PATRIARCH FOWL
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Notice of Hiatus
🕑 Added 2024-04-19 11:58:05 +0000 UTCScroll to the bottom to the bold text for the summary.
I took a few more days than I had initially anticipated because I needed to make up my mind about Casual Heroing and, more in general, my writing.
The rewrite of Casual Heroing has actually done much better than the first draft, which makes me incredibly proud. It's not common for a RR story to undergo a rewrite and come out better. Usually, rewrites end poorly. I was incredibly lucky to stumble upon Joey's story the first time around, and I massively enjoyed myself the second time too.
However, I feel like bumbling around like this isn't working for me. Since I released I Wear It Black around July 2022 and bombed so hard on a project I had worked on never so hard before, I realized I didn't know jackshit about the actual craft of writing. I had made up a bunch of heuristics, right and wrong, and tried to survive with those: newsflash, that was shit. So, it's been 18 months or so that I've bought, read, and re-read a bunch of writing manuals. I would have probably participated to some writing workshops if it wasn't for the fact that I live in Italy—I just realized that maybe there are workshops online... Well, better late than never, I guess.
Anyway, the point of what I'm saying is that I actually started studying a lot. Sadly, I only started shifting gears three months after I had already released Casual Heroing v2. That means that we have swaths of 20-30 useless chapters at a time, a lot of random shit, and many other things that I would have been previously too ashamed to even admit to myself.
See, I wouldn't mind taking my time to release three good chapters a week, but I've been struggling because the foundation is rotten. Releasing three bad chapters makes me feel like a fraud. I fucked up twice and it shows. Now, it feels like I'm dragging a carcass attached to my neck while on a trek uphill. (Yeah, very dramatic.) And the most frustrating thing about this is that I know that Joey's story lends itself so well to a character-first story that I'm truly ashamed of not having been able to pull it off twice in a row. I don't want to write something dramatic for the sake of it being dramatic, like the last party arc, and have it so detached from Joey's joys and plights. I want to take my time to restructure Casual Heroing like someone with real know-how would and make it a proper story.
Now, I hope I'm not jinxing it. Every time I announced a project, excluding for Casual Heroing's rewrite, I pretty much ended up overwhelming myself and not being able to pull it off. So, that's that. Most importantly, though, I really cared about providing a semblance of an explanation. Fuck writers who don't let readers know what's up.
And here I am, letting you know what's up.
I'll be taking some time off to continue studying writing. For those who don't know, I write full-time and, through me being cheap, I saved up enough money not to worry too much for a while. So, I'll take this luxurious opportunity and dive even deeper into storytelling. I'll leave some socials where I'll be more active now that I won't be posting for those who want to know if I'm still alive or not. Rewriting Casual Heroing a third time will probably be my top priority. If I feel like I'm not ready for it, this time I won't rush it and will probably focus on another story.
This is it, folks. This is the end of the road for the current manuscript.
A few funny statistics: The first version of Casual Heroing never reached 3.3k followers, while the second sits at an impressive 4.9k followers. The first version's rating at the time of the drop was 4.05, while the current version's rating at time of this post is 4.23.
In my opinion, the rewrite had a much better execution compared to the first, but I see now all the problems with the storytelling. Joey's a powerful character, story-wise. I just couldn't handle it for now.
As I study and progress along this journey, I plan on resuming posting on my Substack and my Twitter—it'll be my thoughts about writing and my current reads. See ya there.
Not sure when, exactly, if in a few months or longer, but we'll be back, Joey and I.
Peace out.
Comments
Get In The Batvan
Do what you got to do. M.G. Driver rewrote the Black Market RPG and disappeared for like 6 months rewriting it. His rewrite was loads better in flow and story cohesion compared to the original. Its hard writing when you have deadlines for Patreon. You have an interesting world and characters and I'm excited to see how your rewrite turns out in the Fall.
Allie
Good luck!
