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State of the Author 1/20/23 (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-20 07:05:58
Imported:
2023-01

Content

This isn't really a chapter, sorry! But I thought I would write to you all just for a bit of a chat and update on myself, the patreon, and ShipCore!

So far, I've been able to meet all my writing goals that I've set myself. We had a chapter everyday posted in November for Writathon, and I've been writing at least 1 chapter every other day, and usually more often than that! The pace has been a bit high. I'm not really feeling burned out or anything but my writing speed has slowed a bit.

When I first started writing ShipCore again, I was writing about 5000 words a day, easily 1500-2000 words an hour. Since then I've implemented and found new methods of outlining chapters, ways to brainstorm ideas faster, and generally come up with ways to be more efficient than ever. But my writing output has still dropped anyway, all the way down to 500-700 words an hour, placing more time and demand on me to keep up the pace.

Why is that? I'm pretty sure it is mainly because the story has grown more complex, I have to keep in mind multiple plotlines and keep the story going. ShipCore is a rough draft, and I don't write detailed outlines of everything. My outlining method is to have important plot points/climax scenes for each ARC then write toward them.

There's a second type of outline I do and that is when I reach a chapter. Before writing the chapter I have learned to write all the action beats/important points I want to hit during that chapter. This is the point where the story is generated in detail, and I figure out where and when things are happening. I have to keep a map in my mind of all the major events going on, who is doing what, and then orchestrate the scenes and timings.

I know other writers have scene cards, detailed outlines of everything made before writing anything at all, and a lot of other methods to help them do all this without having to keep a clear picture of it all in their head.

I just haven't learned to work that way, and changing how I do things rapidly is going to throw me completely off the rails. I really love the characters, I like to see Alex slowly overcoming the obstacles in her way. I really enjoy the setting and there are so many lore bits that you all haven't seen yet that I think will really be cool. There are some huge events and I have a lot for Alex to do still.

Some of the criticism on RoyalRoad has been hitting me hard, I ended up disabling the rating system there because of it. I went to a pretty low state early this month from all of that, but I've pretty much recovered although I really don't read the comments or reviews like I did previously. I really enjoy talking with readers about the story, and I don't mind some criticism, but a lot of people seem to think that it's open season to hammer in all the points they don't like as if they were personal attacks they need me to answer for.

Those negative bits aside, the Patreon has been helping me and my father out a lot. Some of you might already know that my mother and grandparents passed away and that is the big reason for ShipCore's Hiatus almost 2 years ago. I now live my father who had a heart attack, and he doesn't have the best health. He's disabled and on a fixed income now, while I work a part time service job. I fully devote 2-3 hours every day to writing ShipCore now and some days even more than that.

We were doing alright on that income making things meet, but the money from Patreon has really made our budget much more comfortable and I've actually been saving money every month instead of breaking even. That's including the ShipCore commissions I did that weren't super cheap and buying some of the ShipCore merchandise. (I bought an Alex CIC blanket, sue me. LOL.)

So far my long term goals for ShipCore haven't changed. I've been slowly (VERY SLOWLY) working on trying to plot out and outline new chapters in A1 to build it up a bit into a full novel. Currently it is only 50k words and that feels like it is too short. I also want to see if I can add more content showing interactions between Alex and Elis there to help make their friendship not so sudden. That includes some near death experiences with drones hunting them and even boarding the shrike.

A2 would be about 150k words or so which is about right. I am not really sure what needs to be done with it, I think there are some scenes and ideas that get dropped and not revisited. While some things are important maybe some others could be cut out. I'm leery on cutting too much however, but I know to make a tight fast paced *novel* version of the story the fat has to be trimmed. I want to try avoiding just releasing the webserial directly 1:1 to the novel, but I might end up doing that after doing line/copy edits instead of a full dev edit.

Mainly because I find it pretty difficult to do editing. I've never done much of it other than spell/grammar checking after finishing a chapter and before releasing it. Editing costs also get pretty big the longer things get for hiring a professional editor, but I haven't found one I fully trust to work with yet.

