Big Update Journal (Patreon)

Hey  guys, posting this ahead of chapter 20 which will be done very soon,  just have to edit it. So, let’s talk about how the new series is going. I  personally think it’s going very good. I’m having a lot of fun working  on it, it’s easy to write, and my motivation has increased greatly since  I really got it going.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m going to be focused on it from now on.  As far as how I’m going to release it, I think I’ve decided against  going back to webnovel first. I think the only reason I wanted to do  that was because I was scared after the WWYK failure and I was trying to  psychologically pivot into a safer space, when really I don’t *need* to  go back and build an audience. I was just afraid of failing when in  reality I shouldn’t be. Just need to keep putting out material, that’s  all.

That does complicate things a bit more, and I’ve been having trouble  figuring out the art side of things. I haven’t shown them off yet but  the actual chapters are going to have graphics where there are currently  text boxes. I’ll post a demo of two chapters so you can see what  they’re like, but I’ve been having a nightmare narrowing down an artist I  want to use for the character portraits. The profile will have a  neutral headshot and then we’d have positive and negative emotions for  the gaining/losing affection notifications. Their full profiles will  probably have a different expression for variety, so that’s four  portraits per character. Plus I still need to figure out who’s going to  make my cover and then these are probably all going to need commercial  use license…

I’m going to include a download of a mock-up for two chapters of what  the final book will look like with some of these graphics. It's not 100% set in stone and there's an error or two but it's still very indicative of what you can expect. All the graphics  were made by my friend Urban.

Urban has also been helping a lot with the money side but more help  would be really appreciated when it’s time. I’ve tried not to talk about  finances but if you’ll allow me to be real with you guys it’s not going  amazing atm. I haven’t put out a new book since early august, I spent  two months on a project that I ultimately had to cancel because I wasn’t  feeling it, and my royalties are reflecting it. This was not a great  month and next month will be an even worse one. If anyone is able to  help me out with bills or anything, please send w/e to www.paypal.me/ClaytonSummers

I hate to ask that blatantly but yeah things aren’t going amazing. My gf  has a job again but she gets paid weekly and that fucks with our  mortgage. Having a real bad day cause I paid like 4 bills all at once  this morning and it added up and took grocery money. Between that and  the need for art eventually it’s rough to think about. My birthday is  coming up and so is Christmas so helping me can count to either of those if you can justify it lmao

I’m not too worried about getting the art just yet since I’m too  stressed to even look for an artist. Me and urban tried one guy out and  got an amazing Mia portrait with the expressions we need only for it to  go tits up when the artist revealed he wouldn’t be taking comms for  another 3 months, making the one we got useless. It was so good that it  basically killed a lot of morale I had for searching lol. Don’t feel  like I’m asking for suggestions, I’m really picky in what I want, I’m  just venting.

Back to talking about production, I should probably mention that I’m  likely changing the series’s name from Love Collector to Love Addict  RPG. Better communicates what it’s about, which is important for this  kinda thing. I don’t feel like going back and changing all the  tags/titles though so when I do it just keep that in mind.

After ch 20 is uploaded we will be done with the material I’ve covered  in my initial outline. The next couple of days are going to be me  plotting out more of the first book, so don’t expect a new post until I  have enough to share. I don’t know yet how far I’m going to cover in the  next outline because this story requires me to improvise a bit more  than usual (as you can tell from how many changes there were in my  original drafts compared to the final chapters) but it shouldn’t be too  bad if I’m paying attention to the numerical values and shit, which I  have multiple spreadsheets to help me out with.

I don’t think the first book will cover all of Mia’s arc though since I  really do need to release something sooner than later(assuming I can  figure out the art shit). Maybe it’ll end on her third heart event or  something, or her fourth if I want to be dramatic. We’ll see how the  outlining goes.

All in all, though, I’m in a rough but good place. I’m motivated and  happy about my current project but funding it on top of just paying  bills is a big challenge right now because of the few months of mental  floundering I had to go through to recover and get to this point. I’m in  my lane, working on a story that suits me, is more mass marketable {litrpg}, and  that I enjoy doing. Things should hopefully fall into place once the  remaining hurdles are cleared.

Let me know what you think of the graphics in the test chapter btw. I realize how out of place Oliver and Mia's profiles look, don't worry, those are getting graphics, too.