Do Short Stories Sell?

So far, in my experience, the answer to this question is no.

My novel, Eria, sold quite solidly for a first novel from a nobody (well, in my opinion at least). Not enough to quit my day job and live on a tropical island somewhere, but that was never my expectation. I was glad to have something out there, and for people to read it, comment on it, and hopefully like it.

My first short stories (or novella, I suppose), The Dragon's Spine, was much better than Eria - it read better, the interactions were better, and it was quite a solid piece. Sales were slow and awful. At one stage Eria was outselling it, despite the difference in pricing and the fact that Eria had been around for quite a while. It left me scratching my head.

Now with Dren out, I'm getting the same kind of sales as I had with The Dragon's Spine. Slow, almost non-existent.

Is it that there is so much stuff at 99 cents that people either fail to see things at that price? Is there still the idea that if it's that cheap there must be something wrong with it? Or is it simply that short stories, by themselves do not sell?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Not Dead!

It has been a very long time since I updated this. A lot of it had to do with me not feeling on top of the world. Some of it had to do with me feeling like I had nothing to say. Some of it had to do with me not having real internet. At least one of these problems has been resolved.

For those that might not have noticed it, my latest short story, Dren, is now available on Amazon. The link should be at the top of the page. I'm also working with Bygone Futures to get Dren and Eria up on DriveThruFiction the same way The Dragon's Spine is.

Why? Well, DriveThruFiction allows for us to make the stories available in multiple formats, to take into consideration that not everyone has something that is a Kindle reader. Also, some people prefer not to let Amazon have their business. Additionally, the returns from DriveThruFiction are better. Finally, it doesn't hurt to have something available in multiple places for people to locate. As and when they become available on DriveThruFiction, I'll let you know here, and be sure to add the links to the top of the page, as well.

What else have I been working on? Well, I'd love to say heaps, but that's not entirely true. I have been thinking a lot about writing, and have started a new story that is not Eria-based. It's a Sci-Fi story, but I'll say more about this later. For now I just wanted to say : NOT DEAD!

Short Stories

My new job sees me spending some time on the train to get to and from work. At first I filled the time by reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. I'd never read them before (it's a long and not very interesting story that basically boils down to me being stubborn in the face of someone telling constantly how awesome they were and why I should read them every day for an extended period of time - don't get me wrong, I like people suggesting new stuff for me to read - what I don't like is someone practically shoving something into my hands and wanting to sit by me to make sure I read it), so they are a new experience for me. I quite like them, but after the first few, I ran out of ones to read, unless I bought more, and moving house, car insurance, new internet set-up, among other things, has really made a dent in my finances. So, I thought I'd give writing on the train a go.

It's actually been working rather well. Even though I'm commuting around peak-hour, most of the time I have no one sitting next to me on the train, or, if I do, it's not for the whole trip, or I still have enough room to type a bit.

I started off by getting back to a short story I started just after I finished The Dragon's Spine. For anyone who has read Eria you'll probably remember Elrath's cat, Dren. Well, this story is all about Dren. It's the lead up to what Dren was up to before he came into Elrath's life. I've finished the first draft, and I'm going to put it to one side while I work on another short story. The second one is similar to the Dren short story, but it will focus on Baedyr. Once that one has reached the first draft stage, and after I make another pass of Dren, I'm going to get started on Zelton. For those with a good memory, Zelton was Elrath's master's master.

Ideally, I'm going to release them one at a time over the period of a couple of months. I've already got some cover art in the works for Dren, and once I'm happy with that, I'll do the same with the others.

It's good to be writing again, even if it is for short bursts before and after work. Hopefully once I get settled into my new job and my new house I'll be able to find the time to get some more writing done in the evenings and on the weekends. And to update this blog more often, too, to let you all know what I've been up to. Not having a reliable internet connection kinda hurts the whole being active online thing.

Anyway, that's where I'm at at the moment. Until next time!

Sequel Names and Other Stuff

I've really painted myself into a corner with this one. When I write a sequel to Eria what am I going to call it? Eria II just sounds awful. It really does, and it'll do no justice to the original. For now, it'll have to do, I suppose.

