So, today I'm going to start work on A Wanderer in Bitland. My first LitRPG project. I got the idea from what I've seen across the genre. Mostly they use very advanced games with loads of features and skills and classes and abilities. The game is usually managed by some AI or similar god-like bullshit that controls everything. Not knocking it—it's a solid idea. But, I thought to myself, what if you were stuck in a crappy game? And from that horrible idea, this story was born.

To piggyback on that, what if you were stuck in an old game with very limited specs? A game where you only have so many commands, NPCs can only say so much, and monsters reset to exactly where you found them as soon as you turn your back? What if you only had three lives and then you really died? Sure, you could use some of these quirks to your advantage if you had some skills (grinding for XP would be easy, but probably dangerous) but most of them would really change the usual narrative.

In addition to that, I really love this pixel shit. I do. I've done loads of pixel art in the past—I did a memecoin that used my pixel art—and I'm working on an 8-bit chiptune soundtrack for literally no reason. I certainly have other interests. I'm into hiking and disc golf and other stuff (I don't like talking about myself, have you noticed?) but retro games are a big passion of mine.

AI mock up of a possible cover. Did you know AIs can do pixel art?

Who am I? What am I working on? Similar boring questions that I will not be addressing? This is not my first novel. I've been writing since I was 9 (ish) although I doubt that really counts. Through the years, I've done short stories, poems, novels, and roleplaying games.

I started this blog for a sense of accountability. You see, I can work on things just fine—I can even finish the things I work on—it's the part where you show them to other people that I don't like. So here I am, writing outlines, sketching out scenes and characters and so ons, and I just can't bring myself to take the next step.

Previously, I have finished (although they could use some editing) about three full-length novels. Two were urban fantasy and were intended to be a series and the more recent one was a space opera. The space opera one finished at about 160,000 words and rrrreeeaaalllyyy needs some editing, but it's done. It has never seen the light of day. I took the first chapter to a discord-based critique group and got some good advice on it, but ultimately didn't have the time to work on it after that. I will come back to that one at some point.

Needless to say, having my work pile up with no place to go really sucks ass. I did some googling. I did some AIing. I did some good ol' fashion, down-home-country style reading. With a side of biscuits and gravy. And most sources said the following.

Step 1: Just keep writing.

I know, that's a lot to unpack.

Step 2: Put the writing somewhere.

Fucking A, these are getting complicated. I'd better slow down.

Step 3: Show the writing to someone.

Yeah—see? This is the hard one, isn't it?

The overall plan of action is to "build an audience". How do you do that? Produce writing often and make it freely available. I should also mention that I don't like participating in internet culture and social media. I could rail on about it, but I still have work to do. But things like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and so on have just never interested me. And yet those are the easiest places to find readers. I apparently need to hunt them down like Indiana Jones or some shit.

As I write this novel, I'll be posting it as a serial. Looking at using Royal Road, since there's a lot of LitRPG and fantasy and sci fi on there. My plan is to write a chapter, clean it up, edit it, get it smooth and polished and then post it. Lather rinse repeat. I'm an outline writer—and I use handwritten outlines (yay for carpel tunnel!)—so I'm not anticipating heavy rewrites unless I really fuck up.

This will be my approach for other future novels and stories. I'll publish in serial form and then eventually put the whole thing together and sell it on Smashwords, Kindle and so on. Again, this is not my first rodeo. Just doing it for real this time.

TL;DR

What is this blog? This is a building block. There will be more. I fucking hate TL;DRs, they assume I have no god damn attention span which is why I put it down here at the bottom.

For looking down here at the bottom, I reward you with this chiptune song I wrote. Enjoy. I found a web-based chiptune app called BeepBox. It's pretty cool and easy to use.

Boot Sequence

You can play it from there. Save it. Edit it. Mess around with the software. Make it your ringtone if you want. I don't know your life.