Journal Entry 12-25

I came up with a great idea for my own litrpg story yesterday. I'm pretty excited about it, to be honest. And I found a good way to package the premise inside the sci fi genre so that it could be a bit more accessible. The other bonus is that the progression of the story is pretty open ended. I could continue to write on it and serialize it until I get tired of it.

I've been considering youtube as a possible delivery mechanism for my stories, but now that I've actually browsed stories on youtube, I'm not totally sure when I can get there. The problem is the story length. I was thinking I'd generate some shorter works, around 50,000 words at the most. This would translate into about five hours of audio. I think that's plenty of words for the average bear. But so many people just put these damn things on in the background while they dip around on other shit, that the youtube search algorithm favors very long videos instead. I mean incredibly long. Most of the ones I found were something like 60 hours long. Basically the equivalent of six full length books or 600,000 words of narration. Who is ever going to listen to all that? Maybe youtube has a thing that lets you save your spot? I don't know.

The other thing I noticed is that the actually writing content is absolute shite. Like really bad. Full to the gills on filler, thin on narrative, and they employ a plot mechanism that's dry and predictable. I think this is another case that these aren't stories, but instead they're just fucking noise. Noise noise noise. Blah blah blah. Something to fill the void and nothing more. 

Regardless, it's going to take me a decade to write out 600,000 words. And I'm sure by then the internet will have moved on to stories about donkeys eating donuts on the moon while playing ukuleles. Your standard Hawaiian musical about baked goods with humanized quadrupeds genre story. Of course. But either way, I'm still going to serialize on Royal Road and eventually some other platforms. Doing my own author website might be a thing, but I'm not sure how discoverable that would make my work. If you can consider this blog a website, then discoverability is zero.

The upside of writing an adventure serial is that I don't have to worry so much about creating an outline. I have a rough outline in my head that I can fill in as the story goes just like I was doing with my Dungeon Crawler Carl fanfic. Once I've done some mental planning for the new one, I'll just start writing.

You know, for all the work I'm doing to be discoverable, accessible, and in touch with an audience, I bet that I don't make a single fucking dime on this venture. I bet that I actually lose money and still no one reads my work. I'm not being negative or fatalistic, just trying to gauge my expectations. I have always been prone to daydreaming and I can't help it but to dream and hope about success. Finally having my life's focus to be creativity instead of this dreary daily grind. Well, I don't need to have money to make that dream come true. So I'm going to do it anyway. I'd rather have hundreds of self published novels that no one ever reads then make my whole focus on gaining money and advancing a career.

And I forgot to title the last one. Ha!

 You can probably tell how bad I am at this internet social media stuff. I forgot to title the last entry. Ha. And now I have the AIs trying to help me by making my posts more readable or engaging or something. I didn't click on it, to be honest.

I was going to post a photo of Pudding, my kitten, but I don't have any good ones saved conveniently. So I'll do it later. Or not. I don't rightly care. The cut that he laid into my hand is healing up just fine though. So that's nice.

At some point, I'll make an official website and move my blog posts there. But at that point, I doubt my blogs will really be about my daily thoughts and experiences and will probably mostly be ads and promos for my upcoming bullshit that I want you to buy.

I've been doing a bit of research and study about LitRPG, because the bits of research that I've been doing have led me to believe that it's probably a good genre for me to write in. It's obviously not the one that I would want, but that led me to another realization. I am not part of my target audience. I am a weirdo. Or I'm a normie. I'm not sure which. Normie is a crypto word, in case you're wondering.

The more I've read in the genre, the more I don't think it's something that I would like to read on my own. With the exception of Dungeon Crawler Carl. And I think the big difference there is that he has the sense to package the premise into a semi-plausible alien invasion, supposing the existence of an alien society with incredibly advanced technology that gets its thrills from enslaving people and watching them suffer. Honestly, it's quite genius.

It turns what is otherwise a very niche genre for people that prefer video games and anime to books, into something that can be enjoyed by almost everyone. I have to say almost everyone because some people just refuse to like it, and that's okay.

Just for me, without that extra layer of sci fi premise, this genre is...kind of stupid.

*he said, fully knowing that he is already writing in the genre and planning to do it more*

But it doesn't have to be.

I think this genre (no idea where it came from or how it started and don't care enough to research) has a lot of room for growth, even now. There is literally only one book series (that I found in the one day that I looked) that tries to make this genre appealing or even palatable. Our lord and savior Dungeon Crawler Carl. Yeah yeah, there are probably others, but I couldn't find them.

