Man standing in a wet street staring at the moon

A Struggle While Writing a Saga

Dear Reader,

Most people post about their goals for next year right about now, but my goals remain as they always do. Reiterate them? Shenanigans, or write, publish, promote and keep the day job. Admittedly, it would be nice to wave goodbye to the last item on the list, but if you read these behind-the-scenes posts, you'll know why it's necessary for me to manage it for a few more years.

Now that I've committed the obligatory action of telling you all about my nonexistent plans for the foreseeable future, we can move on to why I'm writing today. It's pretty serious, so you might need to grab a good drink and kick back for a minute. (Just promise not to snort it up your nose in laughter as that burns.)

I've run into another issue with writing the Draoithe Saga.

Stonehenge

Laugh. I know what you're thinking. I'm always running into problems and then needing some insane solution to resolve them. In the back of your mind, I'm sure you question my sanity. Surely, I could avoid half of my issues if I simply researched the internet, right?

Maybe, but I'm gen-x and neuro-divergent and the thought only occurs to me after I've already jumped off the cliff wondering how I can land and not die. Also, I'm not so trusting of the search results when a thousand different ways surface, and the best advice (even paid for) is try it and see. (This is seriously not helpful. Time is difficult to come by.)

Stonehenge at night

What's the problem? Funny you should ask, because it involves you. See, I've written a lot of stories. I even published many of them. But then I realized they weren't good enough. I needed to edit better, fix timeline issues, organize the tales, write sales-style book descriptions, and get new covers. So I took the stories down and started reworking things.

You know all that. What you don't know is how complex it has been to do it all. Of the 69+ titles once widely available for purchase, only 9 are currently back in print. I may have significantly underestimated how long it would take to republish a saga the size of Draoithe.

Random issues concerning this situation arise all the time. For example: I'm republishing with audiobooks and I'm creating e-book boxed sets. Or I'm publishing the edited tales as serials with all the cool stuff while I edit. But these things aren't the issue. Well, they are issues, but not the one I'm focused on.

looking back

The issue causing my current conundrums? I realized I'm so far ahead in writing the Draoithe Saga limitations exist in the amount of stories readers have available versus what I'm currently excited about. I often want to tell you all about random bits of research which have made it into the books and support the stories, but I feel like I can't because the stories they reference aren't available yet. Then life happens, and I forget to include those details later.

I'm battling how to deal with my enthusiasm for my current work in progress and still promote my older stories. I don't think I can do it. It's too much effort with too little reward. So instead, I'm continuing to publish chapters to the current serials, but I'm focusing on promoting the one I'm heavily invested in at the moment.

The backlist will keep increasing chapter by chapter each weekend, and books will continue publishing randomly as I finish a story edit, but my efforts at promoting the stories will narrow to the area of my current enthusiasm. I've decided this mostly because editing is tedious and the hyper focus is always on the current work in progress. Also, the day job is serious and prohibits me from working any faster than I currently do.

Mystic Dark Miniseries Cover

An issue underlying the lack of backlist material for reference: It takes a lot of time to edit my earlier writing. Not because the stories weren't excellent, but because my skill wasn't as clean as it currently is. For example, Vampire Panther is one of my mother's favorite early tales. She enjoyed Ryker and the way he handled Lily. But I have bogged down editing that story for months.

I want the books back on the shelf. The more fanfare I place on them, the slower the process becomes. It's hard to ask readers to consider reading the nonexistent backlist or point toward previous tales when I need to re-publish them. It's equally difficult to put the current story on hold.

I have only so much time and energy. While I'm on vacation, I intend to post several books for preorder: Haunted Echoes, Ruined Hearts, Shattered Souls, and Grim Dark. Of course, they will be available to purchase and read directly from me long before they're ready to go on any of the retailers. Oddly enough, these are mostly fresh stories. I wrote them cleaner, so they're easier to edit and format.

Vampire Panther Book Cover

I'm also adding chapters daily to the Royal Council Miniseries. I'd like to have Vampire Panther republished before the 8th of January, 2024. It's currently over the halfway mark in the editing process. If I can't hit that deadline, then for sure I'll have it back on the shelf by MLK weekend. That will leave only Angry King to re-release in that miniseries before I can craft the ebook boxed set.

If you haven't looked at it lately, check it out. All the sneak peek chapters are available for all the stories except the Angry King. I intend to add a few more extras after I finish the edit on Vampire Panther as well. I hope I've made good on my promise to create a more immersive experience with the miniseries.

The good news is, I've already built the miniseries skeleton for Valkyrie Riders and the Quest for the Valkyries will publish as soon as Angry King wraps up. I'll be well on my way to republishing the stories around the grey dragons soon.

a dragon

Speaking of dragons, I know I promised a dragon research video a while ago. I haven't forgotten. The muse keeps refusing. She wants to create one on the McCormick Mansion in Chicago, Illinois. It has nothing to do with dragons or the Valkyrie Riders miniseries. It's connected to the Lyons Gate and the Mystic Dark miniseries. I know. Lyons Gate isn't even in the picture for edits at the moment. So it remains an issue I can neither tackle nor resolve.

I will do it. The problem is when. I'm hopeful to get it finished before Quest for the Valkyries publishes on Payhip next year. Keep watching for it. Like everything in the dream, it takes the time it takes. There's little I can do to alter that and less I can do to convince the muse she's out of order. So I hope you're still with me on the insane ride through the dream when I finally manage it all.

Reviews

I hope this behind-the-scenes of the dream episode made you laugh at my shenanigans. I want to wish you all a glorious New Year. We shall chat again after the festivities. Until then, please remember to be kind and leave your reviews whenever you read and always know you are Welcome to the dream...

Be Careful!

Happy Reading,

Ophelia Kee

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