Of course, the questions that I'll have to answer will be "what's going to be in this novel?", "will it be better than the first one?", "will Dren be in this one?".

Great stuff, yes and yes are the answers to these questions.

I love the characters from Eria - I have so much more planned for them. Bethany has some growth, Elrath has a lot to do and Baedyr will feature pretty large in this novel.

And Dren. Well, that cat's something I can't contain...

Eria - Six Months On

It's been six months to the day since I released Eria on Amazon. Originally I'd planned on releasing it on my birthday, but some last minute formatting issues and finalizing the cover art delayed that. In the end I was happy to have it out before Xmas.

Initially sales were good, as you'd expect. I put most of the sales in the first month down to friends picking up a copy. It was still nice. It was satisfying to see people getting behind me and my novel.

The next couple of months were just as good, and I was quite impressed. I couldn't put all the sales down to just friends because, and let's be honest, I don't really have that many friends.

In those first three months I got some reviews (which are always nice - I can't stress enough how much I love reviews), and some nice feedback from people on places like Google + and Facebook.

Since then things have kind of petered off. I knew it would happen, but it is still a little disheartening. In the last three months my total sales of Eria have been what the monthly average sales for the first three months was. I love that people are still picking up copies, and I'd like to think that it's through word of mouth, people discovering this blog, or maybe my presence on the social media sites. Not that I just pimp my stuff there (I find it a huge turn off when other people do that), but I do post often on those sites.

I launched my novella The Dragon's Spine in April, not really a prequel as much as a story set in the same world a few hundred years earlier. It was good fun to write, and I hope it was good fun to read, as well.

I've definitely learnt a few things over the last six months, but I might leave that for another post, as lack of sleep is kicking my ass...

Writing and Philosophy

Years ago a friend and I were discussing writing a Philosophical novel, and what it would look like. We were both studying Philosophy at the time, and it seemed like a good idea. Nothing ever came of it. I think we both got bogged down in the Philosophy side of it, and, quite frankly, nobody would want to read a novel that was just Philosophy. Because it wouldn't have really been a novel - it would have been a Philosophical text.

When I sat down to write Eria I tried to include a few Philosophical themes. Most of them are to do with Environmental Ethics and related concerns, and they are really rather subtle - if I hadn't mentioned it just now, you probably would have missed them. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like to know that they're there, and I mention it so people that want to look for them can find them.

Environmental Ethics was something I enjoyed at university. Not as much as other areas of Ethics, but as far as some of the Applied Ethics fields go, Environmental Ethics is interesting in so much as it involves a thing rather than a person, and raises all kinds of interesting notions there. But I'm not going to talk too much about that here - just mentioning it, really.

When the time came to write my novella The Dragon's Spine there were a couple of ways I could have gone with it. Indeed, I toyed around with a couple of different endings (if you want to know which way I went, you're just going to have to read it). In the end I decided to go with Identity. Theories and notions of Identity were also something that I liked studying and talking about in Philosophy. I suppose if they weren't, I wouldn't have taken those courses, right?

So, I explored them a little in The Dragon's Spine - to be honest, I think I did a better job in the novella than I did in the novel. Whether that's because I'm getting better as a writer, or because the vehicle of the novella's story was better, I guess is up to you to decide.

The one thing I do know is that as I continue writing I'll be including more of my little Philosophical ideas into the mix. Not in a "beat-the-reader-over-the-head" way, but in a nicer, more subtle, more organic way.

If you want to discuss your favorite Philosophical ideas, feel free to mention them in the comments, or say "hi" to me on  Google +. I'm not going to say I'm always up for a chat, and I'm definitely not going to say I love to get into heated arguments about things, but I do like to hear people's takes on various Philosophical notions.

The Literary Challenge

I have accepted a challenge from a fellow writer +Vince Kingston. We both have novellas out (as per our Gentlemen's Agreement I have linked his novella here) and we both got to talking about them. Not that either of the novellas are bad (hell, I think mine is the best thing I have on Amazon to date!), but we have challenged each other to rewrite the other's novella!

