No Free Story This Week (Sorry)

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Sorry, no free story this week. My original goal was to publish a weekly short story on Amazon, but I didn’t manage to get one out this week.

The main reason is that I’m currently working on a free novelette for my newsletter subscribers, and that’s taking up most of my free time.

I’m still fully committed to my STORY52 project and will make sure the Amazon short story series reaches 52 issues in total. But for now, finishing the book for my mailing list is the top priority.

Once that’s done, I’ll get back to a regular release schedule for both Amazon and this blog.

See you soon…

I Always Make The Same Mistake

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I went back over my first blog posts and realized I’m making the same mistake I made before I even started this project of trying to become a real author.

Back then, I wrote:

I have dozens of series ideas stored in my swipe file. They all look intriguing, but I know I shouldn’t start them all at once. Instead, it makes more sense to tackle them one by one.

My plan for now is simple: focus on a single series until it’s finished.

The goal was clear: write standalone books, work on my sci-fi saga (a lifetime project), and stick to just one series at a time (currently my 17 series).

I wanted to do this because standalone books are simply easier to write. With a series, you have to think about so much more in order to maintain consistency. Make a side character who only appears for two lines a mumbling fool in book three, and you’d better remember he’s still a mumbling fool in book seven when he reappears.

With a standalone title, you only have to keep track of the details for one book at a time—and you can conveniently forget them once it’s done.

Now, imagine writing multiple series at once…

It’s not just about remembering character quirks and world-building details—it’s also about remembering which details belong to which series. I can juggle my sci-fi saga alongside one other series, but adding even more to my daily workload makes it much harder to keep everything straight.

And yet, recently I made the mistake of starting two more series on top of what I was already doing. Halfway through, I realized it was forcing me to rush plot decisions and neglect deeper character development.

Reading those old posts was a wake-up call. I decided to hit the brakes and return to my original plan:

  • Write standalone titles (the goal is to finish a book a month on average)
  • Write my weekly short stories for Amazon (STORY52)
  • Work on my 17 series (a Bond/Reacher/Bourne-style story)
  • Focus on my sci-fi saga (basically my own Star Wars with hundreds of characters)

Everything else is simply too much—especially since I’m not yet making a living from writing – maybe I never will. So I’m putting all other projects on hold until either the 17 series or the sci-fi saga is complete.

I’ve Updated My About Page

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Trying to become an author is now my main online project. I’ve updated my About page to reflect that more accurately. Over the past few days, I also spent some time figuring out how Twitter works. I think posting a weekly progress report there could be an engaging format for readers.

But Twitter moves fast—very fast. Posts get buried quickly. Either they catch attention within ten minutes, or they disappear into the void. There is a Highlights feature, but I doubt many people would scroll through all my weekly reports there. That’s why I’ve decided to link those tweets here on my website on the about page —for easy access and a clear overview of my progress as an author.

I also made some changes to the link structure. Linking to my tutorial channel didn’t really make sense anymore. I’m still doing daily tutorials, but that project runs independently on YouTube without any cross-promotion—so I’ve removed it from the About section.

More adjustments will follow as I continue testing and evaluating what works best on each platform.

For now, my focus is mainly on writing updates on Twitter, producing at least one video essay per week, and publishing my short stories here and on Substack for free. Next up is finding out how Amazon’s in-build promotion methods work. I have an idea about using them to find readers, but I don’t know if it’s going to work.

All these plans might change and evolve, but I hope to have a solid system and publishing schedule set up across all platforms I care about by the end of the year.

I’ll keep you updated here on the blog.

I’m Figuring Things Out – No More Transcripts Here

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When I started posting video transcripts from my essay channel here, I thought it would be a helpful addition. But I recently discovered that YouTube now automatically generates transcripts for every video. I have no idea when they introduced this feature—it’s probably been available for quite some time without me noticing. Since the transcript is already provided by default on YouTube, reposting it here doesn’t add any extra value.

So, I’ve decided to stop posting transcripts on this site.

When I launched this blog, my goal was to create a real-time diary of a hobbyist writer trying to build something. That includes learning, making mistakes, and adjusting course along the way. Naturally, that means my approach will change from time to time.

For instance, I originally planned to write weekly posts about storytelling lessons from movies, shows, books, and more. But right now, I’m leaning toward doing that content in video form instead. It helps me reach more people. Just this Monday, I published a video about a storytelling lesson from the movie The Menu, and it reached more viewers on Rumble in two hours than my written post did within an entire week.

I’ve got a bunch of ideas on how to promote my writing and build an audience. Some of them might turn out to be nonsense. That’s part of the process. This blog is a real-time diary, and in real time, there will be plenty of mistakes and course corrections.

The first of those: I’m shifting my focus toward video production and away from regular blogging. But don’t worry—I’ll still keep you posted here about what’s working, what’s not, and what I learn along the way. Yet, video production is my main focus; blogging is only a minor priority, for now.