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

Juggling Different Creative Efforts

Hello, there!

Welcome to 2024!  Let’s hope it’s a better year than the previous four!

I thought I’d kick things off by just letting you all know what I’m working on these days, and where I’m at with them.  So let’s dive in, starting with my next audiobook!

Burning Skies Audiobook Coming Soon

Earlier this week, I finished recording Burning Skies!  That doesn’t mean it’s ready to go, not by a long shot, but it is a huge milestone!

What’s next?  Well, editing primarily.  Throughout the process of recording, I occasionally took days off from voice work and did editing, so I’m not starting from scratch on it, but I do still have about 3/4’s of the book audio files to edit, so it’s still a long ways to go!

I also know for a fact that there are some dialogue sections I’ll need to re-record.  Especially for the crystalline entities known as the Navitas – I started off voicing them one way in one chapter, and then later changed my mind and voiced them different, so I’ll need to re-record those earlier dialogue sections.  Not a huge deal, and shouldn’t slow me down much.

After that, I’ll need to ‘listen to it in the wild,’ taking the MP3 files and listening to them while driving, exercising, etc, to see how it sounds and if anything needs additional work.

Project Sirius Book 2 Will Be Out This Year

I finished writing Project Sirius Book 2 (title still undecided) last year, so the hardest part is already done ;)  Today, taking a break from, well, everything else, I started another round of proofreading on it.

Once that’s finished, I’m hoping to start working on the publication package.  I’m…well, sad that I haven’t gotten further feedback from beta readers.  But I can’t wait forever, so I’m going to move forward on this one.

Right now, due to the whole job furlough situation, I can’t afford to engage the cover artist, but that situation will probably be resolved soonish.  (More on that further down.)

I already know what I want for the cover, and should be able to communicate it very easily to the artist, so I expect work on the cover to go fast :)

The Sword of Dragons Book 5 Stalled

Unfortunately, writing book 5 of the Sword of Dragons has…stalled.

And I can’t really point to just one reason for it.  Part of it is…struggling with stress and anxiety, so creativity is hard to come by.  (That whole job furlough thing.)  Also, due to the delays to audiobook recording, I focused heavily on that lately, and that left little time for any other creative efforts.

Will I start it up again soon?  That’s the plan!  Though it’s a bit frustrating, because I really want to write Project Sirius Book 3!!!!!

Anything Else On The Side?  Why, Yes!

Long-time readers of this blog know – I’m a gamer.  It’s one of the ways I decompress.  But when I game, I often find myself playing survival games that allow building structures, ships, etc.  I’ve loved building starships on Starfield, for instance!

But a big project that I’ve collaborated with my wife and my best friend on is getting closer to completion, and I’m excited to share it with folks soon!  In the video game 7 Days to Die, we’ve recreated the Raccoon City Police Station from Resident Evil 2 Remake!  It’s taken months, and there’s still a lot of work to be done on it, but most of that now is detail work :D

Back To Work?

Speaking of my job furlough earlier, I’ve reluctantly acknowledged that, for now, I cannot yet make a living off of voice acting.  As a beginner, the most I could expect is maybe $1k/month, depending on the projects I could get outside of recording my own books (and those pay considerably less ;) ).

That’s not enough, by a long shot, to live off of.  Hence why I always intended to try to segue into it part-time at first.  As does happen frequently in my life, those plans are always shoved aside.

So I’m going to start actively looking for a new day job.

I don’t really have a choice.

My novels are selling better than ever, but still fall far short of ever becoming sustainable, my voice acting isn’t even close yet either, and there has been zero interest in my Patreon :(

What does that mean for creative stuff?  It means the output frequency is going to drastically decline.  Who knows when I’ll finish writing my next novel.  Who knows when I’ll finish my next audiobook.

I’m back to square one.

But I gotta do what I’ve gotta do to survive.