I don't think this kind of literary competition has ever been tried before (if it has, be sure to let both of us know), and I, for one, know I am taking it seriously. I'll keep you posted as to how I am going, and I'll even let you know how +Vince Kingston is going.

Strap yourself in - this ought to be fun!

Disheartened

Writing isn't all reviews and sales. It's not all great fun, hammering away at the keyboard, watching the words and images in your mind appear on the screen and having that feeling that you've created something good, something that people might want to read, and actually enjoy.

There's a lot of crap that goes with it to. Some of it is stuff that you can control, and some of it isn't. Most of the time I like to think that I can tell the difference, and not worry about the stuff that's beyond my control, and just get on with the stuff that I can. But, I'm only human. Things happen. Things get to me.

I've moved house (hell, I've moved interstate) and I'm still getting settled. My new bed only just arrived today, I've still got crap scattered across the floor of my room (I need to add some more furniture so I can put it all away), I still haven't got a job (I've had a couple of interviews, and Easter did get in the way, I suppose), and I still haven't got into a routine here (it doesn't help that my flatmate is a shift worker).

So, I guess maybe I've been dwelling on things instead of just getting on with things.

Sales of Eria have dried up. I had a couple of "solid" months, with February being the best of them. I was positive. I thought maybe things were picking up. March was just awful. This month hasn't been much better. Maybe all the people that are going to buy it have already done so. Maybe all the friends and family had finally caught up with it, and that's it. I released The Dragon's Spine and I was pretty happy with it. It felt good writing it, and it reads well. If anything, I think it's better than Eria. I think, as a writer, I'm getting better. Sales of The Dragon's Spine, to be honest, are just woeful. Maybe people are just sick of me talking about it, building it up, or, after reading Eria and about the novella, they just aren't interested. Maybe they are put off by the 99 cent price tag.

There are a lot of maybes in there, and, at the end of the day, I just don't know. It's disheartening, really. It just seems like another thing that's not quite going right for me at the moment.

I know I should just dust myself off, get back to "writing the good write" (which was my status message on some IMs for a while), and let things flow. But there's always that nagging little voice in the back of my mind that asks whether or not it's worth it.

The Dragon's Spine - An Excerpt

With The Dragon's Spine now being available from a variety of sources (see here for information) I realized that Amazon doesn't actually provide the Look Inside option for this like it did for Eria. So, I decided to make another except available. The first excerpt can be found here. Enjoy!

“Do you remember once asking me why people killed other people, my son?” his father asked.

His son, now in his mid-teens, almost as large a man as his father, nodded.

“Back then we were hunting animals. Since then you've learnt that sometimes we don't just hunt animals. Sometimes we have to defend against animals. Like the wolves that attacked the sheep flocks outside of Stalam last season. Or the bears that were killing travelers on the road to Tenford a few years back.”

“Didn't we have to hunt the bears?” his son asked. “We tracked them down, like we would the animals we hunt for food.”

“True,” his father said. “We did track them, and use all the skills we use when we hunt. The difference was our motivation.”

His son thought this over for a while before speaking again.

“We hunted the bears because they were hunting us,” he said. “We don't normally hunt them for food. We hunted them for our survival.”

“Exactly!” his father said. “In some cases we kill other people for survival. There are situations when we have no choice. If someone attacks us with the intent of killing us, we either defend ourselves, or we die.”

His son nodded again. His father could see that he had other questions to ask, so he continued.

“That doesn't answer the real question you asked, though, does it, my son?”

“No, sir.”

“I think the important thing to consider is the motivation behind the act of killing,” his father said. “Killing a person is about emotion. For some the emotion is greed – they want what the other person has. For others it is hate – they don't like the other person. People kill out of fear, envy, vengeance. Kings send whole armies of people out to kill others to satisfy their emotions.”

“Why do the armies fight?” his son asked. “Each soldier doesn't feel the same emotion of the King.”

“True,” his father said. “Other emotions drive the soldiers. Loyalty, pride, patriotism. Sometimes, though, they fight because they need to feed their families, or, if the King is wicked, to protect their family from him.”

He looked at his son for a long time before continuing.

“At the end of the day, what I said to you the last time still holds true, though. Some people kill simply because they can.”

