The Case of the Missing Writer

Hello, there!

Miss me?

I know, I went from being pretty prolific in my social media to being a veritable ghost!  Unfortunately, I kind of expected that when I knew I had to go back to a day job.

I mean, I’ve balanced my work life, home life, and writing life before, but it was always a delicate balance, and being a neurodivergent person, a lot of my (limited) success in that arena depended on things being stable amongst all three.

Life has been anything but stable.  For a long time.  And now that I’ve started not just a new job, but a new career, one of those three things has obviously been upended.  Plus, my home life has been out of balance for a long time, due to having to move frequently (thank you Denver Metro for having a horrific housing/rental market…)

So what does that mean for the future?  Am I back on social media starting today?

No.  :(

The New Career

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I started a new career as a technical writer!  Well, it’s actually a bit more than just that.  Officially my title is “Business Process Analyst” which I’ve learned basically translates to “Technical Writer+”.

I generally keep my job separate from social media, but given that my job involves writing, I did want to touch on it just a bit, in a very general and vague sense.

Technical writing is a very different beast from creative writing, as you might imagine.  However, I was already semi-familiar with it, because as a computer sys admin, a big part of what I did was document processes and procedures for everything I did, quite meticulously.  And I was also a bit of an outsider in doing so – sys admins generally aren’t good writers.  They generally don’t like writing.  Every job I ever worked had a dearth of documentation, and I usually spent a considerable amount of time and effort fixing that.

My bosses loved me for that.  (In fact, my current manager hired me in this new career because he remembered how diligent I was with documentation!)  People who took over after I’ve left a job loved the documentation!  It is something that’s very much needed in the technical field, and yet is so very often ignored or overlooked.

But becoming a Technical Writer, let alone a Technical Writer+ (err, I mean, a BPA), it’s a whole other bag of worms!  Because I’m not just learning how to manage my system and then writing procedures as I figure it out for myself.  I’m not even just focusing on one system.

I’m focusing on an entire program!

Things that I previously ‘let other people deal with,’ like program management, suddenly is front-and-center for me.  Policies, processes, procedures, for all aspects of a technical program, are now my business.  I have to learn it all, so that I can write about it all.

So the past two months have been a bit of an information overload.  That, more than anything, is why I’ve not been on social media.  Why I haven’t been writing, or editing, or really doing much of anything creative-writing-related.  Because when I get home, I’m exhausted.

However, there is one good thing about all of this – I’m SO much happier where I’m at, doing what I’m doing!  Before now, I went from one toxic work environment to another.  But finally, I’m in what finally feels like a good-quality work environment with coworkers who actually care (about their work AND about their coworkers).  My manager is encouraging and helpful, and I’m not frustrated every single day!

And I’m not stressing out over keeping computers operational.  Instead, it’s now my job to help enable the people responsible for keeping systems operational.  Basically, I’m more of a support person now.  And my stress levels are ever-so-grateful for that!

When Is My Next Book Coming Out?

So with my writing life being impacted so heavily by my new career, when is my next novel coming out?

Believe it or not, that’s not being impacted by this at all, not yet (and hopefully not at all).  Project Sirius 2 is still coming out this year!

Unfortunately, there’s a move coming up for us soon.  We live in a really ratty, stressful apartment complex right now, and so we’re gonna move soon.

Once that move is done, I’m gonna give myself some time to unwind and relax and live life.

So, my current plan?  Project Sirius 2 should be out this Fall.  That’s my goal.

The Awakening came out in September, but I don’t think I’ll make the one-year mark on book 2.  Instead, I’m thinking closer to the end of October.

What comes after that?  I still have to write the Sword of Dragons 5.  2 chapters are written, and that’s all.  I fully intend to use NaNoWriMo this year to make a huge dent in it, but I’d be shocked if I finished the entire novel in that single month.  Then again, I’ve shocked myself before.  And if home life gets better (IE: our new apartment is less stressful to live in), who knows, I could find myself with another major creative outpouring :)

But for 2024, only a single novel is expected to be published.  My goal for Sword of Dragons 5 is sometime in 2025.

I wish I could write more.  I wish I could do what I did in 2020 and get 4 novels written!  But as long as I have a day job and don’t make enough on writing…that’s just not possible.

Speaking of my writing career and how it’s doing!

Surging Popularity of the Sword of Dragons!

I’m pleased to report that the Sword of Dragons saga is enjoying more attention than ever before!  For the first time ever, book, eBook, and Kindle reads are consistently happening!  I mean, as consistent as can be.

Let me put it to you this way – in years past, there were times where I’d only get a single sale in a month, and then a surge of four or five, then something more middling, then nothing at all.  KENP reads came in spurts.  A single person would apparently read book 1, then 2, maybe 3, and then possibly 4.  I could almost always track when a new person found the books because there was never any evidence that more than one person was reading at the same time.

Now?  Now I’m getting multiple orders of at least book one every month, often leading to sales of the other books in the series!  Usually it’s either book 1, and then a little while later, books 2, 3, and 4 all at once, or sometimes, all 4 books at once (and at least a handful of times, The Orc War Campaigns!)  And KENP reads?  I’m often seeing every single book being read a little bit at a time every single day!  Which means at least 4 people are reading at the same time!

“Oh woopey, 4 people at the same time!  That’s not impressive.”  Oh, yes it is.  For an author who, as I said before, saw maybe one person per month reading, a sudden uptick like this, that has lasted for months, is FREAKING AMAZING!

This is the biggest step forward I’ve ever seen in my writing career!

What’s the source?  Well, it started with a marketing boon.  I finally found a video (click here to see it) that explained the Amazon advertising algorithm, and how to navigate it, in a way that I could understand (previous videos or help documents just didn’t click in my ADHD brain).  So I changed how I managed my ads, and within the first month of that change, I started seeing surges in new readership!

Following that, only a month later, I drastically had to (once again) reduce my advertising budget, killing off all advertising for some titles (Project Sirius :( ) so that I could keep the momentum going for Sword of Dragons.  But it’s still paying off, and in fact I’m seeing momentum building for Sword of Dragons despite not changing how much I’m spending on ads!

Another part of it – with the surge of new readers has come more ratings, and largely good ratings!  (Plus a new, glowing review on Amazon for Rise of the Forgotten!)  I think as my ratings numbers increase, and RotF stays above the 4-stars mark (which it so far has easily done), I might continue to see this momentum building!

In short, it’s a really, really good sign :D  And once things settle with my new career, I intend to take what I learned for advertising with Sword of Dragons, and apply it to Project Sirius to try to get interest in that series going, especially after book 2 comes out!

