Feb '24 Situation Report (Patreon)

I'd first like to thank all the new members for signing up.  Every time I see someone join, it makes my heart grow a little bigger.  By that I mean like the Grinch, not heart disease.  I can't tell you how much people actually supporting my writing means to me.

And for the members who've been with me from the beginning, I can't thank you enough.  Knowing that people are actually invested in my writing gives me the motivation to come home from work and put in a few hours at the computer.  It's not easy to keep up this pace, but you guys make it worth it.

Now, on to what you care about.

I'm finishing up book 2 pretty soon, and we'll be moving onto a new arc.  I won't ruin anything, but you should be aware that Nero is going to be fighting a lot more.  The intro is done, and as you know, he is now an elite.  Although his personality won't really change much, he's going to be facing some new experiences.

The world will grow, and it will be taking Nero along for the ride.  Expect to see his snarky banter in the field as he gets more comfortable with combat.  Just like before, new experiences throw him off his game, but he's now getting a handle on it.

As for my other stories, I'll be working on them when I have the time.  However, my focus will remain on Nero Walker.  I just like the character too much to ignore him.

I've also recently been made aware of a few things.

One, apparently I didn't link the discord to patreon correctly.  It's hilarious to me that no one told me.  I just thought no one was using it.  For the time being, I'm taking down the discord benefit.  Before next month, I expect to have figured it out and got it up and running.  I'm sorry if that was a draw for some people, but since no one told me about it, I doubt that's the case.

Two, it seems that a lot of people don't like the cover and the blurb on Royal Road about the novel.  As for the cover, I get it.  I do find the smirky-smiley-face funny, but I understand that it isn't exactly an accurate portrayal of the tone of the book.  As for the blurb, I just treated it like a plot summary from a book jacket.  I didn't want to make it too anemic, but I guess I went over-board.  I'll do a little research, and see what I can do to fix it.

Finally, few people seemed to care about the polls, so I didn't do one this month.  As more people join, I'll probably start them up again.

As always, feel free to post here about concerns or recommendations on what I should be working on.  I'm spending most of my free time on this, so I'll try to address your concerns as soon as I can.  Thank you all so much for your support, and I look forward to showing you how Nero deals with more an more things he is entirely unprepared for.  (Hint:  It's with false confidence, and natural abilities he doesn't realize he has)

Have a great February,

-L.S.