A Lot Goes On (But Nothing Happens)

I've had a song by Ben Lee stuck in my head lately. The title is ripped from the chorus of the song. Most of you will probably not know who Ben Lee is, but that's okay. I can wait here while you open a new tab, search him out on Google, and maybe watch a YouTube clip or two. I find, despite his age (and I know age doesn't mean squat sometimes compared to talent and ability) that some of his stuff is rather insightful.

I've moved house. I made the long drive north (about 16 hours all told, that I managed in one go) to be closer to my daughter (who I may or may not get to see more often now), to increase my chances of finding not only a good job, but one that pays good money (I've had a couple of interviews for one job that will pay more than I've ever been paid before), and to get away from the place I was staying (things were becoming a little crowded and claustrophobic for me). One of my friends once (well, more than once, but you know what I mean) that it doesn't matter where you go, or who you spend your time with, you're always there, and you have to learn to love yourself. Most of the time I tolerate myself, but I'm pretty sure that's not what she means.

I'm still really settling in here - it hasn't even been two weeks yet. I still need to make the space I have my own, get back into a bit of a routine with my writing (which, sadly, has been on the back burner trying to get settled here), and get a bed (something which is a more expensive endeavor than I had thought).

I'm well and truly no longer engaged. I'm not really sure where I am even at with that relationship. I still love the girl, want to spend the rest of my life with her, but she's in the USA and I am not, and she's in a state of transition (after a fashion) herself. I spend some of my days sad, lonely, and wondering what I'm doing. Is it any wonder I want to escape into a world of fantasy that I (mostly) control?

The Dragon's Spine is now up for sale at a variety of places. The Amazon link is at the top of the page (and through the magic of technology, you can just click on the name!), as is the Eria link. You can also find it at Drive Thru Fiction and Bygone Futures. I've teamed up with the wonderful Vince Kingston from Bygone Futures for this, and future projects, because I like what Vince does, and he's a wonderful guy. You should check out his stuff. I think he's really going to go places. The Drive Thru Fiction and Bygone Futures versions include a couple of formats, because not everyone has/uses a Kindle or Kindle software (or so I've been told). Eria will also be re-released through both of those sites soon, so, if that's been a concern for some people, be concerned no more!

Lastly, but not leastly, there is already a wonderful review of The Dragon's Spine on the Amazon site (but you would have noticed that when you clicked on the link to check it out, right?). I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until people tell me to stop (well, maybe once or twice after that) - I love reviews. They really give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. It's great to know that someone not only enjoyed something that I've created, but they also took the time to tell the world at large about it.

Okay, that's me done rambling again. Hopefully the next update will be less of a ramble, and by then (hopefully) I'll have some exciting writing news, a new bed, a job, or a combination of those things.

The Dragon's Spine

Today I finished the "first draft" of the story I was working on (the working title was Krullus, but the actual title will be) The Dragon's Spine. It also went from a short story to a novella. It seems I seriously underestimated the length of the story, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

It needs a few runs through the editing machine, but so far I'm quite happy with it. The editing process, I think, should be fairly painless this time around, partially due to the length (it weighs in at just over 13,000 words), and partially due to the way it was written.

With The Dragon's Spine I was really editing as I was writing. Initially, as I was sitting down to write for the day, I would start at the beginning, reading and editing as I went, to get the creative juices well and truly flowing, as well as to tighten the whole thing up. As things progressed, I would start at a story break, rather than at the beginning. When I reached the end of the "editing" part, I found I just flowed straight into the writing for the day. It was quite seamless. It was also a good way to write, at least for me, on this particular story.

So, what's it about?

The story is set in the Eria universe, several hundred years before the novel. It focuses on a young warrior Krullus, and his two companions - a mage, Aldor, and a rogue, Nystar, and their trip to The Dragon's Spine Mountains. Rumors abound about the mountains, and Krullus, having found no one that claims to have been to the mountains, decides to go there himself. Why has no one else been there before? Is there really a dragon under the mountain?

I'm not going to give away any more than that - where would the fun in that be?

