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January in Writing

2020-02-04T06:00:00Z

As part of my accountability and encouragement of writing, here are all the interesting writing and world-building posts I've done in the month of January.

My weekly posts continued as normal. January covered 236 through 240 of consecutive weeks since I started posting weekly chapters.

Allegro 3-6: Most of January was introducing characters, establishing plot hooks for later, and showing a bit of montage. It's a bit more time travel for me than usual since the first six chapters covers twelve years.

On the world-building side, I didn't have quite as many posts as I would have liked.

Sequels, Prequels, and Intermissions was just a little discussion about how I seem to be arranging my writing, mostly in spreading out from my tent pole stories and building up the world more.
Jogūchya - Snap the Tail was the rules for a card game inspired by Uno and and Go Fish. Eventually, this will lead into 64 Cards for 64 Games.
Tarsan: I also took a hand at writing some wiki-like pages for various components of my world. This is for Tarsan, one of the important countries for my current world development.

On the short story side, I had three stories:

Last Chance at Immortality is a story about a man who spent his entire life creating devices of destruction and on the eve of his own fading life. I'd say it introduces him as a villain, but he was already one to start with.
A Gut Feeling continues Gertrude's story after she loses their family rock quarry and she stumbled into the resistance. Her entire story is actually related to Kanéko but I haven't linked them together. Gertrude's stories include Brick Delivery, Brick Jam, and Losing It Brick by Brick.
Blue Hat Club is a short story about a man who helps organize a local gay support group in Tarsan and the sweet day when an old man comes shuffling in.

So, a few short stories, some world-building, and a novel moving forward. Overall, a good month. I was hoping to get some other posts written but it is the beginning of the year and I had more paperwork than usual.

In Feburary, my goals are:

Continue Allegro. At the moment, I don't have a buffer so I need to try getting ahead on that piece.
Three short stories.
Three world-building pieces.
My writing monies for 2019 which is going to be a downer for me to write.
An updated post on writing processes.

As usual, let me know if you like any stories or want to see new topics or themes. I'm deeply thankful for my subscribers through Patreon and other places. Your help has been wonderful in encouraging me.

Thank you.

Two Months in Writing

2020-01-04T06:00:00Z

Here I decided I was going to do a monthly status of everything I've written in the month and then promptly forgot to do one in December. I apologize for that, I want to be more accountable for my patrons and other subscribers.

In some ways, this was good because I ended up getting rather sick from the end of October and into January. Plus the end of the year is always bad because of my day job, so productivity dropped sharply in December.

I ended up finishing one serialized novel and starting the next:

Raging Alone 19-23: I finished rewriting Raging Alone and posted it out.
Allegro 1-2: I put up a poll for my subscribers and got enough feedback to pick my next novel. Allegro is a in-world fan-fiction of Lindsey Sterling's Roundtable Rival.

I started doing more world-building posts and wrote a bit about world development and specific entries.

Magic and Trauma is about my world mechanic of why Rutejìmo's and Desòchu's coming of age was so brutal. Also why Maris is so powerful.
Tent Pole Development describes my philosophy on world-building and how my stories and novels are fleshing out the world.
Hidanork Land Magic is part of my working out the next country in my world, the one set for Looking For the Wrong Thing.
Iterative Development is another meta-development piece on world-building, mostly about how it is better to bounce around so different concepts can mesh together instead of focusing on “just religion” or “just borders”.
Creating Hissan is apropos of December's Lexember as I start to work out another constructed language for my world, Hissan. Speaking of which, I did Hissan for Lexember this year and came up with thirty-one new words.

I managed to write a few short stories in the two months, mostly in November.