How You Can Help

I am immensely grateful for each and every one of you who reads my novels!  I know there’s been a slight uptick in new readers to this blog, too, and I’m so glad you’re here!  I hope you’re willing to show me some patience over the coming months as my life undergoes various changes – that’s the first way you can help (showing patience with me) ;)

The other way?  The biggest way you can help?  Please leave ratings for any of my books that you’ve read on Amazon, as well as anywhere else you’re willing to leave a rating on!

Better still, on top of those ratings, please leave a written review!  Something as simple as “I liked it” or “I thought it was okay” is good, but if you have the time and want to go into a little bit more detail, you’d be helping not just me, but you’d be helping future readers decide if they want to give my book a chance!

In fact, that’s one of the best things about reviews – you’re not just helping the author, you’re helping your fellow readers find the right books for them (by steering those with similar taste in the right direction!)

Beyond that, you can like, comment on, and share my social media posts, like this one!

Thank you for reading! :)
-Jon Wasik

…And Then There Was 2023.

I thought 2020 was crazy.

Then I thought 2021 was bad.

2022 was all, “Hold my beer.”

And then there was 2023.

Long-time readers of this blog will recognize that beginning.  Except for the 2023 part, that’s how I started the annual “Looking Back, Looking Forward” blog last year.

I also talked about how every year seems to have been worse than the previous year.  This year is no exception.  Maybe not the worst, but if not, then it was a damned-tough contender.

And I’ll be honest, I’m scared of 2024.  If every year just keeps getting worse…what will come of 2024?

But.  And this is a big but.  There was some really good stuff that came of 2023, too.  I’ve always been taught to take the bad with the good, so for this first part, I’ll try to ensure I include both :)

NO SURGERIES!!!

That’s right, for the first time in three years, 2023 was a year of no surgeries!!!!  Err, for me, anyway.  Beck (my wife) was a different story, but we’ll get to that in a bit.  My hips, both of them, have been doing fairly well this year!  And though I’ll never be 100% again with them, and they did cause some minor issues during my first vacation in years, they’re both better than they’ve been in a very, very long time.

Vacation?  Why yes, I finally had a vacation!  But that’s skipping ahead a bit.  Hey, I’m ADHD, I’m allowed to jump around a bit on you ;)  For the moment, however, as much as I’d love to say I had no hospital visits this year…

The Most Pain I Have Ever Experienced In My Life

Okay, at least at this point in my life, I have no enemies.  But if I did have enemies, I would never, ever wish the pain…of kidney stones upon them.

Because I experienced my first one this year, and oh my freaking goodness, I hope I never, ever experience it again.  One night in March, I suddenly woke up in intense back pain.  At first, I thought I’d twinged a muscle, and thought, “Ah, just gotta get through to morning to see a chiropractor.”  But the pain got worse.  And worse.  And worse.

I was having to walk around, move around, ibuprofen did nothing to help, and it just kept getting worse.  I started to fear something like a burst appendix or something.  So finally, at about 2:30AM or so, my wife took me to the ER.  Around that time, we began to suspect my symptoms were more indicative of a kidney stone, and as I was checking into the ER, barely coherent through the pain, they concurred and got me into CT right away to verify.  This was also the first time in my life (yes, including post-surgery recovery) when I was in so much pain that I got sick.

That was the first time in my life that I’ve ever been on morphine, and what a strange feeling that was, but I was soooooo grateful for the pain to go away.

In any case, the stone was small enough that I didn’t need surgery, buuuuut that meant going home and enduring pain until the stone passed.  It took nearly a week.  Which meant a week off of work.  A week I didn’t really have to spare.

This was on top of soooo much else going on in life.  This was after a year of post-op recovery, strep throat after strep throat, COVID….basically, I was exhausted.  And when I finally passed the stone and went back to work…I broke down.

And I took a few weeks off of work.  Unpaid.  Just to get some me time, some real and true rest.  Because why would I ever be given enough PTO to stay home sick, let alone recover from burnout?  Oh right, we live in the United States where employees get the shaft, especially non-Union employees….

Yeah.  I’m a bit bitter about it.  And it only gets worse, but again…Spoilers.

Voice Acting Advanced Class

One of the better experiences this year was that I was able to take an Advanced Voice Over class, and at the end, I got to do some acting for an industry professional!  The class and that final experience went very well, and I went away from the class feeling very good about my future as a voice actor!

And Then More Work Shenanigans…

I’ve wanted to go part-time for my day-job for some time and focus more on voice acting and writing, and after that advanced class, I was ready to ask my day-job for just that.  I’m a computer sys admin (Windows-based) and I’d gotten all of my systems to a point to where I could safely and comfortably reduce my hours…or so I thought.

I won’t go into many details, but suffice it to say, work decided to…change things up a lot.  And then do a reorg and put me under a…difficult manager.  So that put everything in that regard on pause.

Allergy Shots and New Book Release!

On the positive side, I released the first book in a new series in 2023, Project Sirius!  The Awakening by itself, and the series in general, is something I’m very proud of and very excited to share with the world!  It’s not all good things…I’ve come to realize, starting with The Awakening, thaaaat despite getting plenty of people to read advanced reader copies (a first for me), getting them all to follow through on leaving reviews on release day is…a challenge.  And relying on others to help me out is futile.  But at least two folks did, and I’ve come to realize that I have at least three vocally-dedicated fans :)  So that makes me happy!

And I started allergy shots this year!  I knew I needed to do something, because in voice over class, it was negatively affecting my performances sometimes, even with antihistamines, so I decided to take the plunge.  Besides which, we want to adopt a kitty someday :)

Several months later now, and I’m responding well!  I’m not yet ready to pet cats, per-se, but I can be in the same house as one now without having to take antihistamines!  So that’s progress!

DISNEYLAND!

After having to put it off over and over and over again, we decided early in 2023 that we were going to Disney with out best friends from Cali!  Originally we planned on Disney World, but we had to scale back a bit for obvious reasons (see shit year 2023 above).  Still, we made it!  In August and September, we headed down to the Los Angeles area, spent three days in Disneyland with our friends, and several more days in SoCal enjoying ourselves (and getting a LOT of steps in on our step counters!)

Among the awesome surprises our friends gave us was a stay at an actual Disneyland resort, The Grand Californian, as well as an appointment to build our own lightsabers in the Star Wars land, Galaxy’s Edge!

Speaking of….Galaxy’s Edge was such an incredible experience!  It was our first time seeing that, and as a life-long nerd and Star Wars fan, it was a dream come true!  It was a sorely-needed positive in a dreary and difficult year!  I’ll treasure those memories forever, and I can’t wait to see the one in Disney World next :D  (Just…you know, no idea when we’ll be able to make it.)