I will say, however, that I went in to the final phases of the story with two possible endings in mind, and in the end (after a fashion) used both. Yeah - I didn't think it was possible, but it was, and it worked, I think. I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks when it hits the Kindle bookshop!

A Long Overdue Update

I've been away on holidays. I know the internet doesn't take a holiday, but I'm human, haven't been away for over a year, and so I took a couple of weeks off. I had planned on posting while I was away, but the internet gods were not happy at all with my mobile internet device, which was both odd and annoying.

So, what did I get up to? Lots of driving (15 hours each way, plus a few smaller trips of 2 to 4 hours thrown in for good measure), visiting my daughter that I haven't seen in nearly 2 years (yes, I have a daughter - she'll be 5 this year), catching up with a variety of old friends (school, old gaming friends, ex-house mates), visiting the places I once lived and frequented, and some good old fashioned chillaxing.

It wasn't all fun, though. My return trip was interrupted by a series of floods, and I came up close and personal with some floodwater (which is not good in the early hours of the morning when you've been driving all night and hit it at highway speeds). That which does not kill me can only clean my car.

As a result of my trip, one of my friends has offered me her spare room if I want to move back to that part of the world, which I will more than likely be taking her up on. I lived in Brisbane for the best part of 2 decades, most of my Australian friends live there (or close by), and the employment opportunities are (at a rough estimate) about 50 times what I have here. Don't get me wrong, living here has allowed me to pay off debts and save a wad of money, but my social life has been non-existent, and of late I have just felt myself getting in more and more of a rut. A big, ugly, frustrating rut. So, unless a brilliant, high paying, challenging, rewarding job with room for advancement comes my way by Easter, I'm moving.

Enough about me.

February was my best full month for sales of Eria, which is just awesome. It's nice to know that people are still buying and (hopefully) reading my novel. Additionally, I had a couple of reviews, which is very nice. It's a great feeling.

My current story about Krullus is moving along nicely. I really like the way it is coming together. It's longer than I'd anticipated at the outset, but it's still in short(ish) story country. All going well, I'd like to have it finished and out there by the end of the month. Watch this space - I'll be sure to keep y'all posted.

I've also been making a few notes about a follow-up story featuring Krullus. There's more to say about him that just doesn't fit with the current story (well, not without making it feel forced). My only concern (if that is the right choice of words) now is that it might not be a short story, or a series of short stories, but a full blown novel. We'll see once I lay out all the notes and ideas.

As well as Krullus, I've been making some notes for a sequel to Eria. There's some good stuff in there, and I'm definitely interested in pursuing it. I'm not going to say much more about that just yet, however.

Last, but by no means least, I've got some ideas for 3 short stories. One is a playful little story about Dren. The second is a less-playful story about Bædyr. And the final one is about Zelton. More about those later, when they are more than just ideas, and I have something better to say about them.


That's where things stand at the moment. Busy, exciting times ahead, for me, and for my writing. Hopefully I'll have something fun for y'all to read soon!

An Experiment

I decided to try something different this week, an experiment, as it were, with Eria. I decided to give it away for two days. Part of me wanted to see if people grab a copy if it was free. Part of me wanted more people to see it, and, hopefully, read it.

It went well. Copies flew out the virtual door. As I expected, most of them flew off the virtual shelves at the regular Amazon site. 10% of those numbers went from the UK site. There was even some interest from the German and French site (which was nice). No action from the Spanish or Italian site, however. I don't know whether that is because fewer people use those Amazon sites, or whether it is more of a niche thing. As my novel is in English, I feel that if it moves on the English-speaking sites, then that's a good thing.

Now that it's had a little more exposure, I'm interested to see what happens from here. Will sales pick up? Will I get more reviews? Obviously I hope the answer to both is a resounding Yes!, but we'll just have to see, really. I'd like more reviews, honestly. That would mean (to me at least) that people were reading it, and enjoying it enough (or being otherwise moved) to write something about it.

And I'm aware that it's Wednesday, and that I normally do a Monday and Friday blog update. We can blame the lack of Monday post to a technology error, or, more specifically, a user of technology error. Once I find what happened to my "About Me, Part 2" post, or rewrite it, it'll be up on Friday.