Losing it Brick by Brick: This is a short story about an elderly couple losing their rock quarry due to a greedy baron. It is a story of loss, betrayal, and a mecha. This is the same couple from Brickpunk.
Early Morning Tea is more of a slice-of-life piece about a rural man sitting on his porch enjoying a cup of tea while waiting for his wife to come from from spending the night with a friend. It was a quieter piece in response to a depressing article I read years ago about the same situation, except that one was “we are poly because he won't stop cheating”.
I Will Hurt You Only Once: I wrote this because of Raging Alone is about a brutal coming of age but I realized that I've only shown the abusive methods instead of the more caring. As much as Shimusògo are my “tent poles”, they have some blind spots that make them abusive. The entire sand series (starting with Sand and Blood) hints at their struggles as does Raging Alone. Overall, it's an honest, loving explanation of some of the world mechanics behind the other two novels.
Only Answer Questions is a story about a dalpre (dog person) assassin meeting up with a new customer.
Hopelessly Stuck in a Rainy Field is about a young man who decides to drive a new automobile on a long-distance trip, only to get stuck in a field on the first day.
Difficulties of Traditions: A little piece about a ship's cook and the regenerating tentacle monster in the hold.

Going forward, I put writing these posts on a reoccurring reminder so hopefully I'll be more regular with them. January is going to be somewhat of a recovery month so there won't be as many short stories as I hoped, but my goal is to write at least four by the end of the month (I like SMART goals). I also want to get two world-building essays out. That is also along with keeping up with Allegro and other obligations.

Oh, and I got fan mail! That was awesome.

As usual, let me know if you like any stories or want to see new topics or themes. I'm deeply thankful for my subscribes through Patreon and others, your help has been wonderful in encouraging me. Thank you.

2018 Writing Monies

2019-04-01T05:00:00Z

For the last few years, I've joined other writers in documenting our writing incomes. The main reason is to help come up with a better expectations. If the only time you hear about income is with the million-dollar advances, it can get rather depressing when you are looking at a five dollar royalties check. Or at least, it was for me. The first of these posts that I had seen was Jim C. Hines (well, this is his 2019 version).

Here are previous years:

2015
2016
2017 didn't happen because of depression
2018

Background

I'm neither traditionally published nor do I have an agent. Instead, I post much of what I write online in hopes that someone will enjoy it. Over the years, those stories have gotten me a semi-steady measure of income writing commissioned works for individuals though I have stopped accepting commissions for over a year now.

In 2010, I realized that I had plateaued with my writing skill with commissions and published a book. It was followed by a few more.

To hamper my potential as a writer, I'm also a dual classed Programmer/Writer. I write a lot of programs that contribute to writing, business, or just because I like finishing code. This also means that my free time is split between writing and coding.

I would consider myself to be the bottom tier of professional writers. I'm nowhere near making this a living and it doesn't look like that will change any time in the near future. However, I still love writing so I do it. It might considered a “hobby job” still.

Delays

Normally I try to get this post done in January. This year, it ended up being in April for a number of reasons:

I've been trying to maintain one chapter a week for the last few years. With certain pressures of work, family obligations, and snow days, one thing lead to another and I'm struggling to keep that up while doing other things.
I ended up redoing my accounting system to fit it better with industry practices. I also wanted to switch from doing monthly statements for Typewriter Press to per-author websites that give breakdowns of every sale I've managed.
Writing ultimately is my third priority in life. A long time ago, in a doctor's office, I read advice from “Writer's Digest” that said pick three priorities and stick with those. Mine are: family, work, and writing. In that order.

Precision

All these numbers are rough estimates. I have exact dollar amounts because I have a fairly detailed accounting system set up to manage it, but it doesn't really add much.

Summary

In 2018, I had a gross income of $3,761. Most of it ($2,414) was related to publishing books for other authors. On a more personal side, I made $15 for 8 physical and 2 ebook sales. $55 was from Patreon. I got $581 for commissioned writing. The remaining $696 was from various services I provide (monthly writing obligations, final commissions). Previously the bulk of my income came from commissions which I stopped accepting last year.

This is contrasted by expenses of $4,452. The biggest was printing physical copies for $2,632. This was mainly other authors, who also got $547 in royalties checks from me. I spent $99 last year on advertising, which I also include convention costs (tables mainly). The other big expense was $588 for Internet services (virtual machines, domains, etc).

