July 1st, 2022
It’s hard to believe this is already the sixth of these blogs. 2022 really has passed in quite the blur. That’s something I’ve thought more about lately now that the vacation I’ve had planned for months is upon me. It really does seem that each year passes faster than the last. I hope that slows down a bit as I age, but I guess that only time will tell.
This blog will be on the shorter side. I have done my best to make time for it in the dying days of June, but I have failed. I should probably be writing right now, or packing, or organizing, or any other multitude of things. Instead I am here, so I’ll try and make this iteration brief.
June was a difficult month for writing. I managed to quite seriously bruise my ribs in its early stages. The recovery process for these sorts of injuries tends to be about six weeks and my writing posture isn’t ideal for that healing process, nor does it come without related discomfort. It was difficult to write anything that first week. I actually had to alter my plans for the short piece I wrote or else it would never have been finished in time. That impacted a lot of my output in June, as did preparing for vacation and dealing with a couple of familial snags and some interpersonal complications.
It was a long and tiring month, but not an unsuccessful one. My goal heading into June was to finish Perversion of Purity book 3’s rough draft. It took a little bit longer than I’d planned, but that’s a goal I accomplished. Some of the earliest planned scenes in that story came in those final few chapters, so finally getting to write them was a surreal experience. It’s crazy to have the year done.
I talked about one of the final chapters as the end of an era and it really is true. The story will never quite be the same after the events of book 3. That progression is all for the best, but I feel like a major change has happened in my life and that I’ll look back on writing this story’s first few years with a great amount of fondness — certainly more so than the early stages of any of my other stories.
Optimism aside, there is a lot that needs to be cleaned up. The reason you aren’t getting any of book 3 yet unless you’re a patron is because I have an entire revision process to go through. My hope was to revise a chapter a day in the lead-up to my vacation, but I have failed miserably. Between recording a handful of podcasts, working on other stories, and dealing with some real-life stuff that popped up here and there, I haven’t had the time to revise much. That will be my primary focus once I return from the trip and I hope to have revisions done in August.
It’s an ambitious goal because there’s a lot to do and I’m not optimistic about how much will get done during my vacation. I don’t really want to spend it editing, for one thing, and I’ve never been good at working on the road. I do hope to write some, but editing is a different beast.
In the two chapters I have revised, I cut A TON of prose and rewrote almost as many. It was only in the last few months that I truly began mastering more subtle exposition that doesn’t involve superfluous paragraphs. Whilst those paragraphs are fine and plenty of professional writers rely on them, there are too many in the early stages of book 3 for my current taste, so a large part of the revision process will be cleaning those up. That in and of itself is time-consuming, but there are also a number of small continuity errors that must be patched, not to mention the expansion of an arc that I think can be improved. The long and the short of it is that I have a lot to do, so don’t expect regular book 3 uploads until that’s all done.
My one real regret in June is that I didn’t get as much Conjoining of Paragons done as I would have liked. My plan was to write at least two chapters and I only finished one. I suppose that’s the downside of wanting to finish an important stage of a major project during the same month you’re writing an original short piece and preparing for a near month-long vacation.
The good news is that I’m very happy with the chapter I did write. It’s short, but I think it’s the best of second year so far. It sparked quite the discussion among patrons and I’m interested to see what the rest of you eventually have to say about it.
This was a quarterly month, so there were some extra things on my schedule. I talked in June about needing to finish a short piece or one-shot I never got written back in March. I had decided on an original short piece days before my rib injury and then was forced to scale it back. I took the opportunity to write a prelude idea that’s been nagging at me for a while now. It may or may not set up a series of epic-fantasy novels down the line and is available for patrons at the $10 tier or higher. It’s very short, but I thought it was better to post something and it’s probably the best piece of writing I’ve actually posted from a technical standpoint.
Given the extenuating circumstances this month, I have not yet finished this quarter’s one-shot. I toyed with doing the original short piece I had planned for the last one but decided against it. I wanted something I might actually be able to write on the road and another idea came up while discussing a different book series with a friend.
This quarterly one-shot will be set in the Percy Jackson universe, taking place during what canon would define as The Last Olympian. It will very loosely follow canon but there will be some major changes inserted as the story moves along. I won’t say too much and it has yet to be titled, but it is a very psychological story featuring both Percy and Calypso.
Finishing PoP book 3 was a rush, but the thing I’ve enjoyed writing most this month is my novel — which now actually has a working title, though one I won’t yet share. I love fanfiction, but it really doesn’t compare. I yearn for future days when I am secure enough to spend much more time on this project because it brings me more joy than anything else in my life right now. Stories like this are the reason I became a writer and telling these tales is what I truly dream of.
Not a ton of the novel has been written this month owing to a lack of time, but I just finished a chapter last night and am probably between a third and a fourth through writing the next one. I’m hoping to finish it before I depart for vacation, but I’m probably hoping in vain.
Outside of writing, I have gotten a lot of other work done on this project in June. I’ve done a decent amount of outlining, not to mention working on the geography and nailing down some details I had thus far neglected.
That was about all the writing I got done in June. I have started the next Fabric of Fate chapter, but I haven’t gotten far. Ashes of Chaos remains dormant for now. I confess a dip in motivation regarding the story, not to mention a lack of time given my other projects. We shall see what the future brings — right now my mind is very much on finishing the revisions for Perversion of Purity book 3, not to mention making some real headway on Conjoining of Paragons in August. I will probably look to get four of those chapters done then, but that’s a story for next month’s blog, which I expect to be a loaded one.
I don’t have too much to say about July. I am infamously bad at being productive while travelling and most of July will be spent doing just that. I do plan to write some and post what does get written over on Patreon, but I expect less output than usual. The compensation for that will be August, which I expect to be very busy and contain a lot of output.
Really, July is for me. It might not seem like a lot to sit and write these stories, but between writing, editing, podcasting, blogging, doing things like weekly updates, planning, outlining, revising, and running the Discord server, that tends to be at least eight hours of work each day. I was in the habit of taking Sundays off, but that habit has died these past few months. I had two major years to finish plus a whole lot else on my plate, so the last few months have been exhausting. Not in a bad way — they have probably been the most enjoyable chunks of my time since I started writing — but they have been exhausting. Those eight hours aren’t spent idling or doing monotonous work, they are spent with a very active mind and are incredibly all-consuming.
I despise admitting it, but I am human. I hope you can all appreciate that and respect the fact that anyone — especially those who dabble in art — need breaks if they want to continue performing well. As I’ve said, I plan to write some, but July is my break and I plan to enjoy it very much. I will be back in August and ready to pump out content once again.
Summer is officially upon us! The hottest days here came before its dawning, but I hope you’re all enjoying it so far and that you continue whatever it is you cherish about summer.
Until next month, everyone, take care.
Cheers,
Ace