Krullus - A Short (?) Story

Firstly, there were no blog updates last week, but you probably noticed that - I could pretend that it was due to a lot of things - I was busy at work, I was writing, I was changing my ISP, my netbook crashed - but the real reason is that I went away for a few days to visit with family, and my netbook was left sitting at the end of the bed, all ready to go into the bag that it never went into.

With that out of the way, on with the topic at hand!

I started writing a short story the other day about one of the characters that is mentioned, albeit briefly, in Eria - Krullus. The only thing that anyone who has read Eria knows about Krullus is from the one line in the novel:

'Surely you recognize the Sword of Kings,' Bædyr said. 'The weapon wielded by my father, Zandor, and his father before him, bestowed by the ancient Kings of Eria, handed down to the first King, Krullus, by Pael himself!"

 It's not a lot to go on.

I know who Krullus is, and I thought I might write something so that everyone else could find out a bit more about him. So, I started writing a short story. And, as happens, Real Life reared its ugly head, and I had to put it on the shelf for a few days. At which point my subconscious decided that the story really needed another character added to it. I thought about it, and it made sense, so I thought about the implications of the re-write and what it'd do to the story, and it seemed okay, so I did what I normally do, and slept on it. The next day my subconscious decided that, instead of the one additional character, it really needed two. I thought about it some more, and realized that this was actually an even better idea. We'll see how it pans out, I suppose.

I love the way my subconscious does that - contributes to the writing process while I'm asleep. It keeps things fresh and flowing for me, even if it does result in several re-writes along the way.

So, the plan is for a short story, at the moment. I put it that way, because these things have a way of escalating - like going for "one beer" after work on a Friday sometimes results in you sneaking in at 6am on Saturday morning.

As to what to do with the short story, I'll throw it out onto Amazon for 99 cents, and see what happens. But I'll talk about that more on Friday!

Reviews

Having someone buy you a drink at a bar is nice. Having them buy you a drink, and tell you they like you is even better. I guess that's how I look at reviews. Someone buying your work is always a good feeling, but getting some feedback is the icing on the cake.

Someone reviewed my book Eria the other day. It was a nice little review, and they were kind enough to give it a four star rating (which is nice, too). It made my day, really. I appreciate that people are buying my stuff, and (hopefully) even reading it, and I love that someone took the time to jot some stuff down.

Of course, I know that not all the reviews that I get are going to be positive ones. I mean, that's just how things go. Not everybody likes the same things, otherwise the world would be a dull place.

I took an American Literature course at university, and I had nice things to say about every book except one. It was just awful (to my mind). I didn't like the plot, the characters didn't do anything for me, the style annoyed me - it was a painful read that I didn't enjoy at all. If I didn't have to read it for the subject, I would have put it down and read something else. Yet, a lot of people enjoy William Faulkner's stuff, and Light in August (I hear) is a good novel.

So, I expect bad reviews to come my way. I expect some people not to like it. And I'm sure I'll learn something from each and every review I get.

But, for now, I have a good one, and I'll take that, thank you very much!

Prequel, Sequel, Or Something On The Side

When writing something new in the same universe there are always options. With the rich back material that I created for Eria, it leaves several options open for me, hence the title of this particular blog post.

I could write a prequel to Eria. There are a lot of things mentioned in the novel that can easily be fleshed out. Depending on how far back I wanted to go into the history of Eria, there are several different generations of stories that I could explore. By stepping back one generation, I could look at when Galdor was an apprentice, like Elrath was in the novel, and see how he was trained; I could explore the creation of the Guardianships, and what it took to establish them; or, I could go back to the first conflict with Rathgar, and how he was defeated that time. I could take the story back several generations to when Krullus wielded the Sword of Kings, and the Dragonknights were around. Who were they? Why were they needed? Was there magic back then? Or, I could choose somewhere in the middle.

Writing a sequel would be a simple enough matter, as well. I just pick up from where the story ended, and go from there. The characters are already there, and there are plenty of opportunities that await them. They have a big job ahead of them, no matter what they decide to do. Do they explore the magic mystery further? Do they go back to Waydale to check on their loved ones? Do they explore the extent of the damage around them? There are a lot of options there.

