This category surrounds the creative differences I have encountered as I began writing approximately two and a half years ago, Approximately July of 2023 I began writing a small descriptive piece and what was intended to be just a small distraction turned into a two hear journey into the literary world.

I began learning to write, and spent many weeks creating a story which I would enjoy reading.

I continued writing, and then created my first constructed language. The Hadokai Tubatonona language is centered around the concept of cosmic balance, but since it was only balance, I knew that there were going to be two more languages that I would have to create. I put the other languages off and continued writing, but found that the Hadokai Tubatonona would need to be represented, so I took a break from writing and I created a cursory rudimentary font which would allow me to type in the language within Microsoft Word. This allowed me to have consistency in the script and glyphs and presented itself much more professionally, and once again began writing.

About halfway through the novel, I realized my main character would need an external impetus for his thoughts in order to bring him out of introspection and add a bit more action to the narrative. I backed up to the very beginning and gave my protagonist a best friend, whom I wrote into the novel from the beginning through what would become chapter fourteen.

My Mother and my brother began reading what I was writing and they were impressed. Though I did not understand at the time how forgiving readers can be when reading a beta copy, their feedback was tremendously encouraging and kept me going.

As I continued, I learned more about writing: show not tell, Chekhov’s gun, what a trope was, why adverbs were the worst thing in the world, and found out why I should give it up altogether. In truth, I almost did give up. But somewhere along the way I realized I did not care what others thought about my writing, because I was not writing for the masses.

I delved into editing, and found that editors were not only expensive, but unrelentingly destructive. I found the nuanced editor I would need was out of my price range and opted to learn to edit by teaching myself and meticulously running my text through a variety of AI systems, each one wanting to do the same thing human editors did and strip out the nuances.

In the end, I was relegated to performing a meticulous editing and understanding that I did not want the condensed Chehkov stripped narrative so prevalent in modern literature.

After this, I published on Amazon, tried to get my novel reviewed on Reedsy but was turned away because I did not use Reedsy resources to edit or cover creation.

In the end, I ran promotions that put me in the number one best seller spot classic fantasy ebook.

—Best Sellers Rank: #176 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
—#1 in Classic Fantasy eBooks
—#2 in Epic Fantasy (Kindle Store)
—#5 in Sword & Sorcery Fantasy eBooks

It has been an adventure and journey I was unprepared for, much as my protagonist in my narrative.

I am once again, trying to get people to professionally review my novel and it looks as though I have no choice but to try and pay for reviews, even though it feels like I am buying publicity.

I will keep pushing forward, because I believe I have a story worth telling and ultimately, someone will see this and will help push it to an audience that is fitting.

Les