Yezurkstal would like to wish everyone a Happy Memorial Day. Read on for a life update and subscribe as I will be posting more details on book#2.
Happy Monday! And for those in the US, Happy Memorial Day! Today, I wanted to answer a question that I’ve been hesitant to talk much about: why did it take me so long to get book 2 ready?
As many of you know, I really started my author journey years ago. 2016 was when I launched the 2nd edition of The Birth of Death. And honestly, we might as well consider that the start of things. But I think the story of Evorath will often see 2023 as the real kickoff for my career as an author. Why such a long gap?
2016 was a great year for me personally. I got married and started my own magical journey. However, it wasn’t the greatest year for me professionally. Some of you know I was running my own business at the time (it was really less of a business and more of me freelancing). But I was getting burnt out. This is why I fired my biggest, most annoying client at the time. I thought I could easily find new business to replace that income, but it didn’t play out as easily as I hoped.
Being married, I had to focus on getting my financial house in order. And writing Evorath wasn’t going to cut it. So, I focused on what I could do to make money. For this reason, I spent much of my non-working/non-family hours from 2017-2021 working on my professional development. I also started working as a full-time employee in 2017, as this gave me a less stressful way to earn money while working on building my skills.
Between working full-time and keeping up with family life, my free time was mostly spent on learning and developing new talents. I got into the field of data science, which while being a good fit for my skillset, experience, and analytical brain, requires quite a bit of technical knowledge. By 2019, I was officially in an analytics role.
Then 2020 hit and I started a new boot camp. It was one of the best professional decisions I made. Spending that year diving deep into Data Science and working on real projects made it so I could really level up my career. And by the end of 2020, I was ready to really dive back into Evorath. We had even just purchased new home in the country, which was sure to inspire me to work on my novels.
Then I was laid off.
So, 2021 kicked off and I found myself once again worried about the financial future of my family. Fortunately, those new skills and job experience I garnered allowed me to start a new job by February, so things were back on track. After a few months, I was settled into the new job and resumed my extra-curricular learning.
By the end of 2021, I was in a good place professionally and I once again started to ponder revisiting Evorath. After all, my job offered me plenty of opportunity to learn new skills as needed, so I had the free time. Unfortunately my analytical mind kept coming up with reasons not to go forward.
Maybe there weren’t enough readers who would enjoy Evorath and I should just write for myself and not worry about publishing any more. After all, I had friends who loved fantasy who never even read my books. If they couldn’t be bothered to read it, how could I expect enough strangers to want to read? I even thought maybe I just wasn’t a good enough writer to make it professionally.
On top of these concerns, we had really started up our homesteading. I was trying to get our vegetable garden running, we had chickens and goats to take care of. I just didn’t have the time to devote to Evorath -or so I lied.
To be clear, I never stopped writing completely. In fact, Evorath has continued to expand and grow since I started putting the world together over a decade ago. If not every month, at least a few times a year, I would add to the history of Evorath, building out the world, expanding the timeline, adding more depth to the magic, and even writing down ideas for other stories.
In 2022, I started a new job that left me in an even better position. And while we had come to think it would never happen, my wife and I found out in June that we’d be having our first child. I had to take a real look at my life and where I wanted to be. Yes, there was stability in my work. But when that child grew up, how could I encourage him to follow his path if I was denying myself my own?
So, I made a commitment in July that I was going to get Evorath back up again. I started working with a company that would allegedly help me with every aspect of it. Editing, publishing, audio book recording, cover art, marketing -you name it, I was going to have it all at my fingertips. How that played out is a story for another time, but we’ll just say by October things were not really progressing and I was tired of waiting. Silver lining, this lead me to Book Sculpt, the company I now use for editing and proofreading -they are fantastic!
There I was though, the holidays arriving and I still felt like I had nowhere to go. Yes, I had mostly finished writing book 2, but I had no idea how I would get it out there any better than I did years ago. There was a week or two in there that I was about ready to give up entirely. Perhaps it was just a stupid dream and it wasn’t the path I was meant to take.
Fortunately for me (and not to be too cocky, but I think for the rest of the world), I heard some rather inspiring sermons as my wife and I started to attend a new church near home. Again, a story for another time. But I started to really consider what my calling was in life. And I recognized that calling was Evorath.
So, right in the midst of holidays, getting ready for a new baby, I once again made the commitment to finish book 2. This time, not concerned with how I would get it out there. And since then, it seems all the pieces are falling into place.
I’ve joined an amazing program where I’m learning all about the business of marketing and selling books, I got great editing and cover design partners, and book 2 is ready for its July release. Perhaps most exciting, I’m already more than 15,000 words into book 3. I’m not ready to make any promises on a release cadence for all future works, but I’m optimistic we’ll see book 3 this next winter.
There you have it!
Ultimately, it was a lot of factors that contributed to my disappearance. And to those of you who were fans from the beginning, I want to say two things.
First, I am sorry for leaving you hanging for so long. I won’t let it happen again.
Second, THANK YOU for your support and understanding. Without you, I don’t think I could be picking back up and committing to this.
Have any questions you want me to answer (hopefully more concisely) in future weeks? Want to encourage me? Let me hear from you in these comments! Until next time, thank you for reading.