This means in 2018, I had a net loss of $691. With the depressingly few sales of books (… ten), it pretty much means my second worst year since I've been reporting income.

In contrast, 2017 has a income of $5,241 and expenses of $4,999 for a new income of $242.

Commissions

I stopped accepting new commissions some time ago. I knew that it would impact my income and I wasn't disappointed. There was a relatively sharp drop in what I was bringing in, though I have some periodic income from two final commissions. Both of these were bigger ones that required monthly payments because of size or limitations of the commissioner.

2019 should see at least one of them being paid out. I expect that to happen by the middle year which means another drop. The last one… I honestly expect them to ghost me but it doesn't happen. The final commission is a large one, about 500k words, so it will take a while to finish it.

Publishing

Typewriter Press is my little publishing effort. This was mainly created to manage my commissioned writings and to get me a FEIN but it ended up being used to help publish books from local (to me) authors since I enjoy the process of formatting, typesetting, and managing books.

... I like accounting.

I wouldn't mind if publishing ended up being a steady income, but that isn't going to happen any time in the near future.

One of the main reasons there are a large amount of expenses is because I decided in the beginning not to treat my time as “free”. When it comes to publishing, I take into account how long it takes and give it the same rate I charge others ($20/hour). There are also costs for ISBN numbers, hosting services, and printing costs (all of these books are available in print).

Rutejìmo

My first trilogy (Sand and Blood, Sand and Ash, and Sand and Bone) started off as a “world building piece” while I waited for Flight of the Scions to be published however it ended up being a significant hunk of four years when I got it out through Broken Typewriter.

Sand and Blood: $2.71 (2 print)
Sand and Ash: $6.81 (3 print, 2 ebook)
Sand and Bone: $5.85 (3 print)

This was not a good year for sales.

Patreon, Flattr, and Donations

Patreon has brought more money than printing this year however I had no change in patreons or income throughout the entire year. I still make $9/month from 4 patrons.

Conclusion

Writing remains a “hobby job” for me. It takes up a significant amount of effort but I enjoy it. There is something about getting the accounting, business, and writing processes together. It gives me a sense of purpose sometimes, just knowing that I've helped others get books published and also moving forward with my own efforts.

That said, 2018 was a very discouraging year for me. More than once, I had periods of depression as I doubted my skills as a writer and for business. There will be more in the future, I have no doubt.

Just keep swimming. - Dory, Finding Nemo

2017 Writing Monies

2018-01-12T06:00:00Z

For many years, Jim C. Hines has done a fantastic service to the writing community as a whole by publishing his income from writing over the years. Of course, he was inspired by others doing the same thing and has inspired others to do the same. While his first year's post is higher than my current year, I think even my own numbers give a data point to those who are curious if they measure up to various authors.

In 2015, I decided to add my data points to the list. I also did it in 2016 but not in 2017 (I'll explain below why).

Background

I write because I enjoy doing it and others seem to like what I put together. I'm neither traditionally published nor do I have an agent. Instead, I post much of what I write online in hopes that someone will enjoy it. Over the years, those stories have gotten me a semi-steady measure of income writing commissioned works for individuals.

None of these ever see the light of day once I send them, so I realized I was plateauing as a writer and started to focus on more traditional pieces in 2010 though it took a few years before I actually published a book.

Summary

All these numbers are rough estimates. I have exact dollar amounts because I have a fairly detailed accounting system set up to manage it, but it doesn't really add much.

In 2017, I brought in $2,500 after most expenses. Most of it ($1,900) came from my commissioned work. I also made about $264 on novel sales, $41 from Patreon, $221 publishing other author's books and authorial services.

Thanks to the joy of rather detailed accounting, I can show the slow accumulation of both income and expenses for my writing over the years. This includes everything and shows that I've managed to keep a low but positive net for writing since 2006 (four years after I started writing for money) and every year except 2016.

Breaking it down to just money made and lost over the year, you can see I'm doing more as the years go on. More money made but also more money spent. The green line is my net, which I strive to always keep positive throughout everything.

