Supermassive Black Hole of Video Games and Editing

 Editing never ends. Neither does my thirst for new games to play, either, so that's nice that they have each other. Twinsies.

For me personally I have hype aversion about weird things sometimes, so I never paid attention to all the Witcher 3 obsessive hype. I knew I didn't wanna go play 1 and 2 but I was curious. So I bought the complete edition the other day.

I think I bit the bullet because I trust CDProjektRed now after playing so much Cyberpunk 2077.

Also because Geralt is daddy.

Anyway being Daddy of Rivia doesn't pay as much as I thought. It probably still pays better than writing, though. Should I become a monster slayer?

If other people can get paid to be ghost hunters for bad reality tv, why not me? I can jump at fake noises too! I'm not too dignified.

No Reason I Shouldn't

 Shockingly, not many people read this blog. I know, I know, a blogger blog for an indie author that hasn't regularly published since 2020/2021 isn't a huge hit. Shocker, right?

So I think sometimes I shouldn't even bother publishing here, but then I think, there's no reason I shouldn't, either.

Frankly I do it for myself as much as anyone else; it keeps my head clear and me focused on my goals, rather than ambiguously shuffling around trying to remember what I was doing. Like, right now, I'm working on things I can't announce, but I am working on things.

Like, launching new pen names, new books, republishing old books with cool new editions. Writing sequels. But it's hard, hard work. And I'm also psyching myself out.

I used to blog so much, and had so much fun.

I think that's worth trying again.

I noticed last year I only posted four times. Probably because it flew by, but also because it felt like I had so much happening. Now I kind of wish I had slowed down and made more of that time and documented it more. Ah well, I can at least start now.

So, this month I released an album.

It's called The Chaos Precise and it's only up on Bandlab right now. You can check it out here.

Here's the cover:

 

 

 

The tracklist is eleven songs. There was another song called Twisted Delicate that came just before and led into the track 'somewhere in the middle' but it kept getting copyrighted and made private. I submitted an appeal and they restored it only to flag it and remove it again. I'm at my wits end. I'll still publish that track elsewhere because I did remove all the copyrighted samples from it only for them to still mess around.

Anyway it's got a little pop, a little rock/grunge and a little weird digital stuff. I never know how to make something one genre, or make the genres sound interesting, but it is what it is. I love this record.

For now, that is. I'll probably decide I hate it in a few weeks and then make a new one.

I have a weird love/hate relationship with all my music, but it's the best I can make it and at a certain point you just have to release shit.

I'm gonna get back to my writing projects, but at least I feel like I've contributed something to this blog for this year.

It Begins Again and Again and Again

 I am still writing things. I'm always writing things. Right now I'm actually editing things, which is mostly the same but also incredibly specifically different.

The main thing I wanted to update anybody/everybody on was that when I start publishing these things I'm sometimes writing and sometimes editing, when I'm not snacking and making music and existing in a state of panic over...everything...it's going to be under new pen names.

I recently published and then unpublished a new edition of Faces in Weeds.

That's because I actually had to redesign the cover, add a subtitle to the story, and write two new pieces of bonus fiction so it could be 'transformative' enough that when I publish it under Amazon under my new pen name, it won't get de-listed or get my account banned for rank manipulation. It has to be demonstrably different from previous versions enough to count as a different product, so that's what I'm doing.

Ultimately this is also what I have to do with all my previous works: new covers, titles/subtitles, editing/expanded content, and new bonus content and exclusive extra chapters, that sort of thing. It's the only way to ensure I can actually publish them.

This basically has to happen because Amazon won't let me reclaim my old KDP account, which I can no longer access, or merge it with my new KDP account.

Since most book business is done on Amazon and I need money to live that's where I have to publish, and to do that, I have to make sure not to violate their rules, and using the same pen name on two different accounts is also a bannable offense according to their terms. It would help if their customer service was at all helpful or even sufficiently trained to understand how KDP and its features/systems/rules even work, but they aren't, which seems insanely unprofessional, but it is what it is. They can't help, apparently. Beyond them.

So we come to me having to launch new pen names to republish all Apollo Blake and Cosmo Knox titles.

I was kind of ready to retire the Apollo Blake pen name anyway, so that's fine, but Cosmo Knox was a fantastic pen name I never wanted to let go of, and now I do, and that sucks. Anyway things are in the works, projects are coming along, just slowly as I try to balance and actually enjoy life and not burn out.

The new Tomb Raider games look incredible, the Stranger Things finale was okay, and the new Cassandra Clare collection Better in Black is a lot of fun so far, making me nostalgic as hell.

I also recently read Sunrise on The Reaping and was emotionally devastated. Now I'm rereading Catching Fire. I was actually already reading it, but put it down when they rewatched Haymitch's games so I could go read his book. Pretty cool way to do it, I think.

I also put out a new album called The Chaos Precise, I'm gonna post more about it soon but I haven't done YouTube and SoundCloud uploads yet so.