A3 wise, the story is near the 1/3rd mark so far and it's just about to hit 100k words. That probably means A3 will be twice as long as A2 which will probably be twice as long as A1. Once A3 is done, I am not sure I will immediately start writing A4. I have another story in the ShipCore universe that I have been thinking about, and slowly building up an outline for. (Yes, I know I said I don't make outlines, but this will be a standalone novel and its for me learning new things... heck maybe I'll find out that detailed outlines for things actually help more than I thought! Although in previous experience I ended up getting choked on it, maybe it'll work better this time.)

Okay, this note is getting a bit long. I hope you enjoyed my little talk about how things are going. Have a wonderful day/night!

P.S. Have some art!

Thea:

Tia:

Alex before haircut!

Alex with recruit outfit, yeah she's wearing it lazyily and would get yelled at + haircut:


Alex with officer uniform + haircut (soon):


Elis's pose from the A3 cover:




Comments

IdolTrust

Don’t let the toxic environment of RR get to you. They tend to think it’s easy to write a novel and because of how the internet is they think being mean is constructive. I would completely ignore it and just use discord as a form of contact you tend to have people who “Touch Grass” and are more human than troll.

InLucidReverie

Yeqh the discord is a nice place

mmarkgraf212

Yeah, outlining can be hard. I tried it myself and it doesn't work for me other than having the end goal, as for story length. I have spoken to a few self-published authors. It seems like 150k words is a good size for a story on amazon. If you go with a publisher, it might be best to ask them. You could always talk to Rhett from Atheon and get his opinion. You could combine a1 and a2 as it is, but expanding isn't a bad option. However, it might be hard to get to that 100k number.