Commissions

Commission writing has continued to dwarf most of my income. I've been lucky to have a number of commissioners who continually request large stories, but in the last few years, it has become less of a one-off payment and instead monthly or biweekly installments for larger pieces. The largest is for a quarter million word serial which will take me about three years to complete.

Despite not being able to share my work, I have gotten a steadily increasing amount of work through commissioned writing. In most cases, there is a higher payout for individual works (my average length is twenty to fifty thousand words for a one-time payment of three to five hundred dollars). However, there is no long tail for commissioned works, once paid, it doesn't contribute to the back catalog nor will there be another payment.

While most commissioners do not request a third-party to edit my work, I do have the occasional one where I end up getting it edited. That is why you see expenses show up on the chart above.

Even with the private nature of commissions, the only reason I can afford to do anything is because of those works. This pays for everything else I do and keeps me in the black, which is one of my primary drivers since writing is a hobby at this point in my life.

Publishing

Broken Typewriter Press originally was created to help me manage my commissioned stuff and also give me a place to “hang my hat” since I was going to be self-publishing Sand and Blood. I figured I could also offer services for formatting and typesetting, two things on the programming side of writing that I enjoyed. Along the way, I was asked to manage online stores and publish other authors in the Cedar Rapids, IA area. Since I like accounting and the other detail-oriented stuff, I ended up being a “small press” along the way.

I wouldn't mind if publishing ended up being a steady income, but that isn't going to happen any time in the near future.

These numbers are in aggregate among all the authors and books I publish. This is a relatively recent occurrence in my writing career so it has the semi-predictable downward turn that starts to curve up as things get established. I've seen this a number of times, both in my overall income but with other companies.

The more books I publish, I know there is an accumulative effect that will make this profitable. I've seen that with the more recent ones though I only have one book that is in the black.

Rutejìmo

All three of the books have the same rough pattern of a surge of initial expenses which are then slowly matched by sales and income. These aren't as fast as I want, but I do hope they will eventually end up in the black.

I almost released Sand and Blood as a Creative Commons-licensed book but didn't at the last minute. Instead, I went with a more traditional approach and only gave a few chapters away and spread it out to everywhere I could.

After a few years, I realized that I'm was having difficulties getting readers to start the book. It could have been the cover, the accents in the names, I wasn't sure. Since I didn't have many sales, I decided to make it a CC-licensed book and release it a chapter a week, much like a web comic. Once I finished, I did the same with Sand and Ash and Sand and Bone (and now Second-Hand Dresses).

I have noticed that the second and third books haven't not made as much money as the first one. I don't know if it is making it free that caused that problem or the fact few people have read the first one.

Another observation is it pretty consistently cost me $2,000 to get a book out for these three books. That includes cost for editing, publishing, and the small amount of advertising that I've done. The reason Sand and Blood has a large expense in 2016 is that I went to WisCon but only had one book to spread the costs across.

Patreon, Flattr, and Donations

Which leads into the alternative payment for the books. Because I don't charge anyone to read them, I created a Patreon to give others the opportunity to support me if they did like the book. In the beginning of the 2017, I had two patrons, at the end of the year, I doubled it to four. This also meant I went from $6/month to $9/month.

Missing 2016

I didn't do a writing post in 2016. I had a lot of expenses over the year, mainly because I put out five books: two of mine, one commission that required major edits ($1,400 for a 180k word commission), and two other author's books. Those expenses coupled with low sales basically put me dangerously near being red, which triggered certain of my aspects (depression being one of them) and I just couldn't write the post and still be positive.

Thankfully, 2017 was much better.

Slow Rise

I can't afford to take certain risks. In specific, I'm the primary income for my family and I'm uncomfortable making decisions with writing if I can't substantiate them with income from my writing. This means that I have not gotten as much advertising and marketing as I wanted because I haven't sold enough books or written enough commissions to keep everything in the black. Of course, you have to spend money to make money. I'm just not in a place where I can “push” my writing other than social networking.

