Weekly Update #150
Added 2021-04-12 10:27:10 +0000 UTCWasn't it nice to have 5 different uploads in a week again? We're back in business now! Though, there won't be a chapter of the tentacle story this week because I have a lewd commission being worked on for it. I'm still going to write a couple of chapters for it, but I won't be posting them until the artwork is done.
Anyways, whew. Let's see. There's a lot I could talk about. First, I guess let's start with Amazon.
First off, thanks to everybody who has left a review! And now, the low expectations I set for myself on Amazon have been passed, thankfully. I've sold 63 copies of LDQ first volume so far and have gotten 24,336 KENP (Kindle Unlimited) page reads in these two weeks! I told myself that I'd be happy if I could make at least $100 from selling it considering that LDQ has always been my least popular story, and I've made about $250 so far. I can be happy with that. The more volumes that come out, the more sales there'll be, and the more people there'll be going to read the original volume. Now, if I had set my expectations to compare against what other authors going to Amazon from web serials achieved, I would have been disappointed. But even if my numbers are lacking compared to a lot of my fellow web serial authors, I always remind myself that my numbers are still seriously good when compared to the vast majority of self published authors. I have no right to complain about low sales when there are countless people who never even get a single sale, you know?
Moving on! Now, let me preface this next part with a disclaimer because people like to go "why does it matter" and "labels don't matter" and so on whenever I bring up this topic on various writing servers. I agree. Labels really don't matter. I simply like to think about them and how they might apply regardless. So, literary writing. For most of my life, I've kind of tricked myself into believing that literary writing is snobbish, boring, old, and for elitists. I always had a problem with how it seemed like authors and readers of literary fiction looked down on "genre" fiction as lesser or insignificant because it wasn't as deep or as meaningful according to them.
Then I saw people talking about how the Monogatari series is absolutely literary writing.
Then I did some research to remind myself of the proper definition of literary writing and standards for it.
Then I realized basically all of my favorite stories, conflict and character types... it's almost all literary writing. I've been a massive literary fanboy without realizing it, always tricking myself into thinking that I hated what I perceived as literary. In reality, what I hate are snobs of all sorts. There's nothing wrong with literary writing. So then I got to thinking, could I actually classify some of my writing as literary?
Let's look at TTE. The first few volumes of TTE are absolutely not literary. They are very much genre fiction when it comes to the overall plots. Even so, the characters themselves could be argued as literary at times. Cass and Aiko are the biggest examples. When it comes to genre fiction, you're generally trying to write to tropes and satisfy reader expectations. You're not really trying to do anything fancy. However, if I'm allowed to pat myself on the back a little here at the risk of sounding like a narcissist, Cass was a tsundere, but she wasn't just your generic violent anime tsundere. She had an overly controlling father, shitty ex boyfriends, and negative experiences with men in the game before meeting Fenrir. She had more than enough reason as a character to be the way that she was, distrusting and kind of bitchy. Over time, she realized how unfair it was to be that way, wasn't happy with herself, and did her best to change. Now, she's basically just a dere who sometimes gives tusn fanservice. I took a trope, analyzed it, went more in-depth with it, and subverted it.
Then there's Aiko. Aiko very much seemed like your stereotypical yandere girl who was clingy, obsessive, and violent (towards others, not Fenrir or the group). This caused tension and problems, though, and she was called out for her behavior, and then she self-admitted herself to a psyche ward to get serious mental help overcoming all of her issues.
Now, I'm not going to be all like, "oh look at me I know what character development is I'm such an amazing author." I'm just saying that, when it comes to genre fiction vs literary fiction, genre fiction does what it does because it wants to appeal to the tropes of a genre and satisfy reader expectations for them. Subverting them and taking tropes that are usually there for lighthearted fun and treating them as serious issues is, I think, enough to make those components "literary."
Then we have the latest volumes of TTE where the conflict has moved away from your standard genre fantasy tropes and moved into more personal and ethical issues, mainly thanks to Kadi. You might have conversations related to the topics discussed between Kadi and Fenrir in normal genre fictions, but those topics are very rarely the entire theme of a book. What makes somebody who they are? Is that decided naturally or by who they want/pretend to be? Is there really a difference between an AI simulating human behavior with near perfection and an actual human? We've gone from "slay the giant zombie sea serpent" (genre fiction) to "what makes a person who they are, and are you able to be the person you want to be regardless of what life throws at you?" (literary? fiction).
Another defining aspect of literary fiction is--well, basically, throwing out conventional writing advice. You follow your vision 100%. You don't bend to the rules nor expectations of your readers. This is basically what I always do in the first place even when writing genre fiction. I don't care about traditional flow, pacing, styles, etc. All I care about is how I want to tell the story.