On the bright side, I acknowledge that a lot of my resistance to day job work has been toxic managers or work environments at the last couple jobs I’ve worked.  So I’m going to try to be a bit more discerning with whom I apply to and accept a job from.  I recall from past experiences that I absolutely loved I.T. work when I was with companies and had coworkers that I loved!

True, I might not have a choice at first, I might have to take whatever comes my way right away.  But I’ll definitely try for better.

Anywho, that’s all I’ve got for today.  Thanks for reading!  And if you feel like helping out a poor, starving writer/voice actor, tell your friends and family about my work, like my posts, subscribe anywhere you can, and especially to my Patreon page!

-Jon Wasik

Launching My Patreon Page!

Hello, there!

After deliberating on it for a long, long while, and after hyper-fixating on it (yay ADHD!) for several days, I decided to create a Patreon page!  Before I get into more about why I made one (and some of this, you can read about in my Patreon’s “About” section), here’s the link to check it out!

https://www.patreon.com/JonWasik

There are currently three tiers you can subscribe to, with the lowest being just $1 per month.

Why go as low as $1 when Patreon said “at a minimum, you should do $3/month!”?  Well, because I know what it’s like to be strapped for cash.  I mean, *gestures at everything*.

But my biggest reason for this is…I want to make this work.  I want to be a full-time creative.  I want to write, I want to narrate, I want to act, I want to build worlds.

I’ve read that Patreon is only a good place to get followers if you already have followers, so maybe this is a shot in the dark and I’m doomed to fail.  But I have to try.

I’m running out of options.  And if something doesn’t change soon, then I’m just…gonna have to find another day job.  Which means more stress, less time to write, less time to narrate, less time to create content.

And I’m running out of steam.

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll know that life hasn’t been particularly kind to my wife and I over the past 4 years.  Started in late 2019 and it just hasn’t let up.

So I’m doing what I can.  I’m a creative, so I figured Patreon would be the best place, right?  Sure I could have done something like Kofi, asked for donations, but…I hate feeling like a burden, on anyone, let alone strangers.

Instead, I’m asking for help, and in return, I give back with extra content.  And if magically things turn around, and a lot of people subscribe and I never have to worry about a day job again, then that leaves me time to make even more content, both for subscribers and everyone else!

More than that, it would mean less stress.  And while fear is the mindkiller, as they say in Dune, stress is the creative killer.

So if you’re willing to help a struggling writer out, with just a dollar, or 5, or 10, and you want bonus content in return, then please check out my Patreon, and sign up for whatever level you are comfortable with.

I’m also open to suggestions for making my Patreon better and more worthwhile!  So don’t be shy about voicing your thoughts and opinions, I genuinely want to hear them!

And just so you don’t have to scroll back up if I’ve convinced you to check it out, there’s that link again :)

https://www.patreon.com/JonWasik

Thanks for reading!
-Jon Wasik

First Audiobook Available! Rise of the Forgotten

Hello, there!

I am so very excited and proud to announce that my first audiobook, Rise of the Forgotten, is now available!  You can find it on the Audible and iTunes apps by searching for Jon Wasik, or you can click the link below to go straight to the Amazon store page!

Rise of the Forgotten Audibook

If you’ve been a regular reader here, you already know this, but not only is this my first novel converted into audiobook format, it’s also narrated by me!

Now, before you scoff and say, “Great, another author who thinks they can narrate their own book,” it’s more than just that.  (And for the record, some authors are fantastic at narrating their own books!)  I’ve been working towards switching careers to voice acting for quite some time now, and this first release is a culmination of practicing, of taking classes and voice lessons, and several false-starts and learning experiences.

In fact, this isn’t even my first completed audiobook that I’ve recorded!  But, well, the first one I completed was before I took lessons.  The quality of the voice acting reflects that fact very much, and I’ll be re-recording that book at a future date ;)

It’s also not the first time I started recording a Rise of the Forgotten audiobook, it’s just the first time I’ve finished and been happy with the results.  This single release represents hundreds of hours of learning, trying, learning some more, adjusting, learning even more, and then finally completing.