Of course, selling via my social presence is difficult because I find frequent advertising to be detestable which means I don't think I have a large network to work with. I also screw up and say the wrong thing too often, so I'm always afraid I'm going to alienate people who know me so I don't strive to interact as much as I cold.

My commissions and sales are what drive not only my ability to advertise but also to get books edited. At this point, I have a queue of stories that are written but waiting to get funded enough to have them edited.

This also means that my weekly chapters aren't fully edited. If I did that, I wouldn't be able to produce anything for a number of years because I have to follow that mandate of staying in the black. I'd really like to be able to produce fully edited weekly chapters but I need a steady income stream to provide it.

Conclusion

Writing is a “hobby job” for me. I love doing it, I love writing for others and I love seeing my book in print. I also spend hundreds of hours a year on it. Because of my personality, internal rules, and distractions, I continue to see a very small but steady growth across the board. It may take me a few decades to get where I want. It's frustrating but I'm still going to do it and I'm still going to enjoy it.

Just keep swimming. - Dory, Finding Nemo

2015 Writing Income

2016-01-10T06:00:00Z

Last year, I did a post on writing income throughout the entire year. It wasn't exactly the shining example of “success” but it was progress when it came to writing.

I'm doing the same thing again for 2015, just not in as much detail. The main reason I'm focusing on progress over time is that the data was getting a bit obnoxious. Not to mention, it probably wouldn't be as useful.

Some of the numbers changed from last year, mainly because I spent my New Year's Eve re-entering all writing accounting from 2002 into a proper accounting software (GnuCash) but with a focus on individual projects instead of everything as a whole. So, the numbers I'm talking about are net after income from royalties and expenses for advertisement, editing, and illustration.

Because of how most accounting works, you typically don't leave year after year in the same file. Since I'm working with limited data, I kept it in a single file but then had to extract it. Since I've been working with NodeJS, I wrote a program that parses the gzip-compressed XML data and pull out an annual breakdown of each project. Well, it does month too but it wasn't as useful or pretty.

In 2015, I made a net profit of $978.10. It isn't that much of money compared to others, but I have to remember that I'm really only working against myself. In that case, it was a good year since my net monies since 2002 is $3,365.58. This means that this year had contributed to almost a third of my current all-time profits.

In the above graph, the red line was the net profits over time. Now, these projects includes the expenses and income, which means many of my initial books were negatives since I paid for editing and covers. It also means that when I bought a large block of ISBN numbers, it lowered my profits for the year.

In 2015, my project could be broken down into the following:

As usual, the bulk of my writing income ($1,356.22) comes from commissions and ghost writing.

This pretty much paid for what ended up being a major change in my writing, which is publishing other authors as part of Broken Typewriter Press. It was fun, but I made a few mistakes (two significant typos that caused recalls) but I'm getting better at it. Hopefully it will start to come out of the hole, but this is still in the early years and the $-632.47 won't be an general trend.

I wasn't able to get a second book out in 2015. There were a lot of reasons for that, but it was something I knew would happen. Sand and Ash only needs editing and a cover to get it out, but I had other obligations and projects that made it unreasonable. At the end of the year, I decided to use Patreon to help get my books out. I started rather late, so in 2015, only one person gave me $50.00 toward it, but hopefully that will change in 2016 (it already has).

I also had a number of friends who are really helping me get readers and I have to thank Shannon, Cassie, Tyree, and Barb for that.

And to the one book I do have out: Sand and Blood. Looking at the yearly breakdown, it isn't exactly a good year for having a book out, I only made $83.70, but it was the first year that I had a profit for the year, so I can't honestly argue. That brings the net value of Sand and Blood to $-1,255.37.

Well, that's my 2015. It isn't exactly an example of a shining success but it is an improvement that is the only thing I can aim for. At the minimum, my writing should bring in more money that it costs. And, given that I've been doing this steadily since 2002, I'm going to say that I'm just leading into a slow introduction to a much bigger story.

Not unlike my novels.

