At this point in time, I have published six books in my life.
One isn’t very good.
One has some interesting moments.
One is punk-rock as fuck and nails a very specific sub-genre.
Another is the best part of a story told amateurishly and turned into something much better.
Finally, is a trilogy. Two of which are complete; the third is reaching conclusion in plotting.
I could of finished the last ‘Burden of the Monarch’ earlier. With progress made on other projects, and the currently on-going series “On The Line” the book could of been finished by now. Burden of the Monarch as a series represents my intention to put my best foot forwards. To have multiple characters well defined and a large story which requires three books; instead of just preferring to take that long.
It requires study.
There are sections in Burden of the Monarch which tend towards conceptual. Elements in the fantasy which suggest there may never be a definite “best path”. Much like real life. We’re just made to figure out how we get by in between these harsh realities. Chapters in the final book, I needed to create somewhere else before I trusted myself with them. Scenes practiced. How to keep control while the length of my puppeteer’s string grows vast.
I have to keep getting better.
There is a lot of shame in me, about my first book. It’s weird, it includes weird stuff and yet I don’t think I’ll ever delist it. We shouldn’t hide our journey; or pretend we just started as our best selves. More then anything I find it diminishes it. We all know this, at some level. We respect professionalism, but it is just as plain to watch the rich and accomplished hold dear to the memory of their one bedroom apartment, or the rough part of town they once stood nearby; as if it is a beacon they were once normal. Someone who is just great but didn’t come from somewhere doesn’t stand out. They’re just, a contractor for the fantasies of others; no story to tell of their own. At least, that’s how I predict things will go. Authenticity, in an age of increasingly convincing falsification will be treasured above all else.
I’m awful at marketing.
Really it’s just the truth. I want to share my stories with everyone, but I don’t even like buying stuff myself. I don’t enjoy money. When I see an ad I usually think “Ugh” or something worse so I don’t really know why I think they would work for me. It’s such a heart-break if I’m being honest when it comes to “Burden of the Monarch: The Scorned Season”. The title was a successful Kickstarter (which surprised me) and yet, despite producing, shipping and selling the book a fair amount. A book which I actually think is fantastic. I’m not sure if anyone…read it? It’s a weird outcome. I’m so grateful for the support, but I like writing because I’m a story teller. I’m not a business person. One half is the unfortunate nature of being a human who requires currency to live, the other is the reason I do it in the first place. It seems like we’re on the cusp of some major shifts in society, so maybe these efforts are truly just screams out into a reshaping void. It feels like there isn’t a way to get out there because everything is crowded. Some people say you just need to be louder, but I don’t know about y’all. I’ve never picked something up because someone yelled at me the most.
Work is hard.
I’ve never been good at that sorta thing. I can write for hours, finish thousands of words a day, run FFXIV for literally 14 hours straight. But from the age of 13, if I have to do something I just…start to dislike it. I have got better at learning how to channel what I am good at, into traditional work. I’m just saying, if AI takes over, and human labor at all levels becomes something of the past. I’ll be the first person to accept our robot overlords. This is to say, I struggle with feeling okay while I maintain employment. I do good at it, but every job, no matter the details, all leave me feeling like I’m sinking, like I’m selling away my life, like I’m losing daylight, like I am living less. This eats at me, and in trying to endure it. Well, I guess it adds “delay” but that feels…inaccurate. It is part of the process, apparently; an element which resists any attempt to plot around it.
I don’t want to relate.
Maybe that makes some of my books tough to pick up? As is, I don’t like how the world works. Large swathes of everything feel incorrect and badly structured. How we live, how we work, what we work for. We don’t look after ourselves, people are workaholics and act like it isn’t an addiction; a devastating one at that. I can’t have any of the lives I envisioned for myself. It feels like I can’t make the world a better place, I can’t get a house, I can’t even realistically get the dog I want because it would be unfair to the dog. If accepting how things are means becoming glad they’re broken and harmful? I can’t do it. Things get worse when we step aside and accept them; when we lose the will to pursue what is right. I don’t want to make sense from the common perspective because that is exactly the thing I dream of shifting.
Such a long way of saying there will always be more books coming. Sometimes just in odd order.
Josh Perry: Canadian Author 