9:08pm

In the comment thread of Saturday’s post (9 November 2024), Kevin asked a couple good questions that I feel require a more in-depth answer than a reply in the Comments thread. So, I decided to start today’s post by answering those questions.

To save you time, I’ll screenshot the two comments and paste them next as an image.

I realized after I added the screenshot above that—depending on your screen/device/what-have-you—the image might not be all that legible.

So, I’ll duplicate the comments in text (which I probably should’ve done, anyway).

11 November @ 5:25pm EST:

Good Day Rob,

I am currently rereading Haven Ascendent and was wondering where in the series you plan on revamping.
have a great day and stay safe
Kevin

11 November @ 6:00pm EST:

Sorry I should be more specific. Is they are particular part in Haven Ascendant that you felt was a turning point for you?

Regarding the first comment (5:25pm), I am currently on the fence about re-writing Haven Ascendant or just adding to it… fleshing it out to make it a fuller, more well-rounded story. It is—by about sixteen (16) words—the shortest novel I have ever written. It has 72,678 words, and Consular Times came in at 72,694.

Now, compare that to the previous titles in the series. It Ain’t Over… –> 125,862 words (my longest novel thus far). …Till It’s Over! –> 85,083 words.

I have settled on 96,250 words as the target for any novel that isn’t one of my Primogenitor novels. That’s about the length of novel I really enjoy reading, something that takes me the better part of an evening to read through.

There’s a part of me that wants to find places to squeeze in another 10,000 words or so into …Till It’s Over!, but I really feel that story is complete and stands on its own as it is. I’m still working my way through It Ain’t Over…, though, so my thoughts may change.

Unlikely but possible.

There are a few chapters in the novella version of Fires that I feel would fit really well if I moved them from Fires and into Haven Ascendant. That is probably where most of the rewriting/revamping would occur.

Beyond that, these (the first three novels of Cole & Srexx) were my third, fourth, and fifth novels. Colfyr—which goes live December 3rd—is my sixteenth novel and twenty-second title overall. As one of my writer friends told me (paraphrasing)… after that many stories, only an idiot wouldn’t get better.

Regarding the second comment (6:00pm)…

This is a very open-ended question, and I’m not completely sure what Kevin was asking. What the question made me think of might not be what he was thinking of, but since I’m not a telepath (and I’m very proud of that), I can only proceed with my thoughts and reaction.

I suppose I could ask for clarification in a reply, but I’m hoping he’ll comment on this post with clarification if I didn’t answer his question(s).

Right, then. Moving on!

So, there are two things to keep in mind when asking or thinking about a “turning point” with Haven Ascendant.

First. I’m sure I’ve posted about this in the past, but the chronology played a huge role in how the titles unfolded.

Chapters 1 & 2 of It Ain’t Over… are almost a direct transcription of a dream I had somewhen around Labor Day 2018. I woke up remembering the dream very clearly (which is odd in itself) and didn’t really think anything about it. When I still clearly remembered the dream when I woke the day after that, I decided there might be something to it, so I grabbed a notepad and spent three or four pages writing down the dream.

A day or two later, I was re-reading what I wrote down, and about halfway through the re-read, I stopped and grabbed the notepad again, writing down five book titles.

It Ain’t Over…

…Till It’s Over!

Haven Ascendant

The Fires of Aurelius

Solar Eclipsed

I wrote It Ain’t Over… during NaNoWriMo 2018 while I was waiting for my editor at the time to work through (or have a time slot to work through) Into Vushaar.

It was around January (when I found my first go-to editor) that I came up with the idea of having those five books written, edited, and ready to publish by the time the first went live. So, I created pre-orders for the first four… and… well… things didn’t quite go to plan.

It Ain’t Over… was ready for its July 2019 pre-order no issue. The second, …Till It’s Over!, was close; I was going through my editor’s comments in July for an August pre-order. But Haven Ascendant? That was even closer than Consular Times. I was sending my weekly writing to my editor who would go through it, send it back to me, and I would append the previous week’s writing while addressing her comments.

Looking back on it, I’m kind of amazed I pulled as much of it together as I did.

Okay. That’s the chronology of the first three novels. The second thing that affected me was the reception. I was not prepared at all for how well Cole & Srexx was received. I was not prepared for that. Not at all.

I still remember sitting at my computer the entire month of October, just staring at the numbers from Amazon. (I was only publishing to Amazon at that point.)

Ever heard the old saw, “Too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing?”

October 2019 had sufficient sales revenue—from Cole & Srexx alone—that it came very close to beating my first year’s gross salary at my second IT job. Just one month…

I grew up in central West Virginia. We were a single-income family for most of my non-adult life, and that income was from my mom teaching public school. Public school is not a field anyone enters to become rich, and definitely not in West Virginia.

Intellectually, I understood that kind of sales revenue was possible, but emotionally? I didn’t know how to handle it. How to process it.

Between the push to meet Haven Ascendant‘s pre-order and the totally unexpected response, something in me broke where the series was concerned. One of my writer friends explained the situation perfectly (they studied and are really into psychology), but I can’t find it right now to quote it.

I have read several accounts of people’s creative career not surviving sudden, exposive success. Dean Welsey Smith said in one of his workshops or lectures or Pop-Ups that he was very surprised Dan Brown continued writing after how well The Da Vinci Code performed.

By no means am I comparing myself to Dan Brown or my writing to his. That’s just what came to mind. And in the grand scheme of things, I don’t consider my success to be all that explosive. I feel safe in saying it was very much a lightning strike, but I don’t know that it truly qualifies as explosive.

Now… while I do consider myself a full-time writer, my income fluctuates, and it is extremely dependent on how often (or recently) I have published. It is not at the level of October 2019 at the moment, and it hasn’t been for a while. I didn’t publish anything from September of 2021 (Consular Times) to August of 2023 (The Fall of Skullkeep).

But for where I am, I have enough to be comfortable. West Virginia doesn’t have the highest cost of living, you know.  😉

For the longest time, I could not stand the thought of returning to Cole & Srexx. At all. But I left a lot of story threads twisting in the wind, and in 2021, I decided to tie them off.

I hated every moment of writing The Fires of Aurelius, and I’m pretty sure that carried through into the novella. I wanted to write pretty much anything but Fires. My go-to editor at the time told me it was an awesome story, just not a Cole & Srexx story. I don’t know if she was right about that, but I have received more hate mail in my newsletter inbox over Fires than any other title or series.

And it came very close to destroying my interest in writing.

It is only in the past six to eight weeks that the idea of returning to Cole & Srexx and making it what I always wanted it to be didn’t evoke at least a small amount of physical nausea, which is why that’s what I’m focusing on the next month or three.

I hope that I’ve answered Kevin’s questions in this rambling discourse. Knowing me, I didn’t just toe the line of TMI in places; I hopped in a catapult and launched myself over it.

I’m sure a lot of people would say that I shouldn’t share all this. That I especially shouldn’t have shared what I did about Cole & Srexx’s initial success.

But…

I feel that I have been inordinately fortunate in life. I grew up in a family that loved me and supported me and only wanted me to be the best that I could be. I wasn’t pushed in any particular direction, just that I should do my best at whatever I chose to do. Even though drugs are (or maybe were) bad in the area where I grew up, I never encountered them. I am a full-time writer when so many of us indies are not. I have awesome friends.

So, if there’s the slightest chance that sharing this will help someone else, why not?

Alrighty. I think I’ve rambled on enough. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for sticking with me.

I hope the days treat you and yours well. Stay safe out there.