And Then, Even More Work Shenanigans………

So things had settled at work enough after the mid-year shake-up that I was feeling confident about asking to go part-time again.  My immediate supervisor, who was awesome, was on-board with it, and we had come up with a plan to present it to that new manager I mentioned before.

I kid you not, only a week before I planned to do so…we had a company-wide meeting and announcement.  And I, along with many other folks, was furloughed.

Well.  Instead of part-time voice acting, why not full-time?

That was the plan after that jarring and hard day.  But life had other plans…

More Medical Fun….

After I was furloughed in the beginning of October, I decided to take a couple days to absorb this sudden, life-altering event, and then I decided to take advantage of the (albeit unpaid) break from work, and go full-time voice acting.  I recorded and edited Rise of the Forgotten in October, and by mid-November, it was available for purchase!

Buuuuut…November.  The entire month of November, I had a major issue with my throat.  We thought strep, Doctor thought strep, but all tests came back negative.  And nothing seemed to fix it.  More tests for other illnesses came back negative.

Finally, towards the end of November, my doc asked about acid reflux, and I realized then that, yeah, I had heartburn every single day, and it’s been a problem for a long time (in fact, taking all those antacids back in March is probably what strongly contributed to my kidney stones).

So I got on some meds for acid reflux, and within a few days, my throat finally started going back to normal.

But that still meant that for the entire month of November, I didn’t record anything.  I had planned to record Burning Skies in November, and then in December, start auditioning for other roles to start making an income.

Instead, I started recording Burning Skies in December.  And then…well, life.  And also, once I finished the 2-week course of meds for my stomach acid, and despite making lots of diet changes, the acid started coming back, and right before Christmas, my voice started going out again…

I have 12 chapters left to record in Burning Skies.  Maaaaaybe next week, after the new year, I’ll finally be able to finish.

But what does this mean for my future?

Beck’s Surgery

On another note, part of what’s made this year so hard, and the previous years…is the political situation in the United States.  The ultra-right-wing conservatives have been making life scary, especially for women.  And when Roe v. Wade was overturned, my wife decided that she didn’t want to risk it.

So we made appointments, and got her scheduled to ensure no one could ever get her pregnant.  Due to a family emergency with the surgeon, that appointment was delayed, but eventually we got her in and the surgery was a success!  There was a scare the next day that brought us back to the ER, but it thankfully was a false alarm, and Beck’s recovery has, thankfully, been relatively smooth.

Let me tell you, having been on the other end so frequently over the past 3 1/2 years…I never took what she went through with me for granted, but it was a scary experience seeing my wife go through that, especially when we had to run to the ER the next day.

I really really hope we have no more medical emergencies in 2024…

Speaking of 2024.

2024 – What Do I Do Now?

What do I do?

I…don’t know.

See, here’s the thing.  As a furloughed employee, I still get medical benefits, and I’m on unemployment.  But if my employer doesn’t take me back in January, I lose the insurance.  As you can tell, I can’t really go without insurance.  And buying it from the ‘marketplace’ is expensive, and, well, we don’t really have money to spare.

Do I risk it all and keep going with the voice acting, hoping I start making enough to afford independent insurance?  Or do I look for another Sys Admin job somewhere?  Or do I try to start a career in something else, knowing that, for the moment, we’re surviving on a lower income, so we could probably weather a start wage in a new career field?

The honest answer?  I don’t know.

I started a Patreon in early December hoping to get help, but, like I mentioned earlier with Project Sirius, I’m finding out that I can’t rely on anyone else to help.  Zero subscriptions to my Patreon.  No one’s interested.  No one cares.

At least, that’s how it feels.

Sooo…I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know where to go from here.  I don’t know what 2024 will hold for me.  Any plans I have are more-or-less on hold.

Project Sirius book 2 is written, but beta readers who have had it for months haven’t gotten back to me, sooo…I may just say hell with it and after another round of editing without feedback, I’ll publish it.  But that means buying new cover art.  That’s expensive when you have such a low income.

I wish I could look to 2024 optimistically, but the past 3 1/2 years have beaten that out of me, and if I’m being totally honest, that’s one of the most depressing things to come out of 2023.  I want my hope back.  I need my hope back.

I need 2024 to be the year that everything finally turns around.

I’m tired…

Musings of the Week – New Book’s Performance, Reading Old Works

Hello, there!

Today’s post will be a bit of a different format – I didn’t have any one topic long enough to count as its own post, and no real conclusions to make, just some musings.  So without further ado…

The Awakening’s Performance

It’s been almost a week since The Awakening debuted, so how has it measured up?

Strangely enough, kinda good, but also not terribly great.

The amount of pre-orders for The Awakening was about half of the pre-orders I’d received for Legacy, but considering what happened post-release with Legacy, I wasn’t surprised, and didn’t look at that as an indicator.

Legacy kicked off a new series just like The Awakening, and I heavily marketed Legacy pre-release.  Between beta reader feedback and the pre-order numbers, I was flying high on release day!

Unfortunately, that high lasted mere days.  The very first rating that came in for it was a 2-star.  Followed  by another 2-star.  It was…a depressing time.

But what about The Awakening?  Well I’m happy to say that on Amazon, there’s a 4-star and a 5-star rating, with a glowing 5-star review!  On Goodreads, it’s also received a 4-star rating and review!  So that’s a good start!  Better still, for a short time, The Awakening jumped up to be in the top 100,000 kindle books in the entire Kindle store!  That might not sound good, but considering it had already backpedaled to 3,000,000 pre-release (Only one person pre-ordered the Kindle edition, compared to the numerous print pre-orders), that jump from 3,000,000 to under 100,000 was significant!  It also hit under the top 100 for Teen and Young Adult LGBTQ+ Fiction for a short time!

All in all, compared to anything I’ve written and published before, a very strong start!

Unfortunately, I had hoped for more reviews.  That was explicitly why I’d sent out Advanced Reader Copies, to have numerous reviews up-front and get the ball rolling on positive marketing.  Unfortunately, one of two things is happening – either almost none of those readers are leaving reviews, or Amazon is blocking them.  So far, only two Advanced Readers actually have reviews posted.

But that is apparently one of the greatest struggles for independently published authors.

And let me tell you, I have noticed a definite difference.  When Rise of the Forgotten hit 30 ratings, mostly 5-star, suddenly more readers were coming to the table, and within a month, it went from 30 to 33 ratings, after years and years of barely getting any.

So yes, dear readers, ratings, and especially reviews, make a huge difference.  If you want to support your favorite author beyond just buying their books, the easiest and best thing you can do is write a review :)

The Pain Of Reading Old Works

I think I’ve already mentioned it, but whenever I get ready to write another book in a series, I go back and re-read all of the previous books.  That way I’m in the right mindset, and I’m more familiar with what came before.

