Update 1/21/24 (Patreon)

Hello, everyone,

This is just an update on my writing of Shadow of the Soul King.

For the last two months, I haven't written much more than one chapter a week, which is why I haven't posted more than that, as I need at least a little backlog so I can change things in recent chapters based on what has to follow. And the main reasons for writing less than I was are as follows:

1) For a while there, I got obsessed with a Chinese webnovel and found it very hard to put down. (I like the type of thing I write)

2) I am now in a good, healthy relationship and I spend most weekends with my girlfriend, giving me a little less time to do things by myself. (This one is actually good for my writing quality, if not my writing speed, as it makes me happy, and, when I'm happy, it is easier to get excited about writing.)

3) Getting Shadow of the Soul King back on RoyalRoad means I am again subject to the incredibly depressing aspects of posting to that site. You as readers probably aren't aware but the author dashboard on RoyalRoad really highlights how your story is doing compared to other stories on the site and not how your story is doing compared to the past, unlike ScribbleHub which very much does the opposite. And it is incredibly depressing to look at it every day.

Number 3, more than anything else, has really made writing these extremely fun chapters not fun at all, and it wasn't until this week, when a seemingly triggered reader pretty much single-handedly tanked Shadow of the Soul King's ranking by over a thousand positions, that I think I've gotten to the position where I can again stop caring about placement and advertising and instead just have fun focusing on my story again.

I've posted an idea on RoyalRoad to get rid of the part of the author dashboard which, for me at least, is incredibly unhealthy (https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/1422) and I've given up ever getting on RoyalRoad's front page, as that seems at this point to only be for authors writing their second or higher works.

I'm having a lot more fun writing today after finally giving up all hope of any type of rapid success, so, hopefully, I'll end up writing a lot more this week and you'll get more than one chapter next week.

Thanks,

Thirteen Life Legion

P.S. I noticed it might not be obvious what I was talking about concerning RoyalRoad's author dashboard. It's the number highlighted below and, given its position, it is pretty much impossible to not look at when coming to this dashboard to post new chapters, see comments and reviews, or check readership numbers (which are useful).

Also, I'm doing well. I mainly just wanted to give an explanation for why there's only been a single chapter every week. Thanks for the comments.