Yearly Update & 2022 Plans! (important-ish stuff)

First off, I hope that you all had a nice holiday season, and welcome to 2022! Hopefully this year is much less dramatic than the previous two for all of us. To those of you still around, thank you for all of your continued support, and I am going to try my absolute hardest this year to prove myself worthy of your patronage.

I also want to apologize for not posting chapters this past week. I planned on it, but a lot of personal things happened which I'll talk about below that ended up kind of fucking my writing flow. tl;dr for that particular issue is that I'm single now, though.

Now, I'm going to jump into the more important information regarding my upcoming writing plans before talking about the holidays and everything, so let's just jump right into that and cut straight to the point.

New Schedule

Dominion Expansion will get updated on Mondays at 3pm EST

Ero Dungeon Online will get updated on Tuesdays at 3pm EST

Lazy Dragon Queen will get updated on Wednesdays at 3pm EST

The True Endgame will get updated on Thursdays at 3pm EST

Plans for the Paused/Dropped Stories

It should be abundantly obvious by now that TTT and TDH kind of went on a break which they never came off of. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with the stories, and I especially thought about all of my dropped/paused stories in general over the course of December. I don't like the reputation that I feel like I'm developing as somebody who never finishes a series, so, I've come to a decision about what I'm going to do.

I'm going to finish them.

Instead of trying to prolong them by giving them long overarching stories that can last potentially for years, I'm just going to work with what I've already written, rewrite them to some degree, and give them endings. The first story I'm going to do this with is The Tentacles' Tavern. I'm going to rewrite bits of it and edit it to be an entirely self-contained story that is only a single volume long. Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to just cut it off at where the first volume previously ended or anything like that. I'm going to have to write quite a few new chapters just for the ending alone. However, I don't plan on presenting it to everybody until it's completely finished, which I want to have completed by April at the latest.

After TTT will be CORE. The way I'm envisioning CORE going right now is two volumes: one volume that serves as a sort of introduction to him and his dungeon that covers its early history, and then a second volume that takes place after a pretty decent time skip to after he's established his empire and all that. I'm going to try and do this within another four months after finishing up with TTT.

And then, after TTT and CORE... I'm going to rewrite what I've always wanted to do and what the vast majority of you all probably have no idea about: ASV. ASV, or A Slave's Voice, was the very first web serial I ever wrote. I technically ended it with an extremely rushed and open ended ending that I wrote because I dug myself into a huge hole and had no idea what to do, and also because it only had like 50 followers after hundreds of hours of work poured into it while TTE (which released a couple of months after it) got that many followers within a few days. So, technically, the entire story is already there. I just have to rewrite it, probably make it less edgy and grimdark, and wrap the entire thing up within one volume. I'll give myself another four months for that.

So, that means:

January - April: Finishing/Rewriting TTT

May - August: Finishing/Rewriting CORE

September - December: Finishing/Rewriting ASV

That leaves TDH/TQH and SG in the dark as far as my current plans go. SG is something that... I don't know if I'm ever going to get back around to because I discovered that reading about mecha is just nowhere near as fun as playing/watching mecha. I have absolutely no idea what to do with the concept of SG, and it didn't last long in the first place, so that might just be permanently dropped. But, I won't say I'll never get an idea or muse for it. You just shouldn't have any hopes for it in case you're one of the handful of people who actually cared about it. If it happens, great! If it doesn't happen, you won't have any remaining hopes to get crushed.

The Dungeon Hound / The Queen's Hound

Then we have TDH/TQH. Now, I was considering the idea of just trying to finish it like I'm going to with TTT, CORE, and ASV, but I do really love the story and I want it to be something that can last longer. It's probably my biggest problem series because it's something that I love, but also something that I just keep on struggling with. I'm not even aiming for it to be perfect (while ongoing, editing is for making things perfect), just good enough, but I personally believe it's not even good enough. TQH's LitRPG elements completely fell off and were completely made up bullshit and had, what I felt, was a very forced plot that became incohesive and random. TDH's characters are all fucking great as far as I'm concerned, and I believe that basically every character involved in TDH is far superior over their TQH versions, but the being-stuck-in-a-dungeon thing is a drag and the GameLit roguelike system feels lazily tacked on and detrimental to the story.

Now, over the past few months, I've been experimenting with writing litrpgs that I haven't posted elsewhere. I've been putting a lot of effort into properly planning out systems and stats, setting up excel spreadsheets for them, and everything. I've really gotten into system building and doing so in a way that makes managing everything a breeze. I change the value of a level from 1 to 2 and it updates all the stats and tells me exactly what I need to know instead of having to go back through a bunch of chapters digging for information and doing manual math.

So, what does that all mean?

