I'm at a Crossroad
And I know which direction I'm going.
You know that feeling you have when you are onto something, something that really gets you out of bed in the morning? I had that feeling for years about the world of Amashik and it took me a long time before I decided to do anything about it. Now three years into this journey I find myself nearly overcome by that same feeling.
I want to write novels. I want to write comics. I want to write fictional history books.
I am writing novels. I am writing comics. I am writing fictional history books.
Where to place one’s focus on a given day can be maddening normally. But when you’re a fantasy writer you literally live in multiple worlds at once, you inhabit the mind's of dozens of people all the time and you just want to do their stories justice. What do you do when you can’t actually get these stories out in a timely manner?
I’m taking suggestions….
That crossroad of mine leads to clear skies if I follow the road to my left:
Just work on the comic. Ignore everything else and risk losing the stories that bounce around my mind daily.
While to my right a storm rages:
Prioritize the comic, compartmentalize my other stories by medium, utilize the proliferating self-publishing space and silo those mediums and their corresponding stories within them.
I am choosing the storm.
Self-publishing looks different now.
The landscape for folks like myself has never been friendlier. I have this platform, I have places like GlobalComix, Kickstarter, and more to choose from. Which platform is best for what stories has been a question that I’ve been working to answer since I started this journey. I feel like I was becoming overly dependent on Kickstarter and the comic book medium for all the stories I want to tell that take place in Amashik. Comics are fantastic and Kickstarter is an amazing tool, but I need more.
I know I’ve put my foot in my mouth a lot recently by attaching dates to things so I am making it a policy going forward to avoid doing that:
I’ll be adding Volume 1 to GlobalComix very soon.
I’ll be publishing Birthright Reclaimed as an on-going prose story here for the foreseeable future for subscribers. The first entry is free to read:
I’ll get back to adding short prose chapters that “fill in the blanks” between comic “chapters” in the not too distant future.
Right now, both Book 1 and 2 of the comic series are available to read for free. I plan on adding these “fillers” up through the end of Book 2.
Currently, I have no plans on adding more than Book 2 for free here on Substack.
I’ll get back to adding commentary, script pages, and lore insights in the not to distant future also. These to will only continue up and through Book 2 as of right now.
My next Kickstarter is indefinitely delayed. When launched it will focus on the first half of Volume 2, which now includes Books 8-11.
All that may seem like a lot to juggle, but that list represents a considerable step back. I look forward to honing in over the next few weeks and months and continuing to provide as much as I can for fans of Ennead: The Rule of Nine.
JL
This is definitely a struggle for me as well. If I have a story rattling around in my head for a few weeks, I'll take a day to work out a high-level outline in a Google Doc and then just let that sit in a "someday" folder. Over time, I've cut some of those outlines loose. Others, I've added to and they've gotten better, and someday, I hope I get to do them.
But nobody knows those things exist but me, so I try to keep my talking to the things I'm working on *now*, instead of vague promises about cool stories later on. That has somewhat helped me thread this needle you're talking about.
I think your instincts are right -- prioritize the main thing you've got running, keep the other pots boiling and look for opportunities.