Artwork by Vuk Kostic

The time has come to write the next Sword of Dragons novel!  That means going back and re-reading Rise of the Forgotten.

Except something has changed, in me….

The last time I read Rise, I still liked it.  I still felt like it was a strong story, fairly well-written, if a little rough around the edges.  And given the ongoing positive ratings it receives, there’s definitely other readers out there who feel the same way.

But this time…I’m struggling with it.  I feel like there’s way too much exposition, and sometimes that exposition is a little repetitive.  I have to force myself to read thoroughly, to not skip parts.

What’s changed?

For starters, this happens to every writer.  I read or heard once about someone meeting Jim Butcher and telling him they’d just read his first Dresden Files novel, and he lamented them having to read his early works, and encouraged that reader to get to more recent Dresden Files novels.  (I still very much enjoy Storm Front, but Butcher’s writing definitely gets better with each novel!)

Seriously, it happens to us all.  Or at least…it should.  Because like all art, hell, like all careers, you can always get better.  The moment you stop believing that, the moment you stop trying to learn more, or grow, or ‘get better,’ is the moment you doom yourself.

With all of that in mind, I’m actually encouraged by this feeling of distaste towards my first published novel.  It means I’ve grown as a writer, and am still growing.  I haven’t become stagnant.

There’s another bonus to this effort: I can see what I did wrong, and ensure I don’t repeat those mistakes in my next novel.

In any case, that’s all I have for you today, dear readers!

Wait, you’re eager for updates on my next novel?

Let’s just say I’m in the process of getting Project Sirius book 2 out to first-round beta readers ;)

Thanks for reading!
-Jon Wasik

Book Release Day – The Awakening Now Available!

Hello, there!

Today’s the day – I’m so excited to announce that The Awakening, Project Sirius book 1 is available for purchase!  Head on over to your favorite online bookstore and purchase your copy today!

Better still, if you’re an Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can read it today for absolutely no charge!

Click the link of your choice below to find your copy today!

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Powell’s
• Bookshop.org (formerly IndieBound)

As an independently-published author, I humbly ask for your help – once you’ve read The Awakening: please leave a rating and a review!  Your review doesn’t need to be long or complex, a simple “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it” or “It was okay” is more than enough!  Ratings and especially reviews helps increase a book’s visibility, something all independently-published authors struggle with, so every review counts and is a huge boon to us!

The first review has already hit Goodreads, and exactly as I hoped, the book is very much written for a YA audience in mind, so spread the word to all the other YA Sci-Fi fans out there, especially in the LGBTQ+ crowd, and we can bring this new series to its audience!

Thank you for reading, and, well…I have a secret to tell you.

Promise not to tell anyone?

….

Project Sirius book 2 has already been written ;)

So this is just the beginning :D

-Jon Wasik

The Freedom in Sequels

Hello, there!

As of yesterday, August 25th, 2023, the first draft of Project Sirius Book 2 has been completed!!!

This is despite (or even in spite of ;) ) the writer’s block I dealt with about mid-way through!  I started writing book 2 on June 8th, 2023, with an average of 1 to 2 chapters per day (on the days I wrote, which was not every day), leaving me with the following numbers!

Chapters: 53
Pages (editing format): 464
Words: 138,016

To give you an idea of how much bigger than book 1, here were the numbers for book 1’s first draft!

Chapters: 36
Pages: 297
Words: 86,672

So quite the jump!  Plus, I fully expect the word count on book 2 to go up (just like it did for book 1), because I already know there’s a few sections that are lacking some basic descriptions for the characters.

But what I’m really here to talk about today is the freedom that comes with a sequel, and how much I thoroughly enjoyed writing book 2 :)

Knowing The Characters

I’ve talked before (a long time ago) about how there’s two different kinds of ongoing series.  The example I gave back then was the difference between Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

Image Source – memory-alpha.wikia.com

In TNG, you could more-or-less start watching at any point in the series and, as long as you already understood the basics of Sci-Fi and Trek, you wouldn’t be lost.  Each story was a standalone in and of itself.  To be sure, the characters grew with each passing season, but mostly, no one episode was dependent upon a previous one (with some famous examples being Borg-related episodes, or Worf’s discommendation).

In DS9, particularly after the first few seasons, it was highly serialized.  It wasn’t one-off stories each episodes, it was a continuation of a long story.  There were still one-off filler episodes, sure, but for the most part, DS9 was one big, 7-season story.

Despite TNG being my favorite Trek series, I actually prefer the serialized stories.  The long ones where things build upon one another.  Especially if the stories and characters are interesting!  (Dresden Files is definitely one of my favorite, longest-running series out there!)

This is the approach I’m taking with Project Sirius, and in doing so, it means that the character introductions (for the main characters, any way) were taken care of in book 1.  I get to dive right into the story of book 2, and instead of spending time developing who they are from the outset, I get to spend more time exploring who they have become, and who they are becoming!

And let me tell you, if you thought Mika’s journey in book 1 (I know, I know, it’s not out yet!) was intense and drastic, wait until you see what she goes through in book 2!

On top of that, because I no longer felt constrained by the ‘normal’ genre limitations (YA Sci-Fi generally doesn’t go beyond 90k words per book), I felt like I could spend more time with Mika and the other characters, getting to know who and what they are, getting to know the world they live in.  This is one of the big reasons book 2 is so much longer, but the story itself just plain demanded it.  I actually didn’t originally intend book 2 to be so long, but I’m really happy with where it is!

What’s Next for Project Sirius?

First, starting tonight, I’ll begin the first round of proofreading and editing on book 2!  I anticipate it’ll take a little longer than most 1st rounds, because I feel like there’s actually some details missing from book 2 that I want to add in as I go through it, but all in all, it still shouldn’t take too long.

Book 1, The Awakening, is only a couple weeks away from release!  That’ll be the next big milestone!  I was already excited with book 1’s story and getting it out to the world to read, but now that I know where things go after book 1, I’m even more excited!  This is a story that will just get better and better, I think :)

Round 1 of beta reading will begin around that same time – my typical round 1 beta readers have already read The Awakening, so no spoilers for them ;)

And then, well, we’ll go from there!

In the mean time, I may try to refocus again on The Sword of Dragons book 5 – it’s had a lot of time to percolate in my imagination, I want to see if I can get it nailed down.  I may possibly be able to start writing it for NaNoWriMo 2023, but I’m not sure yet on that.