It means I believe, but don't have any concrete plans yet, that I want to return TDH to its roots. Kind of. By that, I mean give it a large LitRPG focus with frequent system updates and whatnot. I want to bring back the larger focus on survival, too, while also keeping the character upgrades from TDH. Maybe make Elanah even hornier than she is in TDH, who knows. The world, and Woofen, might break if she becomes even hornier.

Also, if I do start TDH/TQH over from scratch again, I can promise this right now: if there is a dungeon, and that is a very strong if at the moment, it will be cleared and gone within one volume. Because holy fucking shit I'm a dumbass for going and throwing him into a dungeon twice. Each time I convince myself that it sounds like a good idea and then get immensely bored of the dungeon plot line and feel too limited by it.

Anyways, all of this is to just say that my plan regarding TDH/TQH is to make it into the best possible version of itself. I've not given up on it and always think about it, and I know there are a lot of people who want more of it. I want it to be a story that puts both of its current iterations to shame. I don't know when I'm going to figure out my vision for it, but I'm going to do what I can to perfect it in my eyes, and hopefully have more to share about it soon.

Oh, and I also plan on finishing EDO this year. That probably won't happen until late in the year, and I may prolong it if I get more ideas for it, but I currently have a plan for wrapping it up before the year is over.

Amazon Publishing

Alright. So, this last year was hectic, but that's not the case anymore as I'll be talking about below in the more personal section. All you really need to know is that I have a lot more time and determination now. That is why I plan on publishing all current volumes of LDQ to Amazon by the end of the year, and I also plan on publishing at least the first three volumes of TTE to Amazon by the end of the year, alongside the completed versions of TTT, CORE, and ASV. Here's a schedule of how that may look.

January: LDQ vol. 2

February: none

March: none

April: TTT + LDQ vol. 3

May: none

June: none

July: LDQ vol. 4

August: CORE vol. 1

September: none

October: TTE vol. 1 + LDQ vol. 6

November: TTE vol. 2

December: ASV + TTE vol. 3 + CORE vol. 2

The only thing that may slow down the above release schedule is the rate at which I get covers.

Writing Schedule

For reasons I'll be talking about below, all I can say is that I'm more motivated than I've ever been before. I haven't been happy with my writing schedule and am determined to improve myself in a variety of fields this year, and already started this past week. But starting today on the first, I have a strict schedule I'm setting for myself.

Monday - Friday

Wake up at 6am.

Walk dog, drink coffee, freshen up by 7am.

Read for 1 hour until 8am.

Write that day's chapter by 12pm.

Eat and take care of dogs by 1pm.

Exercise until 2pm.

Edit LDQ/TTE until 3pm. Post daily chapter.

Rewrite/edit TTT/CORE/ASV until 6pm.

Relax until 9pm.

Walk dog by 10pm.

Read for another hour until 11pm.

Sleep.

Repeat.

The weekend is more or less the same without writing and exercising, but I am still going to do an hour of editing each day on Saturday and Sunday.

That is going to be my schedule until the end of the year at least. It's a strict routine that I'm going to force myself into because I operate best when I'm forcing myself to go as extreme as possible about something. Easing into things or giving myself easier plans just don't work as well in my case. If I want to stick to something, I have to deep dive into it and go 100%. I'm also starting keto and one-meal-a-day again. Started that yesterday, actually. Not like I have to wait until the new year to start changing things.

I'm also going to leave Discord closed and my web browsers closed in the mornings, I'll check them at lunch, and then close everything again. The internet is too distracting, so I'm going to cut that distraction out and only allow myself to open it up in the event of needing to look something up such as a word or put a bit of research into something. And after I'm done working for the day, of course.

Yearly Worksheet

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T0emtPQpbKB2kOSKubG_L0CEvRfQkFUq/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110960644416608383305&rtpof=true&sd=true

I worked on my stories for a total of 1,166 hours this year at an average of 4.5 hours per day. I wrote a total of 874,599 words this year with an average of 3,569 words per day. I'm happy enough about that.

And now, moving on to the more personal stuff!

If all you cared about was the important stuff related to the content I post here to Patreon, that's all for now! You can skip the rest of this stuff.

Personal Stuff

You know, before my grandma moved in with us, I was doing really good at improving myself. I was working out daily, eating healthy, lost a ton of weight (that I gained back + more), and so on. But then as soon as my grandma moved in with her worsening dementia (which is still getting worse to this day), all of that came to a halt. I no longer had any privacy, had to be one of her caretakers, and was far more stressed out. That only grew worse and worse over the last couple of years as her condition continued to deteriorate.

But she's in a nursing home now. They're taking good care of her. My mum checks on her at least once a week and, while her mental condition is rapidly deteriorating still, she's in far better hands than she was when she was here and we're all happier and mentally healthier for it.

For the first time in several years, I have some privacy and can really focus on what I'm doing without having to worry about babysitting my grandma with dementia.

