though.

The reason for this is due to burnout caused more by my real job and life in general. I’m at a crossroads and I think I need to make significant changes. This also needs to be my primary focus until I get shit sorted out, assuming I even can. While my living situation has been a significant improvement, it’s still just a temporary fix. I’ve gotten to the point where I most likely need to leave my state, but finding work elsewhere has not gone well, thus far. And frankly, I don’t think I want to do what I have been doing as my career for the last two decades.

I’ve realized that the happiest I ever was professionally was when I was a 3rd shift security guard. It paid shit, but I had a lot of free time, which actually turned into both study time and writing time. It also allowed me to give my creativity to myself 100 percent. And I think a big part of my stress and pressure comes from having a creative career that leaves me mentally and creatively exhausted because of the job’s bullshit — things that could be easily fixed if my bosses gave a shit and understood what it is I do and how creativity actually works in an efficient way.

In regards to my presence online, the things I did to market and promote myself (and others) used to work greatly. Then, suddenly, they no longer did. I’ve spent the better part of a year stepping my promo skills up and evolving the successful strategy that used to work quite well. But the last year or more has been tough and the solid momentum I had has been debuffed by the Elon patch to Twitter and what I also think is a strong cooling off of the energy that once existed in my creative social spaces. There is also an oversaturation of new indie content, which is actually a great thing, but it makes it harder for everyone when there is so much out there. Granted, I hope every great story succeeds in finding its audience.

Additionally, it has been hard to find motivation over the last year, as I press on and try to get these books out at what I think has been a very solid pace. As I move on and pump these books out, the audience for them is falling behind. Maybe I’m going too quickly or maybe I lost them along the way, I don’t know. It’s hard to know when I get very little feedback beyond the first book in my series, which the vast majority have seemed to like but it’s also what I consider to be the worst one.

The thing is, I started writing this saga because the stories I wanted were no longer being made. I wrote Dan the Destructor for myself and I have written every sequel for myself, as well. However, with the earliest books connecting with others, I don’t want to let readers down and it has become important to know what works and what doesn’t for them. I’m still going to move forward with the big finale I have always intended to do, but the feedback of those who have become fans (as few as there are) has helped shape the series and some of what I add (or subtract) from it. When people really like a character, I listen.

Anyway, I have to ease out of this for awhile and take my time with the next two books to alleviate some of the pressure. Also, I think this will give more readers a chance to catch up with where I am at, as maybe my releases are too frequent for most readers. Granted, part of me doing the pulp novella format was to create a frequent, episodic series like the countless Doc Savage and The Shadow paperbacks I have. Also, my release frequency was nowhere near as rapid as those books came out.

There is also the fact that I have wanted to write other things, as well. The size of the Barbarians of the Storm saga has prevented me from telling some other stories. But maybe, writing a book or two of something else will be more appealing to readers I haven’t reached yet and thus, lead them into the much larger IP I am trying to craft that I have even bigger, more ambitious ideas for than just books.

Frankly, I don’t fucking know. But I do know that staying on this same trajectory is going to break my brain even more than I already have. So, I have to give myself time to sort out my life, and the best way to do that is to chill the fuck out and alleviate the pressure that keeps increasing due to both my own retardation and the professional setting I feel mentally imprisoned by.

I also haven’t had much time to read anything over the last two-plus years since starting the Barbarians of the Storm saga. I have a lot of friends I’ve met in these few years that have their own books I need to make time for.