This particular version took me nearly a month to record, edit, and do re-recordings of a few chapters whose quality were too substandard to be recoverable.

To quote a song, “It’s been a long road, getting from there to here.”  But now I’m here, and this is just the beginning :D

What’s Next?

So, the next thing I was supposed to start over a week ago was recording Burning Skies.  I say supposed to because for the past two weeks, I’ve had a throat illness (maybe strep, maybe not, tests and diagnosis are inconclusive…)  This week, I’ve been doing my voice warmups every morning, but my throat has been very keen to tell me, “No, dumbass, I’m not ready for this yet!”  Sooooo yeah.

Artwork by Vuk Kostic

But, once I’m able, I definitely will begin recording Burning Skies in earnest.  After that?  Well, yes, I do intend to record audiobooks for all of the main-series Sword of Dragons novels (Orc War Campaigns, however, I’m not currently planning to).  I also intend to record audiobooks for the Chronicles of the Sentinels trilogy.

However, due to circumstances outside of my control (and details of which I won’t be going into,) I have several months off from work.  So I’m using this opportunity to try voice acting full-time.  Conceivably, recording my own audiobooks is a big and important step towards making that dream a reality, but unless my books suddenly get a lot more popular than they are now, that’s not sustainable.

So after Burning Skies, I’m planning to start auditioning for other, paying gigs.  Starting with audiobooks, but I’ll also be trying to find an agent willing to take me on as a client and find me roles.  As I’ve learned in class, the most common role that ‘pays the bills’ are commercials, so I’ve no doubt I’ll be doing lots of those, but I’m hoping for more audiobooks and, even more of a dream, working on projects like video games or animated shows/movies!

Those are lofty dreams, and may be a long ways off.  And honestly, if I only ever do audiobooks, if I am able to get steady work and (relatively speaking) steady income from audiobooks, I’d be super ecstatic and would happily leave the I.T. world behind.

That’s a lot of future I’ve just imagined and covered.  It’s possible that none of this will work out.  I may be going back to work as early as January, and if my voice acting is showing no promise by then, I’ll relegate it to part-time (but won’t be giving up on it).

What About Your Writing?

Well, like the blog name says, I’m a writer at heart ;)  I won’t be giving up on that.  But it is, for the moment, taking a bit of a back seat.  While I’m sick and can’t record new audio, I am writing the next Sword of Dragons book, but it’s slow work and, once my voice is good, it’ll once again take a back seat.

But you can’t keep an obsessed writer down.  I’ll finish Sword of Dragons 5.  And Project Sirius book 2 is already written, it just needs polish.  I intend to publish it sometime in 2024!

So don’t worry, there’s still plenty more to come from me, and plenty more content for this blog :)

Thanks for reading!  And as a reminder, click here to head to the audiobook page for Rise of the Forgotten :D

-Jon Wasik

So It Begins – The Sword of Dragons Book 5

Hello, there!

First a quick update from my previous post – I am still furloughed, but as I had planned, I have been treating voice acting/audiobook narration as a full-time job, with some success!

RotF’s Audiobook Cover Art

As of last week, I finished editing of my first Audiobook, Rise of the Forgotten, and I’ve sent it into ACX!  As soon as they approve it, it’ll go live on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes!  :D

Unfortunately, last week I also came down with strep throat.  (Again.)  I’m on the mend, but my voice is still out of commission, probably for this entire week.

So what am I to do?  No way to record new audio, and no other audio to edit?

Why, write, of course!

And so today, finally, after so much development and plotting and scheming, I start writing book 5 of the Sword of Dragons saga!!!!

I have to say that I’m really glad that I decided to stick with 6 books for the saga – that gave me freedom to come up with a really good build-up novel, and if it comes out as well as I see it in my head, you all are in for a real treat :)

Obviously, I’m not gonna give any real spoilers, but I will say this – just like in Advent Darkness, book 5’s prologue won’t be the ‘traditional’ fantasy/adventure prologue, but will be from a character’s POV, and will help set up the primary conflict.  And I’ll be introducing a new character right away, one whom no one knows or has heard about, but whose name will suggest a particular relation to Kemlia of Gevron.

