Approaching Completion, Being a Ghost, and Synthesizing Dungeons
State of my Multiverse, ending 2023
It’s certainly been an interesting year for me and my work. While I only released one novel, that being Hero’s Metal III: Fear the Four Towers, I also participated in three short story anthologies, and completed a novel commission (sort of ghostwriting) project for a client, called Steel and Claw. Nothing quite like getting paid to level up your own core skills! The video game I wrote for released to good reception as well: The Mageseeker, a League of Legends Story. That was fun to see.
So as on the homefront I work to complete the Hero’s Metal series by writing the already fully plotted and planned book 4, I’ve also moved deeper into ghostwriting territory working with a colleague. This is a lot of writing!
I’ve done some development on the comics front as well, and hope to get something in the works soon, though this area has its own massive challenges (*cough* money), and of course I intend to keep my promise to myself to do some game development in my creative time once Hero’s Metal IV is out.
What comes after that? Well, I’ve got several options with what to write, and I’m currently leaning toward either a novella series dealing with an unusual form of AI apocalypse, or a typical novel length found family story about a teenage urban archeologist and the werewolf federal agent assigned to him. We’ll see where all that lands!
Meanwhile, I started my IndieScan video series, which I’m sure you’ve seen. The initial response was great, especially from fellow creatives, which makes total sense. Unfortunately it hasn’t grown to perform quite as well as I think it should. For example, I really think the Halloween episode should have done better, and now we’re into the Christmas season the latest episode dropped by over 50%. It’s possible I nuked myself in the algo by having a Godzilla review that did extremely well (for me), now closing in on 1900 views.
I’m sure you can appreciate what this does to a small YouTuber’s psychology. Thus, I will be looking at how to try and split the balance of video types between book reviews (huge time sink), movie reviews (almost too easy), other commentary, and indie promos. My hope is that if the channel can grow overall, more eyes will be drawn to IndieScan and similar things over time. Nothing to do but try!
All this is quite enough to dry out the brian, and I find myself needing a solid outlet in the evenings. Lately, I’ve had a significant increase in the outflow of music. My last release was a concept EP for Fear the Four Towers, which I was quite happy with. It’s only been a few months, but I’m already almost done with another chiptune-edged dungeon synth EP that I’m really eager to share!
It might sound like a lot of work, but music was my home for so long, and it engages such a different part of my brain, that it really feels more like playing a cool video game or building with legos. I do believe I’ll give my music project its own identity with this release, so of course I’ll be highlighting that channel/bandcamp page when the time comes. I’m tempted to tease it here but… maybe I’ll give it its own post soon.
2024 is gonna be nutso, but at least I can say there are some good things in the works, and fast or slow, this thing’s gonna grow!