《Of Astral and Umbral》Update: Wrist Health and My Creative Process
Advertisement
Hi there, everyone!
I’m still waiting for my wrist to heal at the moment, but I wanted to give everyone an update on that—and on some changes I will be making to how I post chapters for my various series.
Re: Wrist
An overly generous friend of mine bought me an ergonomic keyboard. Many authors swear by this keyboard because it allows them to write thousands of words a day without hurting themselves. There’ll be a learning curve while I learn to use it, but this this will hopefully assist me in maintaining my wrist health.
Since I have a history of RSI (Repetitive Stress Injury) and carpal tunnel, it’s important I do what I can to prevent it—and I hate dictating (speech to text.)
Re: My Creative Process
For much of last year, I was releasing four chapters a week between two series. While this is great for y’all, it isn’t so great for me. It’s a lot of pressure and very little free time for me. There’s also an issue due to how my creative process works.
I’ll be making some changes, and for you to fully understand why—I need to explain how my creative process works.
A lot of authors can simply dive into whichever project they need to work on in any given day. My brain doesn’t work that way. I wake up in one of the following modes and am stuck with it until it’s reset by sleep:
Of Astral and Umbral Brain Deck of Souls Brain Mooncaller Brain (Secret Project) Brain Editing Brain I Hate Everything and Want to be a Vegetable Brain
This becomes a problem when I need to write, say, an OAU chapter but I wake up with DoS Brain turned on instead.
Using a rigid schedule stifles my process and results in me spending 4x longer or more on a chapter than I would otherwise need to. It’s the chief cause in “late” chapters. 2,000-4,000 words should only take me a few hours. However, with a deadline, and if I wake up with the “wrong” mindset, it can take me 12+ hours of work to write that single chapter.
Advertisement
So, what am I going to do about this?
I need to use a process that works for me instead of against me.
Instead of forcing myself to focus on a specific story that my brain doesn’t want to focus on, I will be working with my brain’s “mode” of the day. If that means writing DoS, I’ll write DoS. If that means editing, I’ll work on editing. If I hate everything? I’ll be taking a break for that specific day.
By doing this, I can give each of my series attention every month and do them proper justice.
This should actually increase my productivity, it just means that I won’t be putting out 8 chapters per series per month.
So, here’s what you can expect.
I will no longer be working on a rigid schedule. Each series should get a minimum of 1-2 chapters a month per series.
It will likely be more than this, but there are factors like work, illness, and travel that could throw a wrench into things. For example, I will probably be going to Dragon Con with a bunch of GameLit/LitRPG authors later this year and won’t be able to write while at the convention.
Patreon will continue to get chapters earlier than Royal Road, Wattpad, and my personal sites. I’m also planning to change up my Patreon tiers to include more rewards y’all might like.
Advertisement
Return of the Frozen Player
5 years after the world changed, the final boss appeared.[The final boss for area Earth, the Frost Queen, has appeared.] The final boss! If we can just defeat her, our lives will go back to normal!The top five players in the world, including Specter Seo Jun-ho, finally defeated the Frost Queen…But they fell into a deep slumber.25 years passed.«A second floor? It didn’t end when the Frost Queen died?Specter awakes from his slumber.
8 305Prophesy of the Elven King
My name was Rick Evets at least it was before I died. I spent most of my life studying the human soul. A mistake was made and I reincarnated in a world of magic. The strange thing is they knew I was coming. Story also contains traces of "Romance".
8 173Data Hoarding System
Robert lived his life like many other people on Earth, he just had a specific fear instilled within him from his love of books. Like many others, it was hard to disregard the constant negative information being doled out in every form of media. This caused him to fear the loss of knowledge and books that had provided him solace in times of need in his life. He collected and stored thousands of books ranging from web novels to college textbooks on physics. This was an irrational fear of his until the world changed and that knowledge gave him a step above everyone else.
8 124The Ingress Estate
Jonathon Eucole. Soldier. Scholar. Now an Initiate, the dedication without dedication, he finds himself both prisoner and master of an arcane edifice, the Ingress Estate, which can neither be escaped, nor controlled; only diverted, maintained, and pacified. This is a gothic fantasy story, set in a world in which gods and the afterlife are not only real and known, but were both established in living memory of some of the inhabitants after millennia of arcane warfare with the being who constructed the mundane reality the humans occupy. But this isn't the story of those who colonized the afterlife at the cost of their own humanity, but a somewhat more ordinary man, in somewhat extraordinary circumstances. This is also a LitRPG-lite, which means there's a system of sorts, fragments of which can be observed through Jonathon's eyes. Don't expect level-up screens, or statistics, or indeed numbers much at all, beyond those the inhabitants of the world itself apply to understanding their own reality. It pretty much doesn't matter to the story, I mention it so those who don't want to read LitRPG at all can successfully avoid it here. I don't have any particular plan here, just some ideas inherent in the genre. This is a character concept I toyed with some years ago; an old man, bright of mind but weighed down into apathy, both by his past and his responsibilities for a terrible estate that cannot be left without stewardship. Don't expect any kind of overarching plot or story, because that's really not what this is about. Also don't expect much dialogue. Or character development. Or much of anything, really, because I've planned nothing in the way of an actual book, here. Other relevant information, if you've read this far for some reason: The MC isn't super-powerful to begin with, and probably never will be. He's a veteran with some useful skills, and the insight on how to use them, so can deal with the world's ordinary threats reasonably well, but not too much beyond that. --- Currently on hiatus, as currently the story has a rather poor ratio of effort-to-personal-payoff. I may return to this once I have a clear idea of how to get the stories where I want them. I've started a more standard LitRPG using the same system. But if you like intelligence characters who cleverly min-max their classes, it probably isn't the story for you; it's the story of a rather ordinary guy who winds up in a very similar universe.
8 132Social Anxiety Disorder
A book of my favourite poems and quotes about Social Anxiety.I do not own any of these and credits go to all the authors of the poems and quotes.
8 120ISEKAI'D INTO REMARRIED EMPRESS
A Remarried Empress Isekai Fanfiction where the FL gets Isekaid into The Remarried Empress.She decides to have fun with this phenomenon and ruin the life of the person she hated with her all being.Disclaimer:The format and few parts of this story is a little identical to another fanfiction but this one follows a different flow of plot.
8 182