Speaking of whom, after re-reading the saga over the past couple months in preparation for writing book 5, I have to say that Kemila has become one of my favorite characters.  She’s so fun to write (and read!) and I’m looking forward to writing more flirtatious and sarcastic dialogue from her :)

Anywho, the more time I spend writing this, the less time I have to write book 5, so that’s all for today!  Stay tuned for the announcement of when the audiobook is available!  :D

Thanks for reading,
-Jon Wasik

The Rise of Ahsoka – The Importance of Character Development and Change

Hello, there!

First and foremost, I will not be posting spoilers for the on-going Disney+ series Ahsoka, just some minor, out-of-context references.  I will, however, be discussing the character Ahsoka throughout the previous shows, so if you’ve not watched The Clone Wars or Rebels yet, consider this your spoiler alert!

With that out of the way…

In August 2008, something new hit movie theaters – the CGI animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie, promising to kick off a new era of Star Wars TV shows and acting as a premier for the series that would start 2 months later.

Many people have…feelings about the movie.  Most of them are not positive feelings.  Ragers and haters have both united and divided over what was good and what wasn’t in this show.

But at the time, there was one thing that almost all of the ragers and haters could agree on – they hated Ahsoka Tano.  To quote Wikipedia’s account: “Ashley Eckstein, who primarily voiced Ahsoka, said she and the writers were aware that audiences initially found the character annoying, and that there was a “fine line” between Ahsoka being bratty and becoming endearing.”

On a personal note, I was among those who didn’t like her back then.  I thought her character would be nothing more than a non-cannon distraction, an attempt to appeal to kids when there was no need, and I thought her character would end up ruining the show.  Plus, what’s up with what’s essentially a teenage girl wearing next to nothing in the middle of a battlefield?

I legit thought she would ruin the Clone Wars series, which already had a dismal beginning.

I was wrong.

And I am so very glad to have been proven wrong!

Now, like so many other Star Wars fans out there, Ahsoka went from being one of the most disliked characters in the Clone Wars, to being one of their favorites in all of Star Wars.  At least, that’s how I feel about her – more than Anakin or Luke or even Leia, Ahsoka Tano is my favorite!

But…how?  How did this happen?  How did she go from being the most annoying character to the most beloved?  So-much-so that she’s now been in five shows and even had a voice cameo in the last Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker?

In my opinion, it’s the simplest, yet most complicated reason – she has legitimate character development.

Characters Should Never Be Stagnant

Stories are only interesting if something interesting happens in the story, right?  But if something interesting happens, that ‘something’ should affect the character or characters, right?  Otherwise…what’s the point?

It sounds simple enough, but sometimes writers really struggle with this concept, though I would say that it’s mostly on an unconscious level.  Add to that any sort of complication to the writing, such as studios demanding changes because they think they know what audiences want, and it’s easy to backtrack on character development, or have it completely take a back seat.

But I recall some of the earliest lessons I learned in creative writing class, and it all boiled down to one question a writer should always ask themselves when writing a story – what journey is the character going to take?  And just as important, how will the character be changed at the end?

I’m convinced that one of the reasons Star Trek has done so well since TNG is that, particularly after the first season, TNG episodes were written with either one or a couple of specific characters in mind.  There were ‘Worf’ episodes, ‘Troi’ episodes, ‘Data’ episodes, and so on, where the entire cast might be present, but mostly the episodes focused on developing one character.  And as the targeted characters changed, that change was reflected in those around them, whether that was intentional or incidental.

DS9 did it even better, by being a serialized story, or one long, continuous story rather than just one-offs.

If Ahsoka Tano had never changed throughout the Clone Wars, if by season 7 she was the exact same character she’d started the show as, I strongly suspect she would still be a disliked character.

But she changed.