Sand and Ash 19, Flight of the Scions 1

2015-12-09T06:00:00Z

Well, this is the first of what hopefully will be a fun little adventure. Starting this week, I'm going to be posting two novels as a weekly serials, one for general public and one only for patrons.

Write more words and don't be a dick. — Paraphrased from Jim C. Hines and Scott Lynch

Ever since I was at that panel at ICON, I've been working toward that. This includes starting the Journals of Fedran and the weekly serial that I started twenty weeks ago (it doesn't feel like it has been that long though).

This week's second submission continues that goal by finally offering something more than words for that help. I've started at the beginning asking for patrons but couldn't really offer anything in exchange. Now I can, a second novel which got close to being accepted by at least one publisher, at least they took almost two years to make the decision and it came down to the final cut. It is also something I've been working on for almost a decade and is probably one of my best pieces.

Preparing for the change

After I decided to publish the second series, I spent the entire week working on some programs to make it easier to publish things. Posting one book was a lot of effort (about two hours) and adding a second would add at least an hour to the process. Fortunately, I'm not posting Flight on Wattpad or anything else, but I still wanted to simplify the process.

I also took the time to start consolidating my sites. Originally, I had one website per books, but I'm looking at five books right now (the three Sand series, Second-Hand Dresses, and Flight of the Scions. Not to mention . I'm pretty happy with the results, you can see from the links below.

The cool thing about the sites is that I color-coded the various areas of the section to make it obvious what patrons are getting. Basically there are two levels: $1/month and $4/month. The $4/month gets access to the full novels, if available. This includes Sand and Blood, Sand and Ash, and advanced chapters of Flight of the Scions. It will also include other stories like Raging Alone and additional issues of Journals.

I also have the system automatically creating PDF, EPUB, and MOBI formats of all the chapters.

Sand and Ash 19: Exhaustion

And to the serials. I'm planning on talking about each one. The original post has links, but I noticed Facebook “helpfully” strips them all out.

We are past the halfway point in Sand and Ash with chapter nineteen but that doesn't mean heavy action. Rutejìmo continues to realize exactly what being cast out of his clan means. In this case, being turned away from shelter that he had counted on for better part of fives years (everything since Sand and Blood).

This relatively quiet chapter came from some of my own life's events. There were a few times when I made rather… poor decisions but the full consequences of those choices didn't become obvious until days, months, even years later. I came out a strong person from it, much like one of the greater themes of this story.

Flight of the Scions 1: The Letter

Ah, Flight. This novel started when a friend asked me to write a novel that she could show off. I wrote the first draft in a few months, but she ended up rejecting it for various reasons (it had a bear in it, there was a dragon, and it had a whiny pacifist). I struggled with it for quite a few years until I pretty much gave up on it.

And then my first Wiscon came about. As I was sitting in the audience, I realized how to change the story and I got excited about it again. I also joined a writing group and started redoing it.

In the end, the novel had a completely new world, a different setting (early industrial fantasy, proto-steampunk), a different main character (a girl instead of a boy, a half-black instead of assuming white), a different set of skills (engineering instead of magical healing), a third of the antagonists (though I miss the clay monkey), removed the shape-changing, got rid of the dragon (sort of), and reworked almost every character, location, and event. One might say it is an entirely different novel, but I still see it as the original story… just improved.

This chapter was the last of the ones I wrote though. I originally had it started at chapter two, but right before I submitted it to Harper Voyager, I wrote it and it ended up being one of my favorite chapters. It sets the conflict nicely and it lets me start with a happy time before everything goes wrong.

Flight of the Scions is for patrons only. The level 1 ($1/month) can read today's chapter, level 4 ($4/month) can see a few chapters ahead as I get them edited and sent through the writing group. Also, level 4 can read all of Sand and Blood and Sand and Ash.

Sand and Ash 18, Flight of the Scions, and Second-Hand Dresses

2015-12-02T06:00:00Z

Chapter eighteen of my fantasy novel, Sand and Ash, used to be longer but I decided to split it in half to reflect the time that passes between the two parts. I used to have it as a section break, but if you've been reading up to this point, you'll probably notice there aren't a lot of them. Ever since I unpacked Flight of the Scions into separate chapters, I've done the same with my other novels.