Jonathan Wint

I've actually seen the story plot thread's improve I really like the complexity. It's not overwhelming and makes perfect sense. As for Royalroads a lot of Authors over there get trolled. I myself give honest criticism when called for and I think it could help the author and the story or I just don't bother. Like if I see a huge plot hole. But I'm always clear to the Author that it is meant to be constructive. I've never done that with you not even once. I mean I'd love to give you constructive criticism. But it's pointless there's nothing to criticize. A few things I could would only be superfluous because it's a first draft and the things you yourself point out and obviously correct. And improving. The thing to remember about Royalroads is you have a lot of would be Indian chiefs and not many Indians. Meaning you have more want to be Authors and less readers. So I'm going to say a classic that is deep jealousy over a lot of those comments. I believe in constructive criticism and I believe it helps an Author become better however I also believe in trolls that want to discourage an Author because they themselves suck shit at writing. And Royalroads is filled with people that have no talent who are bitter and seek to pull others down. I saw one really talented Author who just turned professional and being paid to write for gaming company get so much criticism she almost quit writing. White sculptor "Villainess and Grimoire" They nearly made her give up. The reason they did this isn't because they were trying to improve her writing skill...no it's because they were fucking dicks.. I recently pointed out to someone that they wrote a story and then the day-to-day conversations I love the writing but the world had plot holes. They have this hero who had ended the magic on one half of the world. So he decided to retire because some politicians were upset. And his intelligence sword couldn't talk to him anymore. So he moves in with someone from earth who became a dungeon Mistress. Left a very critical comment that they were missing a lot. Wouldn't peasants and the common people instead of liking this guy want to kill him? Yeah maybe the rich could only afford the magic but without weather control spells and lords probably using Magic to bless the crops get rid insects and so on? There would be famine. What about medicine? This is an entire civilization with no idea how to treat disease it's a medieval society where no one ever gets sick before. Knowledge of medicine in our world in the medieval period 50% of people died before they were 5 years old. Yeah you would have to go to a dungeon to hide.. imagine all the people that would want to kill the bastard? What would you do if your child died because this a****** to defeat the demon Lord removed Magic from your nation? And now he's thinking about how the world could be a better place for him if he gets rid of the other half? Yeah the Author hadn't thought about any of the real consequences of their hero's actions. I pointed it out but I was respectful. I wouldn't have even bothered except the guy really is a great writer he just has a s***** grasp of building the world. I never saw anything quite like it and I didn't put it to him quite like that.. really good writer with no world building skills. If I have to guess I think he just rushed it and wanted to get into conversations between this guy and his wife. Which were really good. But he's generating problems from them when the hero should have lots of problems that are not being addressed. So I said my piece and I made it clear I was saying them for constructive reasons. I've never done that with you not even once. I am a critical obsessively compulsive rude human being. I literally have Asperger's! And I've never done it with you. Because I couldn't even if I was trying to pick on it. You write at a professional level with a ridiculous level of detail and skill with full cognitance of a functioning world. Royalroads is infested with Broken bad would-be-writers literally Target good writers and leave really shitty ones alone. But travel around in packs voicing loud minority opinions designed to discourage instead of encourage fellow writers. Please do not let those s*** birds get you down. I'm literally seen writings on that Royalroads so bad they made my eyes bleed not received any criticism and established professional writers who wrote wonderful books that I paid for get hit by multiple negative comments. Often from the same critic reviewer with multiple accounts. On Patreon we are actually paying you to write. So be conceited. We pay you to give compliments! This is the best compliment you can get. I think the most negative thing I ever said to you was depressed Alex was getting on my nerves but I understood it was needed for the story. She's a child with the first human contact she ever had wind up in a coma with brain damage. She's in a real tough spot going to have to decide if she's going to enhance her friend/sister breaking Elis wishes.. possibly changing her into a NAI.( Or would it be NTI Nanite transformed intelligence. Since she's actually an enhanced human being at that point.. not an artificial one). Or leaving her as a mental invalid with brain damage.. that's a real situation. Of course Alex is depressed. Emotionally she's an infant. And deciding on Living Will type stuff. I mean if Elis was just going to die without Nanite intervention that's one thing I can see Alex allowing it. And respect to Elis's wishes. But left with severe dementia in a brain damaged state alive.. Yeah that's literally a human being's worst nightmare. And if she restores Elis she's likely going to hate her for it. Elis's brain was starved of oxygen and she has brain damaged. And even a thousand years from now I can only really think of one way medically they can repair that. One way to fix it. Even if you rebuild the physical brain a lot of the functions will have to be relearned and a lot of who you are will be lost.. Alex is literally the one person in the world that can fix this. She can copy a human personality. Nameless said that. She can rebuild a human brain AND essentially the personality. And yeah she can give her essentially a Mind pacemaker in the form of an avatar core.. that's like that corpo Captain had done except maybe not as an alpha level core. A Psi core.. Alex can fix Elis but it's literally like making her a vampire hunter a vampire. And it's not something Elis would want but being semi lobotomized invalid is not something Elis would want either. So which would she want less? Sometimes you do what's right by those you love even if you know they'll hate you for it. I Get that she going to moan and Whine but I still wish I didn't have to read it. And you broken that up with side stories by using other characters and plot threads. You're really good Author. So fuck Royal roads. They are not paying to give their opinions we are! And we like what we read and we fucking pay for it! There is no higher compliment or opinion that matters!

Anonymous

I found your story through RR and it has become a welcome addition to my cigarette breaks. Knowing the little bit of support I can provide is helping you and yours have a life of less anxiety means a lot to me.

Anonymous

Want me to just add a review to my 5* rating on royal road? Otherwise, I wish you all the best in your personal life.

Louis Nel

It blows my mind that you're writing all this in like 3 hours a day. That is amazing. Keep going and try ignore the comments. It's hard to get decent feedback when people are upset about something but just remember if they didn't care they wouldn't be commenting so they are in fact passionate fans. All the best for your family.

Anonymous

I would say: "Don't get disheartened by the unconstructive feedback on RR." But as someone that gets easily disheartened by being perceived as having made mistakes, I know how hard that can be. Your story is one of only 3 that I've ever put money towards extra chapters because I couldn’t wait to read more. Hearing that my need to read helps you as a side effect is the icing on the cake.

Anonymous

For no reason in particular, I really hope Tia is the Space Princess. Even knowing that's basically impossible because she most likely would have detected Alex's shipcore module or the reverse.

Diego Rossi

Royalroad is useful as it gives you more visibility (it is how I discovered ShipCore), but it is a free platform, so anyone can write comments. As any place where anyone can write comments, some people write them to hurt or drag down soeone they feel is doing better than them. The story is good and interesting, the rithm is right. If we are here, paying for something we could get for free , it is because we feel that your work deserve it and we want to support a writer we like.