So when will Project Sirius book 2 release?  I’m not sure yet, but definitely sometime in 2024!  Whether early, mid, or late will depend on a lot of factors over the coming months!

Until then, if you haven’t already, pre-order your copy of The Awakening today!

Amazon (Print & Kindle)
Barnes & Noble (Print)

Thanks for reading!
-Jon Wasik

The Creative Urge To Be And Do More

Hello, there!

I honestly am not sure how to start this post…it’s just something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, and I felt the need to write about it.  As you might imagine from that opening, this is going to be a little bit more personal than my usual blog posts ;)

I find myself perpetually frustrated with life, and that frustration grows day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year, and it feels like it’s reaching a crescendo.

You see…I want to do more.  More creative work.

But the most frustrating aspect isn’t that I want to do more of one thing – I mean, I DO want to write, more than anything else – but I want to do more of so many different creative things!

I’ve started and then had to stop so many creative endeavors outside of writing, not because I’ve lost interest, but because I’ve had to prioritize my endeavors.  I hate that I have to prioritize them.  I loath that I can’t be creative all the time.

Those are some strong words.  I don’t use them lightly.  Like I said, I feel like the frustration is reaching a crescendo right now.

What I’d Do With $10 Million Dollars

Most everyone dreams of winning the lottery jackpot, and in this day and age, with skyrocketing inflation, that desire is probably stronger than ever for everyone.

There’s a part of me that wishes we lived in an era of patrons again.  I don’t know if I could actually merit a patron or not, but I’d like to think my creative endeavors have attracted some fans (there’s at least a handful of you who regularly like my blog posts here, and I am ever so grateful for that!)  I wish an interested (and, obviously, rich) patron would just be like, “I like all the things you do, so here, live off of my dime and do what you do best!”  But I’m not sure what’s more wishful thinking, that desire or the desire to win the jackpot ;)

And I know that Patreon would net me very little – I don’t know how to market myself, so getting enough people to subscribe when I’m not actually constantly delivering stuff on a month-to-month basis?  Not at all likely to ever happen.

But what would I do if money were no object, or less of an issue?  What have I done in the past, what have I been forced to give up just to make ends meet?

You all know the first answer to that question – I’d write, more.  I’d write more stories more often, much faster.  Instead of having one or two novels in the pipeline at any given time, I’d have many.  I’d finish the Sword of Dragons saga in a matter of maybe two years.  I’d write more Project Sirius.  I’d write that Cyberpunk/Dystopian series I’ve been building in my head.  I’d even go back and try to salvage Chronicles of the Sentinels with new novels!

But what about endeavors outside of writing?

Let’s start with the most recent, the thing that has disheartened me the most to give up (for now).  Voice acting.

I had a plan to transition from my I.T. career to that, slowly, carefully.  I’m not one to dive into new things and hope I land on my feet, I don’t have the courage and I couldn’t forgive myself if I failed and sent my wife and I into destitution.

But that plan was thwarted, by a major shakeup at work that has left me burned out and with no visible way forward with the voice acting, not yet anyway.  I’ve had to postpone it, and I’ve no idea for how long.  There’s too much uncertainty now, too much chaos.

I want to narrate my books.  I want to narrate other books.  I love doing voices, and the more classes I took, the more I fell in love with voice acting!  So I’ll come back to this someday.  Once I reconfigure my plans again and figure out a path forward.  As soon as I can find a path forward.

Yes, I made this, using Unreal Engine 5!

But that’s not all I want to do more of.  Last year, I became obsessed with Unreal Engine 5, as a way to fulfill so many aspects of my creativeness!  It helped fulfill my itch to make art, for one, while engaging my technical and engineering side.  I’d spent years learning 3D Graphic Design and Animation as a hobby during my college days, but hadn’t exercised that muscle much until UE5.  I loved it, I obsessed over it, and followed so many tutorials to create an incredible scene!

On top of that, my desire to build a shareable environment of my own creation grew, and I had dreams to use UE5 to build out the world of the Sword of Dragons, for starters.  Something I’d once done before using Minecraft, but the limitations of which frustrated me and, for now, I have paused.  UE5 could have and still could be a way to build that world out.  I even had the idea of using UE5 to make new covers for the Sword of Dragons novels.

Except…when my frustrations with my career and inability to work on creative stuff more frequently reached a certain level, I had to find a way out, a way forward.  That’s when I decided to pursue voice acting, and that meant setting UE5 aside for a time.  I’ve forgotten so much about how to use UE5 that I’d have to go through all of the tutorials all over again (though probably a lot faster, as muscle memory kicked in).

Another creative endeavor?  Once upon a time, I started learning how to do leather working.  I even made a belt and a few rudimentary bracers.  But a combination of time, money, medical issues, and living situation made it impossible to follow that dream.  And my leather tools sit mostly unused for now (Beck has used them more than I have!)

I Love To Build.  I Need To Build.

It all boils down to a need in my soul to build worlds.  Fictional worlds.  I write them.  I design them before I write them.  I draw them on paper.  I build them in video games.  I build them in 3D art.  And even my interest in leather working came from a desire to cosplay as my own characters.

I need to see my worlds built, and I need to share them with others!  It isn’t a want, it is an absolute need.

So every setback, every instance of being held back and being denied the time, money, and energy to create drives me nuts!

And today, more than any other day so far, I feel like I’m being held down and forced to endure torture, leaving all of my needs unfulfilled, juuuust out of reach.  If only there was more time.  More money.  More freedom.

I am a creative who isn’t allowed to create.

The Bigger, The Better? Increasing Book Length In A YA Series

Hello, there!

Progress continues on Project Sirius book 2, and as of this week, I have written chapter 36!

Additionally, chapter 36 marks the conclusion of part 2 of 3!

Chapter 36 also brings the overall manuscript word count to 94,600!

Why am I throwing all of these numbers at you?

Well for starters, The Awakening is 36 chapters in its entirety, and sits at juuuust under 90,000 words.

By this measurement, it’s likely that book 2 will be one and a half times longer than The Awakening.  That’s quite a jump!  But is it too big?

I’ve talked before about when to stick to genre norms and when to break them, and why I chose to adhere to them for The Awakening.  I’ve also noted that it’s okay to break from genre norms, especially in a series of escalating complexity.

But how big is too big?  And does it being a YA series make a difference?

Escalating Size – The Harry Potter Saga

Alright, before I get into this, if seeing the name “Harry Potter” has triggered a visceral reaction, I want to be absolutely clear about something – I do NOT support Rowling’s anti-trans rhetoric.  I stand with the LGBTQ+ community.

