《Of Astral and Umbral》Update: Wrist Health and My Creative Process
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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.
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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.
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To stay alive, Jawad must succeed where all others have failed: he must catch the Prince of Cats. More legend than man, the Prince is draped in rumours. He can steal the silver teeth from your mouth in the blink of a smile. He is a ghost to walls and vaults, he laughs at locks, and Jawad must capture him before powerful people lose their patience and send the young rogue to the scaffold.Ever the opportunist, Jawad begins his hunt while carrying out his own schemes. He pits the factions of the city against each other, lining his own pockets in the process and using the Prince as a scapegoat. This is made easy as nobody knows when or where the Prince will strike, or even why.As plots collide, Jawad finds himself pressured from all sides. Aristocrats, cutthroats, and the Prince himself is breathing down his neck. Unless Jawad wants a knife in his back or an appointment with the executioner, he must answer three questions: Who is the Prince of Cats, what is his true purpose, and how can he be stopped? The Prince of Cats is set in the same world as my other fiction, The Eagle's Flight, but the two stories are not connected. The full story has been uploaded. Information and a map of the city can be found here. There is also an interactive storybook app inspired by The Prince of Cats. The full story can be played for free. Download for Android or for iPhone.
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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, these are owned by THQ and Volition. This fanfiction follows and is loosely based on the aftermath of Saints Row: The Third. Steelport, a city that is the mainstay of violence caused by gangs. And within the Third Street Saint's success, the Boss's origins finally unfold. His name is Miguel Alatorre, a drug dealer who turned average Saint into its glorious yet laid-back leader.
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Cinraal, aliens from another world, emerge from portals and begin to convert Paranova into a world like their own. Lukhan and Isabella, along with fugitives from the Cinraal's previous conquest, band together to defend their planet from these living bio-weapons. As more recruits join their force, their leadership and characters are challenged, forcing them to realise their own humanity.
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An earthman boy, William, was extremely interested in space travels. He got two techniques from his father, Mighty, who was a world-famous physicist studying faster-than-light space travels and his mother, Sally, who was a biology professor at Columbia University. However, he was sometimes not so confident. This meant that he would rather not believe that he was actually very powerful. Due to this, Mighty and Sally decided to boost his confidence. He set out and began his space travel, yet he came to another universe, which was surely unexpected! He had partners, including a female clone man, Ranran, whose prototype was William's physics teacher and head teacher; a fighter plane, Photon, who looked like a fighter plane in WWII; a racing car, Natalie Hurricane, who had crazy performances. The party used an energy core to travel through a black hole and a five-dimensional space when they reached that universe, but unfortunately the energy core lost all the energy. So they had to go to all checkpoints on three planets to collect all energy, because only in this way could they go back to their universe. Yet what would they encounter while they travel in this universe? Would they be able to go home?
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