Now, I also mentioned that my girlfriend moved in with me a few months ago and helped take care of my grandma. Unfortunately, that relationship didn't work out and I broke up with her a few days ago for a variety of reasons that I'm going to keep private. Don't feel sorry for me or anything because it was honestly for the best and I'm happier now for it. I felt horrible for my ex, which really fucked up my writing mood since this all happened right as I ended my Christmas break, but it was for the best of both of us. She's still going to be living here for a bit until she can figure out what she wants to do, and we're going to help her with that, but I'm still going to have far more free time and privacy now.

I learned a lot about myself in the last few months of dating her, too, due to our relationship. There are a lot of things that I never really realized about myself. I've always been a hopeless romantic who has wanted to believe in dating a single person for life and looked down on dating around just for fun or casual relationships, but I've realized just how fucking much there is to be learned by doing so. Every single relationship teaches you more about what you want from a partner, what your preferences are, what you can see in them that you dislike and see that in yourself, etc.

For example, I've learned how much I value a clean, tidy environment. I've learned how much I value respectful, polite behavior. I've learned how much I appreciate somebody stepping up and helping out even if they don't want to without complaining about it. Things like that. All things that, admittedly, I've struggled with myself.

I'm not depressed or anything like that. Quite the opposite, honestly. I'm happy, excited for the future, and motivated.

But I don't like myself. I don't like the current person I am. I'm not working hard enough, I'm not clean enough (though, apparently, that's still cleaner than most going from everything I've discovered, not to pat myself on the back or anything), I'm not respectful and helpful enough, I'm not independent enough, I'm not healthy enough or thin enough, etc. These are all things I've realized now more than ever, and I am going to do everything that I can to change them. This weekend is going to be mostly spent cleaning, reorganizing, and pickling/fermenting some healthy food so that I have snacks to go with my lunches.

I'm going to turn myself into somebody who I respect and who I would date. Until I can do that, I have no right to be in a relationship, so I'm not even going to be trying. If somebody who is literally perfect magically falls into my lap, then I would obviously not waste that opportunity, but I currently prefer being single and intend to stay single for the foreseeable future. I want to be selfish and work on myself and only myself.

Anyways, all of that is why I'm so much more motivated than usual. My grandma is finally taken care of, I learned a lot about myself and came to deeply understand a lot of my flaws, I'm single again which means I don't really have any relationship obligations, and I've also realized just how much I cherish living. I know it's crazy to hear that in (current year) where everybody always jokes about wanting to die and not caring about living, but that's not true for me in the slightest. I genuinely want to live forever and it saddens me to know that is most likely impossible. But while I might not be able to live forever, I can live for as long as possible. By the time I'm old, medical advances should be advanced enough that I could easily live to 100 as long as I live a healthy lifestyle unless I get fucked by RNG. Assuming that the world doesn't end, I also firmly believe that the first people to live to 150 or older are currently alive. Even if I can live until I'm 120... that's more than four times as long as I've been alive for. God damn that is a fuck ton of time and I want every single possible second of it.

I guess you could say I've had a bit of an existential crisis in the last few months where I've gone from "meh, I don't care if I die early, I'd probably rather die before I'm 60 so I don't have to suffer from old age" to "what the fuck I'm going to die someday, I need to get as healthy as possible so that I can live for as long as possible, I don't want to die, I want to witness humanity's progress for as long as possible."

I love living. I always have, well, except for my period of depression when I was younger. But aside from that, I've always loved living and I want to live for as long as fucking possible. While I obviously don't expect this to happen, I'd preferably live until we figure out some form of immortality, whether that's through medicine, uploading our minds to a computer, or being able to freeze myself until either of those get figured out. I'm not delusional enough to seriously hope for any of those within my lifetime, but I am delusional enough to hope for getting to live to at least 100... or maybe 120. Maaayyyybeeee 150. Even if the world goes to shit from climate collapse, world war 3, or whatever else, I still want to survive.

And I can't survive unless I get healthy.

And I won't be able to afford any fancy medical procedures or long-term retirement unless I make more money.

And I won't make more money unless I put a ton more effort into my stories.

I'm sure at least some people who have seen me struggle with claims of fixed schedules and all that are scoffing and thinking I'm going to fuck up within a month like usual, and you have every reason to believe that. I would probably believe it, too, if I wasn't inside of my own head and aware of just how... different it feels this time. Everything feels more serious now. I'm 28 now and nowhere close to where I wanted to be in life aside from being a writer.

So, I look forward to improving myself and proving any potential doubts wrong.

That's all for now!

Once again, thank you for your continued support. I look forward to improving myself and my stories, and I hope that you look forward to everything that I have in store for us this year. And hopefully, I'm not the only one who improves this year to become better than we were last year.

See you on Monday with a DE chapter at 3pm EST!