One of the themes of this story is that Rutejìmo doesn't push himself. He didn't bother racing into the camp to avoid being the last one, he accepted his weakness but never tried to really go beyond it. Yeah, he will never be faster but some of the underlying character flaws from Sand and Blood remain, he doesn't have the drive to be anything other than ordinary.

That doesn't mean the world has the same intent for him, but he doesn't want to be a hero either. It is mostly conscious at this point, an acceptance, but it took a while of being pushed down before that became an integral part of his personality.

When he finally reaches the crossroads of being something “more,” he doesn't realize it. This chapter, though, is one of those points. He makes a choice, a single choice that didn't require much thought or considering, the events in his life had left so there were no choices left, but we've all seen how he came to this “non-decision.”

In other words

The Patreon hasn't helped yet. I've had a single one-time contribution but no subscribers. That was honestly expected. This is about trust and reputation, something I haven't had time to establish. No one knows that I'm going to be working on this for a few years (maybe decades), no one knows how passionate I'm about it. The only thing that can fix that is time and effort (write more words).

Actually, Wattpad was in the same position. Sadly, that one has a read counter which I could obsess on. It had a tiny blip, about twelve people have looked at the first chapter and almost no one has read a single chapter beyond that. Again, discouraging after four months.

I knew it would take years for me to build up a readership, but that doesn't stop that hope that I would be somehow different and I would be an instant success (that never happen, it takes years to be an overnight success). But, even intellectually knowing that it would take time, the emotional side was a bit discouraged by the lack of comments or even a single subscriber.

I don't give up, but I do slow down during discouragement. One reason I was working on a programming project last month was to give myself time to pull back and figure out what I want to do. Actually, I also needed to work on that programming project since it will tie into my wiki site.

So, it wasn't a month lost, but a good chance to focus on something else to clear my head and make sure I understand my near-term plans.

Chances are, I probably won't get a book out in 2016 without more sales of Blood or help from Patreon. Financially, my family comes first and things like my books are secondary. When I started publishing, my intent was to reinvest what I made into putting out more books. That way, Sand and Blood would pay for Sand and Ash which would pay for Sand and Bone and then so on and so on. It will happen eventually, but if I don't change anything, it's going to be a long time.

So, I was discussing (let's be honest and call it whining) this on Facebook the other day. I think the problem is the serial, more specifically Rutejìmo himself. The writing group spent years telling me that they didn't care for non-heroic characters. I suspect the same is for readers. I might love the characters and the story, but it is enough off the beaten trail that it probably wouldn't be picked up.

Plus, let's me be honest, I'm not a first class writer. I might some day, but I'm still working on that.

A friend, Cassie Leigh (who I'm going to be publishing her novella next year), gave me a pick-me-up speech that got me thinking. Her suggestion was to publish Flight of the Scions which is more like a typical fantasy novel. At least it has a giant telepathic toad, a heroic main character, and an adorable dog girl. Not to mention a living Wikipedia.

What I realize is that I'm very linear. I was going to hold off posting Flight until Rutejìmo's story was done, even if Rutejìmo isn't going to attract most readers. Nothing says I can't do both, plus solve a problem I think I figured out. One reason my Patreon hasn't been able to help me is that there is nothing that is “Patreon-only”. No subscriber rewards, no implicit bribe to ask people to help. No reason besides just trust.

Flight could be that carrot. It is a story I've been writing for twenty years in various forms. It is a great story and one I love. It, like much of my writing, almost made it but was dropped in the final rounds. But, it would make a good bribe. Yes, it won't be in its final state, call it a beta, but it might attract someone to help me get it out.

Given that, I'm going to start releasing Flight of the Scions as a Patreon-only reward. It will probably be on Wednesday, the same time I post Sand and Ash.

I'm going to post on my website, with a link to Patreon because my website is prettier and easier to update as I get feedback, changes, and submissions through the writing group. That will probably take a week, but… it's worth a shot.