But Harry Potter as a series, as a story, holds a special place in a lot of hearts, including amongst the LGBTQ+ community.  And after decades of becoming such a moving and visceral work of art in our hearts and minds, it’s impossible to discount it as something worth analyzing, and its success speaks for itself.  Additionally, we live in an era where it is entirely possible to be a Harry Potter fan without being a fan of or supporting JK Rowling.  Used book stores, for instance (trust me, as a published author, I can tell you that we get zero royalties from used book sales), or purchasing themed merchandise from conventions (which also results in zero royalties going to the author, unless it is an officially licensed vendor).

You also can’t deny that the Harry Potter series is surprisingly well-written, and is a good example of stories written for younger audiences that don’t talk down to them or treat them in a patronizing manner.  This, in turn, has made the series accessible to readers of all ages.

And that part about not ‘talking down’ to your audience?  That’s the big deal.  That’s huge.  I myself have a lot of fond memories of reading books (and watching shows and movies) that were definitely geared towards adults that I absolutely loved as a child (immediate examples I can think of: Alien and Predator movies).

It’s also why I think breaking age-range genre tropes is okay.

So, back to Harry Potter.  Recently (as in this past weekend), while my wife and I discussed the likelihood of Sirius 2 being 1.5 times the length of The Awakening, we thought to look at Harry Potter and how well known it is for having longer and longer books as the series progressed.

For one of my birthdays, many years ago, I was gifted a box set of books 1 through 6 as hardbacks, and then later bought book 7 in the same format, so they are all printed with the same paper thickness, same font, etc.  This allowed for a far more accurate accounting of page count changes from book to book (since Amazon’s page counts of each book seems to make zero sense).

Looking at those, the page count came out as the following:

Book 1 – 309
Book 2 – 341
Book 3 – 435
Book 4 – 734
Book 5 – 870
Book 6 – 652
Book 7 – 759

You can see a relatively slow progression at first, and then sudden leaps with books 4 and 5 (and then a decrease for 6 and 7).

One of the reasons Rowling has cited for this increase is a desire for the stories to grow up with the kids, but even if you remove that motivation, you can see that the stories become more and more complex, nuanced, and frankly, interesting with each volume.

This also isn’t the only series out there with increasing page counts, but it’s the best and most well-known example.  (Another that comes to mind – the Ender’s Game series.)

And even my own Sword of Dragons saga saw books 2 and 3 coming out longer and longer, with book 4 tapering back just a bit from 3.

It seems as though longer books as a series goes on is, well, normal.  Even expected, and that’s including among YA or, in the case of Harry Potter’s initial books, Middle Grade stories.

Where does Project Sirius fall in this progression?  Book 1, in its print format, comes to 272 pages in length.  If you multiply that by the expected 1.5x, I expect book 2 to come out to just over 400 pages.

That’s a bigger jump than HP did from books 1 to 2, and even from 2 to 3, but it definitely falls short of the jump from 3 to 4.

As you can probably tell, this jump in size has been on my mind a lot lately, and I have worried about it.  But I’m telling the story that needs to be told, in all of its nuances and with all of its peaks and valleys.  Plus, looking at how much books have grown in other series, I feel a lot better about it.

It’s too early to tell right now, but so far, I think I like book 2 better than The Awakening.  Of course, what I like and what readers like isn’t always the same, but for now, I’m confident that if you fall in love with The Awakening, what you’ll get from book 2 will be even more to love :)

Anywho, thanks for reading my ramblings on the topic!  I hope you enjoyed reading, and if you have any thoughts or comments about all of this, I’d love to hear them!  Just drop a note in the comments section below :D

Thanks!
-Jon Wasik

Facing Down Writer’s Block

Hello, there!

What is “Writer’s Block”?  Is it the inability to write a single word?  Is it that everything you write feels like trash, and you feel more and more disheartened?  Is it when you stare at your screen, blankly, writing a sentence, deleting it, writing another, staring at it, revising it, deleting it again?

The answer is “Yes.”  It’s all of those things.

It’s also one of the most disheartening things any writer will ever face.  Worse than a rejection letter from an agent or editor.  Perhaps the only thing worse is dismal ratings and reviews on a new publication.

I wish that I could say I’d never endured it, but the fact is, I’m no stranger to Writer’s Block.  There was a time after college where I went 4 years in which I wrote only two chapters, and nothing more.

And last week, it struck me again, but this time it was a different kind from the previous blocks.  It wasn’t the ‘can’t write anything, stare at the screen blankly’ kind, it was the ‘what I’ve written doesn’t work at all, doesn’t feel right, and I have to fix this before I can move on’ type.

What does that mean?  It means I’m stuck with the story for Project Sirius 2.

Even The Best Laid Plans…

I wrote recently how I’m no longer a plotter, but I’m more of a hybrid plotter/pantser.  In other words, I plan the basics of the story, but otherwise I write the overall manuscript ‘by the seat of my pants.’  For four novels, that worked out really, really well.

But similar to what happened when I wrote Secrets of the Cronal, I hit a plot wall when I wrote chapters 30 and 31 last week.  Neither of those chapters felt right.  Neither of them seemed to match the feel or the theme of the novel I’d written so far, even though what happens in them was more or less part of the plan.

Writing chapter 30 went okay, but I knew then that something was off.  When I wrote chapter 31, I was unenthusiastic about it.  It felt…well, lame.  Yeah, I know, I’m aging myself by using that word :p  But really, it felt like the characters were just going through the motions, and there was a lot more exposition than I wanted in that part of the story.

I mean, sometimes exposition is unavoidable, but it’s important to minimize it, because readers (or at least, when I’m reading) don’t really like info dumps.  Readers usually want a story.  Readers want movement, motion, action, progression.  In chapter 31, I had Mika and some others literally sitting down in a school-like setting listening to someone explain the situation to her.

And I realized my plan for the third act of the novel just…didn’t work at all.

The problem?  I don’t quite know how to correct it yet.  All I know is I need to scrap chapters 30 and 31, and rewrite part of chapter 29 once I figure out where to take the story.

So, this is my block.  My original plan for the third act was flawed.  I don’t know how to move the story forward.

What do I do?

I go back to the basics, that’s what.

I need to remind myself what the overall story in book 2 is supposed to be about, what the themes are.  Granted, my original plan for book 2’s third act was all about the theme I intended for the novel.  But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years of writing, it’s that the story often takes on a life of its own, and the writer’s original intent could change as writing progresses.

So my plan, starting this week, is to read what I’ve written.

I know, this almost flies in the face of everything I’ve ever said about how to write a novel.  I always say, “Keep writing the next chapter!  Don’t go back until you’ve finished the manuscript, so that you don’t lose your momentum!”  But I’ve already lost my momentum.  I need to reset.

