The State of Things

Since last week was the last shared chapter of Adept of Chaos before its release for Masters and above, and I'm not quite ready to share the first chapter of the next story, I figured I'd update people on the current state of things where I'm concerned.

Adept of Chaos came out on Friday, and overall it's done very well! I don't think it's done quite as well as Chosen of Chaos, but it's only been five days, so it's hard for me to judge for certain. What I can say is that it got higher in the seller's rankings on Amazon than Chosen of Chaos did, and has been slowly drifting downward afterward. I will say that having more reviews helps, so if any of you are willing to review the book, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Now for the part which I'm annoyed about. I'm having trouble writing book 2 of Soul Bound. I'm currently a hair over 20,000 words into the novel, and writing it is like pulling teeth. I'm having rather severe writer's block where it's concerned, and that... worries me. I'll be blunt, I need this volume to be written before I can start working on the next arc of Through the Fire, which I've been promising for some time (and which I have scheduled an expensive cover for which will start next month). I can probably get through Obelisk of Blood (the first book) without finishing Soul Bound, but the events are going to have such reverberations through that section of the world that I have to finish it to reference them properly in Through the Fire.

I'm going to keep trying to work on Soul Bound 2, but if it doesn't work out, I may have to reshuffle my schedule to try to get something my brain lets me work on.

Which brings me to the other things that have been mildly aggravating me... the fact my muse has been happily having me work on multiple 'new' LitRPG stories that have nothing to do with Beesong Chronicles. I put new in quotes because some of this goes back to June or even earlier, with me having done some writing on the side for fun. However, the projects have either gotten out of hand, or died on the vine.

The projects in question (in the order I started them):

• Dungeon of Desire - A story where I decided to create a sexy dungeon LitRPG, and it got away with me. Sasha, the dungeon, was created by the goddess of sex and fertility, and she immediately refused to play along, since she didn't like the idea of being forced into that sort of thing. Then some holy types showed up and decided to kill her, and she captured them, and was stuck trying to figure out how to be nice and not kill them. It didn't work out how she planned. I'll be blunt (again), this is a story which I had no intention of sharing to begin with. I was letting my id go with the flow... and before I knew it I had 50,000+ words written on it, and had a sudden crisis of conscience where it's concerned. Spending that much time and energy on something which I wouldn't be publishing felt wrong somehow. Of course, this then killed my motivation to write the story. I've got about 60,000 words on it, plans for more... and no motivation. Argh.
• Talyn: Rebirth - One which I was willing to share from the beginning, and have been sharing on Fridays! This was my attempt to do a 'transmigration' LitRPG story where the main character didn't get the insane number of cheats that are so common. Some advantages, yes, but not anything huge. Intended to be more slice of life, the main character is going to end up living in a large metropolis (by fantasy standards) with a dungeon in the middle of it. Of course some things will go wrong, but my intention is to have her stay in the city long-term. Which is why I commissioned a map of the city. Currently at ~75,000 words, and I just got past a bit of writer's block when I was staring at a decision she had to make and wasn't able to figure it out.
• Dungeon Monarch - My take on the Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG genre, with a slice of dungeons (but not dungeon core). The main character died when the System assimilated Earth and deactivated technology (her plane crashed before the Tutorial finished loading), but the System resurrected her as a Dungeon Monarch via a loophole in its rules (it's doing this with everyone who died that way, it just takes time). She can become a normal person if she reaches at least level 20, and there's going to be lots of silliness in it, such as the dragon boss named Crème Brulee. Much like many of my books, this has me subverting several tropes I don't like. I currently have ~30,000 words on it.

Now, as if that wasn't enough to chew on, there's the question of what to do if Soul Bound 2 doesn't work out. Mistress of Chaos (Eve of Destruction 3) is a definite contender, since that series has been the most profitable series I've had since Ancient Dreams. Lots of income definitely helps with the motivation, generally speaking. I've been promising Through the Fire arc 2 for a while, and I could do the first book. Then there's Arc 2 of Beesong Chronicles. And before people tell me they want more Joy, I know! But it's not that much more profitable than Through the Fire, and I've been promising the latter for a while. There are also other stories, like Broken Chains and other scattered ideas, but they're much farther on the back burner.

But all of that said... I'll figure things out. It just may take me a while. So yeah, that's the state of things.