 I think the appeal here is for people who want a fun, dirty adventure with an easy premise (being in a video game) and who benefit from having things explained directly to them rather than using the process of inference (what we in the writing world have been crowing about for ages, something called Show, Don't Tell). Again, this is not what I crave as a reader. Not by a long shot. I want something challenging and huge (why does that sound like a dildo?) that dares me to understand it through the eyes of a character.

I like sci fi and space opera. I like wonder. I like a mystery. I like reading that book that everyone gave up on and saying "That's a really awesome book, if you stick with it". I like a difficult concept that lingers with me and tickles my imagination for years after I read it. I like a story that blossoms into other stories in your mind. I like all that. So you can see why a genre about having things explained to you through the voice an omniscient AI game master would be really annoying to me. But again, it's not without merit.

What LitRPG makes me think of is the old pulp era sci fi serials. The ones from amazing stories that were short, simple and didn't have to challenge any notions. They just stuck out a hand and said "let's have fun together". And this is why I like this genre. Because it is dumb, simple fun that anyone (within reason) can access and enjoy without having to work much for it. I get it, to that degree. 

 I quit this blog because it seems like no one reads blogs anymore. Or at least blogs that aren't provocative or promoted in some way, and I'm not going to do that. For me, this is just a space to share some of my thoughts and concerns. Usually, I keep an offline journal--just on my desktop in a plain txt file. It helps me center and focus my thoughts before I get writing. That way I don't end up with this:

Fred walked down the corridor. His feet moved. His hands swayed. His head turned as if on a swivel. Walking and walking, Fred had always loved walking. Placing one foot in front of the other. One might call it perambulating. Or even sauntering. Perhaps--

You get the idea. Ain't nobody got time for that. So yeah, a quick little blah blah blah in the mornings helps me stay focused.

Quick little side note: we got a kitten a while ago. I named him Pudding for some reason. Since no one reads this blog, it's probably safe to post a photo at some point. Lol. Anyway, he's really affectionate but also feisty. I was trying to let him hang out in here with me while I proverbially beat my head against the keyboard, but he started knocking things off my desk. And then he wedged himself into the little space above my laser printer, and I believe he was going to start chewing on the cords. He's fond of that.

So I started pulling him out of there and WHAMMO! The little fucker sliced me open like a goddamn tuna fillet at a sushi restaurant. The cut's on my palm and it's almost two inches long. I washed it out and threw a bandaid on it, but he earned himself some alone time in the other room while I work.

My life schedule has been a bit erratic lately. I'm basically living in two different states for alternating two week periods. And the houses are two hundred and fifty miles apart. Don't get excited--I don't own either of them. It's...it's something else. Anyway, I'm taking some time off from work while I do this and I'm studying health care classes in the meantime. This journal is rambly. If anyone read this, I'd clean it up. Ha.

On the weekends, I'm taking time to write again. For lots of reasons, but mostly because it's the only creative outlet I can have right now. My other hobbies, like painting tabletop figurines and running Dungeons and Dragons games, aren't available to me. And I really don't know if they ever will be again. So now I have some time to write, but no idea what to write or what to do with it when it's written.

While I figure it out, I'm writing a fanfiction (yeah, I'm not joking) set in the world of Dungeon Crawler Carl. I just need something that's dumb and fun. I'm actually happy with how it's coming along. I'm going to shoot for about 50,000 words when it's complete and then I'll post it on Royal Road for anyone interested in reading. I might also AI narrate it and throw little chunks on YouTube for no other reason than to let someone listen to it.

I have a deep need to create. But I rarely have time or the energy or the focus to do it. I look forward to one day being able to put more effort into this part of my life, but for now, this is what it looks like.

Oh yeah, I didn't forget about that LitRPG project that I did the cover for. I still think an 8-bit litRPG would be fucking funny. I think my target there will also be about 50,000 words. But it's on the back burner at the moment. And then there's my space opera project that I'll get to at some point. It's always in my brain, which generally means I'm never going to get it down. Or when I do, it'll sound like the ramblings of a crazy person, or worse, your drunk uncle.

Almost forgot. I'm thinking about publishing under a pen name. Nope nope, not just for vanity's sake. So that I can be Richard D. Longfellow or Hue G Cack or Gigantic Wang. Okay, those are porn names. But because there is already a very successful mystery author WITH MY EXACT NAME. Not even kidding about that. Same spelling too.