Lastly, the something on the side option means that I can explore other events that were happening while Elrath, Bethany and Baedyr were 'participating' in the novel. There are other Guardianships and Guardians mentioned in Eria, and their fate is just assumed, or mentioned. What really happened to them? Likewise, the Druids, and the Tenford Fighters Solidarity are mentioned. the latter are not seen or encountered, whilst only one group of the former are seen.

So, where to next? A sequel seems like the obvious option. I feel that the characters deserve (for want of a better word) to explore the world that I have thrust them into for a little longer. A prequel would be a lot of fun to write, because there are so many options there, and it's always fun to flesh out some of the gaps, and make good use of the back material that I've created. And I think something on the side would be an interesting experiment.

So, once again, where to next? Maybe I'll try all three...

Back Material

When I was writing Eria, I created a lot of back material for it. For the most part, this comes through as a name here and there, with nothing else mentioned about it, because, quite frankly, there was no need to mention anything else. It wasn't crucial to the story, and, at best, would serve as a distraction, a sidebar, or just something that the reader wouldn't be at all interested in at the time.

It's all there, though. If someone were to ask me "is XYZ 'real', or is it just something you threw in because it sounded cool?" I could say, "yes, it is 'real', and here's some more information...".

Of course 'real' here is a relative term. Like the difference between a real car and a toy car. Both are real, but there is a distinction to me made. You can't drive to the shops and put your groceries in a toy car, but it is real in the sense that it exists.

Likewise, the back material I use is real in the sense that it is written down somewhere for me to reference, change, and otherwise use, but, obviously, not real in the sense that we can go there, meet the people, and so forth, well, any more than we can with fictional material.

I didn't need to create the back material. I could have just 'winged it'. Nobody would really have noticed, known, or probably even cared if they did. I used to do it all the time when I was GMing RPGs, and at the end of the day people still had fun.

So, why didn't I?

The reasons are quite simple.

Firstly, I wanted to write back material. It was fun to do, and I wanted to know more about the characters, locations, and events that I mentioned, even just in passing.

Secondly, it gave me a sense of consistency. If I wanted to check on something, or mention it again, the material was already there, and close at hand.

Lastly, and most importantly, if I wanted to explore the world further, write more about it, and so forth, the material was there.

And, now that I do want to revisit the world of Eria, I'm glad that it is!

Looking Back At Writing Eria

I wrote Eria a while ago. It was the first novel that I ever really completed. By completed, I mean edited, revised, edited again, and so on, until I had something that I was happy with. To that end I think it's a success.

I've written other things before and after, but I've never bothered to polish them, and revisit them like I did with Eria. Maybe I thought that they were "done", or maybe it was that I was simply done with them. I'm not sure. What I am sure is that I never felt tempted to "do" anything with them again, never felt interested in revisiting the world, or the characters. I think that in and of itself is telling. If, as an author, I don't feel like revisiting these things, why would a reader feel compelled to feel anything for them in the first place?

As I said, I feel differently about Eria. I find myself wondering about what the characters are going to do next, about what they did before, and about the other people and places that are mentioned in the book. I hope that other people that have read it feel that way too.

I've read a lot of novels, stories, plays and so forth (as well as being subjected to a lot of television and movies), and, I believe, the memorable ones are the ones that you want to re-read, the ones you never get sick of reading. They're like old friends, or a comfortable pair of shoes. They just feel right to you.

I've never written fan-fiction, but I've thought about it. Most of the time the fanfic that I would have written plays out in my head, and that's good enough for me. It's like a pleasant daydream, I suppose. It doesn't really seem like a creative process, although I suppose that technically it is.

So, what am I saying? Where is this going?

I suppose the point that I am trying to make is that getting Eria to the stage where I decided to put it up on the Amazon Kindle store has got me thinking more about the world, characters, and so forth, and I'm definitely interested in writing more. Being the person that wrote it in the first place, I can hardly call what I write next fanfic, but it kind of feels that way, at least in my mind.

Is it wrong to enjoy writing more about something you like? Is it self-indulgent? Will people want to read it?

I suppose we'll find out!

Eria