Here’s the kicker – it wasn’t sudden.  It wasn’t jarring.  And this is where I think Filoni and those who helped him write the Clone Wars are master storytellers – Ahsoka’s character development was subtle and slow.  Sure, there were moments between seasons when her appearance drastically changed (thank goodness she actually got clothes!), and that was meant to signify a progression in the timeline, IE she’s older and the Clone Wars has been going on longer.  But even in those jumps, her development was slow and subtle.

At least for me personally, I can’t point to any one episode, any one point in the Clone Wars when Ahsoka became likeable to me, let alone when she became my favorite character.  When the Clone Wars first started, I watched it as it aired….until season 2.  I gave up on it back then.

It was only when the entire series (at that point) came to Netflix that I gave it another chance.  I’d read that the show was considered one of the best ever, and I wanted to find out why.  I also remembered Star Trek shows often suffering in early seasons but getting better later (Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis likewise suffered the same problem).

So I tried again.

I still didn’t like Ahsoka in season 1.

But…

Eventually that changed.

And when she left the Jedi Order, it yanked at my heart strings.  It was one of the most heartbreaking episodes I’d ever watched.  It also explained why she wasn’t in Revenge of the Sith, so my need for continuity was satisfied.

We got to watch her change.  We got to watch her grow up, so to speak.

And then…Star Wars Rebels came along, and that season 1 finale, I damn near cheered when I saw her in it.  It confirmed that Ahsoka had survived Order 66, and I was so incredibly happy to see more of her!

Around this time was when I met the person who would become my life partner, Beck, and when we started spending more time together and watching shows together, I showed her Rebels.

She had no context about Ahsoka.  So we went back and watched The Clone Wars on Netflix again.

Knowing the kind of person Ahsoka would become, I suddenly found her earlier seasons not so unbearable.  Because I could see it now.  I could see why she had to start the way she did, and I could watch the subtle nuances as she grew up and was forced to become an adult long before her actual age of adulthood.  War was unkind, but she found and forged kindness where no one thought it could be.  The horrors of war made her kinder…

Having all of that context, the showdown between Ahsoka and Vader in Rebels blew us both away, and I feared the worst.  Had we finally watched her perish?

When Ezra rescued her in a later season, I freaking cheered!  And the way she showed up in that final episode, ready to head out and find Ezra with Sabine?  It sent chills down my spine and brought tears forth.

But probably one of the most powerful stories we ever got to see was when we finally got our 7th and final Clone Wars season.  When we got to see how Ahsoka survived Order 66.

I was content.  I was happy.

I thought Filoni had reached peak story telling and character development with Ahsoka.

Then he said, “Hold my beer.”

Give The Ahsoka Series A Chance

I’ve read rumblings around the internet lately that Ahsoka’s appearance in the Mandalorian and Book of Boba was disappointing.  That she was emotionless and uncaring and not at all the character we all grew to love.

Come on, folks.  I think at this point, Filoni has earned the benefit of the doubt.  Don’t complain about her ‘not being the same,’ and instead ask, ‘why isn’t she the same?  What happened to her to change her character to be this way?’

And, well, we’ve found out.  No spoilers for the ongoing Ahsoka show, but if you look back at everything Ahsoka has endured in the Clone Wars and Rebels, well let me tell you…when the Universe keeps throwing hardship your way, keeps taking things away from you, keeps taking the people you love away from you, it’ll wear on you, no matter who you are.

As one person put it on Social Media, Ahsoka was depressed, and that depression is natural and understandable.

In the Ahsoka series, we get to see how Ahsoka comes out of that.  And it is one of the best episodes of Star Wars yet, with iconic visuals that will endure for decades!

So remember that, folks.  Character development, character growth, character change, it’s all a vital part of a storyteller’s arsenal.  Maybe the most important.

If there’s one part of your trade you should work on and master, that’s the one.

Filoni sure seems to have mastered it!

Thanks for reading!  And please feel free to share your thoughts and feelings below in the comments!

-Jon Wasik

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

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