I had such huge ambitions going into this year. My early releases on Amazon were successful beyond my expectations and they motivated me to keep working. I managed to get The Princess Awakening written in an impressively short time, and had hopes that I could repeat the trick several times throughout the year.
Well, the year is nearly over and you’ve hardly heard from me. That isn’t to say I’ve been inactive — yes, new stories are scant on this blog, but my characters still turn up from time to time at The Trading Post, and every now and again I’ll catch a fit and upload some captions to DeviantArt.
Life is busy, but it’s not so busy that it keeps me from writing. So what’s happening?
Earlier this year, I wrote a novella that I had intended to be my follow-up to The Princess Awakening. I was so enamored of this idea that I wrote it extremely quickly, fussing with the fine details to ensure it came out right, only to find in the end that I had missed the mark. Once I had it done I simply felt like I was too far off base to put my name on it and let it out into the world, so I had to keep it under wraps. Perhaps someday I’ll revisit and revise, because I never like throwing anything away, but it has fallen down the priorities list.
For the rest of the summer I cast about for other things to do, new ideas that would inspire me. I had several good candidates but nothing that demanded I pursue them much conviction.
It took some time, but I decided this was all right. I had my hopes that I would be a lot more prolific in 2022 than I have been but I wasn’t willing to trade in quality and personal satisfaction for that. I had to convince myself to be okay not pushing myself too hard or else I was going to end up spending more time creating more junk I didn’t want people to see.
But that said, you can feel safe in assuming there is work being done. Those of you who follow me on Twitter will note that I have started back up my usual updates on some kind of WIP.
Currently, I am hip-deep in what I hope to be my next release. It’s the kind of story I was looking for where I just keep wanting to go back and work on it, and while there’s still much work to do and I feel it will be subject to some revision before you see it, I don’t quite have the same doubts that this is something I’ll be happy to show you. It’s a take on my usual TG themes that I haven’t gotten to play with yet, and hopefully contains surprises and delights for all my readers.
Beyond that I have a lot of possible avenues to explore in 2023 and beyond.
In the meantime, work has also proceeded on the long-promised Author’s Edition of Kristi’s Mom. There are a few “special features” I wanted to rig up as a gift to those who supported my first major novel, and we are that much closer to seeing them come to fruition.
Thank you all for your ongoing support. I will see you around and don’t forget to be kind!
-Liam