Update from Lockdown

Howdy awesome peeps!

I have no idea what day or week we’re in now….week 3 or 4 I think? I haven’t really been paying attention as usual. Since lockdown 2.0 started, I have been working on The Darkest Realm, and oh em gee, I am loving the story as it progresses. We have some awesome new characters, get an insight into the Miscreant and his closest generals, and new plot elements to bring more life to the story.

Each and every day, I update the progress bar with how many words I have written in the last 24 hours. That way, anyone who visits the website will know exactly where I am at, and hopefully can help me celebrate the milestones 🙂

Yesterday was a bit of a rest day. I had to run some essential errands, and decided to retro-fit one of the filters on my axolotl tank. This is such a big job, but totally worth it!

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I also got to slip in an hour of gaming with a friend last night, before trudging back to the Chromebook for more writing. I spent the evening reworking chapter 15 and fixing up some of the dialogue, made sure things flowed properly.

Apart from writing, I’ve spent too much time on social media. I’m only human, after all!

Future Considerations

As an author, I am my own brand. I am a business, and therefore I plan for the future accordingly. Some things I’m considering:

1. Patreon. I do a lot of work behind the scenes, such as writing crap that never makes the cut (TDR 2.1 is so cringe, I cringe just thinking about how cringey it is).
   Sometimes I write ‘scribbles’ which are part of developing characters, which then turn into mini stories as to why they behave the way they do. I have a hot scene between Garret and Jake that will probably never see the light of day…. Plus I’ll be writing a shorter story that covers how Tysion and Ashavan met.
   There is also so much work that goes into drawing maps, I can post videos and bloopers too. So there is no shortage of content!
2. Beneath the Grandstand is my most successful novel to date. Davo Hardy, an Aussie film director, recently read it and loved it. Once I complete the Miscreant series and develop a bit more of a reader base, we’re looking into crowdsourcing the funds to adapt the book into a film. Super excited about this!
3. Catalogue of Disaster has been receiving mixed reviews. It was only ever meant to be a short story of 40k words, something fun and fast paced. It was my first ever attempt at writing m/m romance in a modern setting. As much as I love this story, I feel like it has the potential to be so much more, especially now that I have grown considerably as an author. Therefore, I plan to revisit this story and flesh it out into a full length story like Beneath the Grandstand. I want to see Garret and Jake doing depraved acts in the archives, making out in the fire escapes, giving them a reason to get in so much trouble. There was going to be a part 2, but now I’ll just rewrite it into one sexy-ass story and bring it to life. I’ll still keep CoD, but the rewrite will be renamed and kick CoD out of the Marsden Park Series. Maybe. We’ll see.
4. Between the Lines will still be written eventually. I started that project full of excitement, but writing about gangs in Australia is much harder than the United States. We don’t have guns here, and our crimes are nowhere near as extensive as over there. In Western Sydney, we deal with Eshays, which are hardly worth writing about. Therefore I will have to approach this from a different angle.

There are so many exciting things coming up, so make sure you follow me on Facebook or Twitter (or both, I post different content on each) and sign up to the newsletter.

That’s all from me today. Stay safe everyone!

Much love,
AAC <3