There’s always exceptions to the rules, and those exceptions always have good reasons.  (Or at least, they should.  “Just because” is never a good enough reason for either a rule or an exception to a rule.)

Dealing With The Emotional Fallout of Writer’s Block

Writer’s Block is hard.  It’s depressing.  Sometimes it’s the cause of depression, sometimes it’s caused by depression.  Often it’s a vicious cycle feeding one on the other.

I don’t know about other writers, but it’s easy for me to think I’m a worthless writer if I can’t even figure out the basics of my own plot.  I feel like a failure when I can’t write even a single good word.

But here’s the thing – it happens to all of us.  I promise you, there isn’t a writer out there who hasn’t run into Writer’s Block, and if any of them ever tell you they haven’t, then they’re either still inexperienced or they’re lying.  Writer’s Block happens.  It’s part of writing.  It’s why this job isn’t easy and why it can’t  be done by just anyone.

Okay, it’s one of the reasons, but you get my point :p

So, what to do?  First, forgive yourself.  Hell, not even that, there’s nothing to forgive – allow yourself to be imperfect.  Allow yourself to acknowledge the problem, to accept it as part of writing, and then you can move on.

Moving on will look different for every writer, and for every Writer’s Block.  Moving on from my 4-year block meant literally moving to another city and starting my life over.  Moving along this time will be far less drastic, I hope!

But try to find a way to move forward.  Even if moving forward means resetting.  Reset the story.  Reset your frame of mind.  Go on a vacation.  Go on a walk.  Take a hot bath.  Re-read what you’ve written so far.  Find another novel that inspires you and read it.  Read new stories.

Beating down Writer’s Block doesn’t always involve more writing.

But eventually, you’ve gotta get back to it.  Let yourself reset, and then, the instant inspiration strikes, pounce and go with it!  It’ll happen, sooner or later, as long as you’re dedicated to writing.

I may not always believe in myself, but I believe in you.

-Jon Wasik

Crafting the Future History of Humanity

“The future is not set.  There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.”

That’s one of my favorite lines from the Terminator franchise, and for any sci fi writer, it’s a worthwhile line to remember.

For those of us who craft stories of the future, it means that anything is possible.  It means that we have free reign to imagine any future.  In fact, it means we must imagine it.

For me, this year, that means imagining the future in which Project Sirius takes place!

Forget World Building, This Is Universe Building!

One of my favorite parts of writing a new series is world-building!  Until now, most of that has been centered on the Sword of Dragons saga, a completely original Universe, with no Earth to speak of.  Everything is crafted from the ground up.  The worlds, the cities, the cultures, the countries, and the magic system.

So not just a world, a whole Universe!

But for Project Sirius, things are a bit different.  I’m not building out a wholly original Universe.  I’m not inventing a brand new magic system.  Instead, I’m plotting out a possible future for humanity, a realistic look at the tomorrow that could come from the real today, and the course of technological advancement that leads us there.

See, this is what I love about writing – every time I start a project, I get to explore new topics, and seek out new knowledge and new….err, wait, that’s Star Trek ;)

Seriously, though, building up the Universe for Sirius definitely leveraged my experience building up the Sword of Dragons Universe, but I’ve had to learn about a whole slew of new topics, and it’s been an absolute blast!

Image Source – gagrid.deviantart.com

For the first novel, a lot of my research focused on the design and size of the ship itself – how big did a population have to be in order to maintain genetic diversity over the course of generations?  Under controlled conditions, 5,000 seemed an appropriate number, especially when throwing in some Sci Fi “magic” (IE tech) to help.  How big of a land area is needed to properly house and feed 5,000 people?  Well…again with some Sci Fi “magic” thrown in, I was about to put it in a dome at about 5 kilometers in diameter.  And that’s pushing it.

Learning this information helped inform what kind of culture would exist in the ship’s medieval-style town.  A tightly controlled society.  This, in turn, helped me develop themes and the characters.

In fact, it’s impossible for me to say what was developed first: the characters, the plots, the themes, or the Universe?  A sort of ‘chicken or the egg’ paradox, except it really is easy to resolve in this case – they were all developed concurrently.

But that was book 1, The Awakening.  Book 2 is something else entirely.  Because the focus will expand well beyond the confines of the town and the ship, and while I had some idea of what things would be like in the rest of the Universe, I hadn’t fully developed it yet.  I wanted to do that only once I needed to, so that I could help develop it along side the story.

So, what comes with book 2?  The actual future history of humanity.

And as much as I love Star Trek…it isn’t all sunshine and roses.

The Bleak and the Bold

One of the cool parts about writing fantasy and sci fi is exploring current day topics and issues in a fantastical or future setting.  And let’s face it…things are kinda looking bleak in the world these days.

Front and center in that picture is greed, and the 1% influencing, directing, or flat-out controlling the direction of society.  Sometimes without us realizing it, sometimes with us fully knowing it but unable to do a thing to stop it.

So as I started to craft the future history, I looked to where we are now, and where we might go if things don’t change.  Where the corporations might take us if they are left unchecked by unions, unchecked by society.

But I also looked to the past.  To what incentivized the Westward Expansion, for instance, and other colonization, because that’s a big part of the future history I’ve been crafting in Sirius – colonizing other worlds.

Technological limitations aside, what would make humanity and, more to the point, corporations fund colonization ventures into space?  Well, what else?  Wealth.  The promise of wealth.

Which means exploitable resources, lots of them.  Think Avatar and that movie’s “Unobtanium.”  But instead of some McGuffin, I thought about what else it could be.  What real-world resources were needed, and no, it isn’t oil that’ll take us to the stars, not now that everyone is finally accepting our role in climate change.

To put it simply, metals, valuable minerals, and in the case of power generation, deuterium and tritium.

Fusion power.

There’s still some sci fi stuff involved, too, including the eventual ‘inexpensive’ creation of antimatter.

Right now, any and all faster-than-light theoretical propulsion methods require exotic matter that we haven’t even proven exists (either that or it requires more power than our sun generates).  But it started with “what would get us into space faster right now?” and I took it from there.

I’m still working on it, but as of today, I have plotted out the ‘future history’ of the Terran system (IE solar system) and the Alpha Centauri colony.  There’s a lot more colonies out there, but for now, those two are my focus for the events that take place in Project Sirius 2.

I think I’ll stop here, though, because I almost wrote a paragraph with considerable spoilers in it ;)  I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into the Universe of Project Sirius!  I mean…I know it sounds bleak, but remember, there’s always hope.  Or as they say in Star Trek, “There are always…possibilities.”

And Mika will never be the kind of person to just lie down and let the world steamroll over her ;)

Thanks for reading!
-Jon Wasik

10 Year Anniversary – Completing the First Sword of Dragons Novel

Hello, there!

