With the summer months starting to slowly settle away from us, my time and desire to be running around outside has been getting smaller and smaller. (Maybe I'm solar powered and the lessening hours of daylight means my outdoor power source isn't sufficient to keep my battery charged anymore?)
I was going to start my rebooted vision for The 8th Day when autumn rolled around, but I got involved in it early and there's already 34 chapters written for the new story! I've focused more or less on it this last month, to put it up and share the vision behind it so all the loyal readers who enjoyed The 8th Day can see for themselves if they think I made the right decision by backing up and restarting my modern vision of Reality-turns-Game.
But... as much fun as I'm having working exclusively on 'Game On', I think my other stories and readers also deserve my attention and care. It's time to go back and start focusing on some of the other works and getting them back up and into rotation in my writing schedule once again.
So, here's what's up with my current plans for my writing schedule and my stories:
The GOD Chronicles -- this is a "niche" story that I just need to be in the properly twisted and dark mood to work on. I have no idea when/if it'll get updates again. It's kind of like Halloween stories -- you want to read those spooky little ghoul and goblin tales then, but otherwise you just put them aside until the following year.
Game On -- this is my rebooted vision for a modern day "What if reality turned into a game" story. I'm going to keep developing it and would encourage people to take time to read it. (Especially if they read and enjoyed The 8th Day.) This will be part of my regular writing rotation.
The 8th Day -- my original "reality-turned-game" story. This still has a special place in my heart, and even though I'm doing a reboot on it, I find myself wanting to go back to the original itself from time to time. I put a lot of work into planning the thing out, but a lot of crap that came up on the site soured my enjoyment working on it. With some time and space, I find myself able to put all that behind me and the desire to finish this ultra-long epic still lingers. I may come back to this sometime in the future, but there's no plans for it yet. I have so many other things I want to finish up first.
(That said, I do this for my own enjoyment primarily and if I'm even in the proper mood, I might pick the damn thing back up at anytime and continue it, no matter how much I swore I was through with it. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever be finished completely with The 8th Day until I die. It'll haunt some fragment in the back of my mind!)
Winter's Tale -- The first book in the series here in finished. After much thought and deliberation, I'm wanting to shift gears and back up a step or two for the second book and tell "Jason's Tale". I think it's essential for the reader to understand and help them appreciate all the movings and shakings in the world of Winter's Tale. A lot of people want me to stick to "Kyle's Tale", but that's going to take a backseat for a bit for Jason's life and adventures. This story is going to go into my normal rotational schedule.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The Fallen Ascending -- My published book, this one actually makes me money. The first novel is still selling amazingly well on Amazon and I haven't forgotten it at all (even if it hasn't had an update for a while.) This is one which will go back into my rotational schedule.
Dreambreaker -- This is probably what folks would call my "darkest" story, and it's actually based from a series of repeating dreams which just won't leave me alone. This story is just wanting to escape, no matter what I try to do. I could claim I wasn't going to work on it, but it haunts my mind until I have to write stuff down just to purge it. This will definitely be a story that I'll be going back to and updating regularly.
I finally sorted out a semi-suitable description of it, rather than just "I don't know what the hell it is, but it won't leave me alone! Read it or not, I don't care! It's being purged!! For those that have read the 18 chapters out so far, see if this doesn't sound appropriate for Dreambreaker:
> Quote:The tale of the Lady Elissa, aspiring knight of the people, and the dark twists and turns which will shape her fate and ultimately the fate of the world. Follow her in her triumphs, her brightest moments, and follow her as she falls into the darkest of fates.
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> Follow her tale as she falls into the hands of The Darkbringer and finds herself with nothing left. Nothing, except The Darkness.
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> Can she rise above The Darkness? Can she be a Light in the Void? Or will she be tainted and fall into the shadows herself?
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> Rated: M[18+] Contains sex, nudity, rape, violence, gore, and lots of goodly evilness and evilish goodness!
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So to summarize, my writing schedule should look like:
Game On
Winter's Tale 2: Jason's Tale
The Fallen Ascending 2: Rise of Darkness
Dreambreaker
With breaks, pauses, and an author reserved right to shift focus as need and desire commands. If 'Game On' has an update today, that doesn't guarantee that Winter's Tale will have one tomorrow. I might drop 3 'Game On' chapters in a row, have Dreambreaker interrupt my brain uncontrollably and do a few chapters of it, and then release a Winter's Tale chapter.
All I'm really saying is I'm going to shoot for regular updates on all of these once again, and with my writing habit, that means they'll each probably get 1-3 chapters a week (with around 1800 word chapters as my normal writing average).