And then there's the dialogue. Literary fiction has a habit of generally being full of dialogue because the stories are extremely character focused rather than plot focused. And, hey, guess who writes character-focused stories with a fuck ton of dialogue?
Anyways, I'm not really about to start calling myself a literary writer or anything. It's just that, after some research and introspection, I realized that I /could/ be called one and that I actually /love/ literary writing. And funnily enough, one could argue that the entirety of Lazy Dragon Queen is literary writing because of how it spits in the face of all normal rules and literally anything can happen without care for things like plot holes. It's absurd, self-aware, and unconventional.
I told one of my writing friends about this who loves literary stuff and they said that /I/ am being literary by going through character development here brought on by introspection and changing my beliefs. That was funny to me.
Alright. Let's move on to everything else now.
I plan on streaming again this week, so I'll be streaming starting at 7pm EST on Tuesday and Thursday and then 12pm EST on Saturday. Games undecided.
Now for memes 'nd things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKVoN-SjZ-Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyzCVPmzEU4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRCmmJZRyJs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YL87GsAai8&list=LL&index=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVRGX4_qJz8
Weekly Worksheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nj5jQlIL5fpC9NHxqWyAC8bWcRUWNfjW/view?usp=sharing
22 hours, 16,072 words. I'm happy with it. Really gonna aim for higher this week, though.
The True Endgame
I think I talked about TTE enough up above, yeah? But for this latest stuff, I'm glad that people are enjoying it! I wasn't expecting to write a lewd chapter, but I was horny, so I wrote a horny chapter. Now, after having a chapter where Fenrir was all cute and submissive, it's only going to make sense to start off the next chapter with him being a total badass, right?
Ero Dungeon Online
TTE had paizuri and now it's gonna be time for EDO to one-up that with /double/ paizuri. Also, random thing. I'm putting /these/ around words to kind of imply that they're meant to be italicized. Yes, Patreon can italicize text, but I'm writing this on notepad first because I'm too lazy to log into Patreon at the moment. Does that make any sense? No, but I'm doing it, so just imagine any text like /this/ is italicized. Anyways, yes, double paizuri time. Also, I keep on jumping between whether I think EDO has like 2 volumes left in it or maybe 3-4. I think 2. It really just depends on how many more ideas I want to throw in after all the current little plot lines wrap up.
Lazy Dragon Queen
I already talked about Amazon stuff up above, so I won't be repeating myself here about that. That aside, new volume, new antics to get up to! There's gonna be a bit more of a focus on action and mechanics this volume since last volume covered dates and fun slice of life stuff, so let's actually progress what tiny amount of plot there is by conquering the zombie princess this volume!
Unnamed Tentacle Story
I still have absolutely no idea what to name this story. It obviously needs three words in the title so that it can have a 3 letter acronym like all my series do right now, but I don't know what to name it specifically. Other than that, I'm really happy with how the story is turning out so far! Got a cast of characters shaping up, a couple of waifus, and... because it's almost 6am and I want to be done writing this weekly update now, let's just leave it there and I'll give you the recently finished design sketch of Korova to make up for it.
The Queen's Hound Reboot Attempt #4
Speaking of names, I'm almost certainly going to be renaming this series, but I don't know what to yet. I feel like it really needs a new name to separate itself from the original considering that this is kind of nothing like the original. Not to mention that even if it was more similar, I would still want to rename it like I did with EDE to EDO. So, hmm. I really like how The Dungeon Hound sounds, but that sort of implies the entire series is gonna involve a dungeon, no? I don't plan on Woofen staying with the dungeon for more than a few volumes. Then again, he is a hound who gets his start with the dungeon... so he would still be a dungeon hound even after he's done with it, in a way. So, maybe I will name it that instead. The Dungeon Hound. TDH. Hmm. The more I type and say it, the more I like it. The Dungeon Hound... yeah. I think I like it. It's catchy and will probably grab more attention than The Queen's Hound. Though, it's also more generic sounding. But, I don't care about titles that much, so it's fine if it's generic as long as it grabs attention. Anyways, I think I'll be calling it that from now on. The Dungeon Hound. TDH. Unless I come up with something better, which I mostly likely won't be, we're going with that.
Uhh, aside from that, I'm happy with how it's going! The next batch of chapters this week is going to have Woofen going back into the dungeon before we have any more slice of life-y stuff, so time for some more action and perhaps another visit from the dungeon himself.
Reading Report
I really need to read again.
In Closing
Alright, it's getting close to 6:30am now. I should post this and go to sleep.
Thank you for your continued support like always, I hope that you're enjoying the stories both old and new, and please look forward to this week's upcoming chapters!
Goodnight, and I hope that you all have a nice week! No tentacle update today since I'm waiting on art, but we'll be back with the usual posts with EDO tomorrow!