Cover by Christian Michael

This month marks the 10 year anniversary for when I finished writing what would become my first published novel, The Sword of Dragons (later rebranded as Rise of the Forgotten, The Sword of Dragons book 1)!

While the novel wouldn’t see publication for a further 2 years, it still was a remarkable accomplishment!  Since then, a lot has happened, and a lot has changed.  One of the more notable changes is how I write novels today compared to how I wrote them back then.

I once wrote about my method for developing and writing novels, but I think the time has come to revisit that, and discuss how that has changed.

Back Then – Planning Every Chapter

Ask any novelist about plotters vs pansters, and they’ll probably probably state which they are, why, and maybe what they think about the other type of writer.

Back in 2013, I was through-and-through a plotter.  I developed chapter-by-chapter outlines for every novel I wrote, starting with the Sword of Dragons book 1.

I’d start with an idea for a story, write those ideas down, and start to develop a plot.  Once I felt I had enough ideas and themes figured out, I’d write down what I called the “general plot progression,” telling a basic version of the story from beginning to end.

Once that was done, I’d then go back, and start writing the basics of what would happen in each and every chapter, going into as much or as little detail as I felt was necessary to remind myself what should happen in each chapter.

After that, I’d begin writing the actual manuscript.  I’d usually have two word documents up on my screen, the chapter I was writing, and the chapter-by-chapter outline, so I could constantly refer back to my notes.  I generally tried to stick with my notes, and was really just ‘filling in the details’ as I wrote.  Sometimes new ideas would come to me, and I’d go a little off course, but I didn’t want to stray too far.  I didn’t want to have to re-develop the rest of the story.

How had I come up with this method?  In a way, it stemmed from how I developed my old fan fiction, Star Trek Dragon.  Starting around season 3, I had a general idea for the entire series, and a more specific idea for the season.  To help ensure there were no plot holes or ‘wasteful’ filler episodes, I plotted each episode out, ensuring that every episode contributed to the overall story.

This served my very well for developing a series.  When the first iteration of the Sword of Dragons failed to impress anyone, and I decided to rewrite it from scratch, I adopted this process.  Aside from a horrific 4-year writer’s block about 1/3rd of the way into book 1, it kept me on-task, and helped me write the story you all know today.

Because of how successful I perceived that method to be, I kept it up.  I developed Burning Skies with the same method, kept the momentum going, and then continued with Secrets of the Cronal.  Back when I wrote the first version of Legacy, Chronicles of the Sentinels book 1, I likewise wrote a chapter-by-chapter outline.

I felt like this method worked very well for me.  There were only a few times where it didn’t, like in Burning Skies when I added about 4 new chapters that I hadn’t originally planned while I wrote it, but all in all, it worked!

Except…

There was one problem.  And the first time it ever reared its ugly head was when I wrote Secrets of the Cronal.  I had a very solid plan for how things would go in it, including at the end when Reis was meant to betray Cardin and the others and steal the Sword of Dragons.

If you’ve read Secrets of the Cronal, you’ll know that didn’t actually happen.

It was the first time where a character so viscerally refused my plans for them.  This wasn’t who Reis was.  The actions I planned for him were so against his character that it broke the story.  And because so much of the plot I’d developed, chapter-by-chapter, depended on this happening, when I got to that point and realized it couldn’t happen…writing came to a full-on stop.  I not only had to re-write that chapter, but I had to figure out how the rest of the novel would play out, not to mention the rest of the series.

I felt shackled by the plan I had come up with.  So, finally, I said, “Hell with it,” and I threw the rest of the plan out the window, and I just ‘went with it.’  I wrote whatever came out.

Later, going through revisions and proofreads, I had a lot of cleanup and adjustment to do.  Secrets of the Cronal had one of the longest production and post-production times for any of my novels back then.

And it got me thinking – maybe plotting every single chapter wasn’t the best way to go.  It kept me from letting the story evolve in the direction it needed to.

Then, in 2019, everything changed.

Neither Plotter nor Pantser – The Hybrid Approach

In 2019, I had an idea to revive Legacy, and it involved a complete re-write.  At the time, I’d been reading the Dresden Files, and I liked the approach Jim Butcher used – a single character’s point of view, rather than a myriad.  I had been thinking of how to make Chris Tatsu a more interesting character, and the story overall more interesting, and then it came to me – it needed to be a more personal story for Chris, and the single POV would facilitate that.

I also knew that some of my original plot ideas wouldn’t work with this new, limited POV, plus some of the plot elements just…didn’t make sense or weren’t interesting.

Fresh off of writing Secrets of the Cronal, I decided that instead of going back to the drawing board, so-to-speak, and writing down a new chapter-by-chapter outline, I’d just…wing it.  And Let the story go in whatever direction it needed.  Sure, this might introduce inconsistencies and errors, but those could be cleaned up and corrected in editing and revision.

With that freedom, I flew through the first draft!  I was so enthusiastic about it that I couldn’t stop writing!  When pandemic hit and my day job came to a virtual stand-still, this only made it easier, and before I knew it, Legacy was completed.

I capitalized on that, and after developing the basic plot for book 2, I wrote Retribution, and then once again, after spending some time developing the plot for book 3, I wrote Champions without a chapter outline.

I’d never written so much, so quickly, and I was proud of the work I’d created!  I was so happy with this new method of half-plotting (IE developing the general story) and then half-pantsing (writing the story without outlines, letting it take me wherever it needed to go) that I adopted the exact same method for writing Advent Darkness.

Now, those of you who don’t like Chronicles of the Sentinels might point to that series as an example of why this new, hybrid method is a mistake.  However, Advent Darkness has been lauded as my best-written work so far, and kicked off a resurgence in popularity for the Sword of Dragons saga!  So, while I still don’t really understand the relative failure of Sentinels, clearly Advent Darkness is proof that this method works, and works damn well.

It’s how I wrote The Awakening, as well.  I’ve shared The Awakening with more beta readers than any previous novel, and responses to it have been highly encouraging!

Of course, how a story is written obviously isn’t the only reason for a story’s success or failure.  But I do feel like this method helps me develop and write better stories.

The Future – Will I Change What I’m Doing?

As a writer, I’m going to continue to evolve and change.  Any writer worth their salt should.  To say, “I’ve found my method, I’m never changing it,” makes you unable to adapt to a changing world and to changing stories.

For now, this method very much suits me, and at this point, I’ve written more novels in this method than the plotter method.  But who knows what might happen tomorrow.

All I can promise is that I won’t stop writing.  :)

Thanks for reading!
-Jon Wasik