The beginning of an experiment

Hello everyone!

The fact that you're reading this means you chose at some point along the way to support my writing above and beyond just grabbing my books as they come out on Amazon. Maybe it was Immortal Great Souls that convinced you, or Throne Hunters, or The Grind Show. Regardless, you saw something in my books that sufficiently resonated for you to join this Patreon, and for that, you have my sincere thanks.

We've been on a great kick recently with Throne Hunters #4. High octane action, little moments of introspection and emotional connection, lots of perfidy and heroism. Fast paced, hopefully a lot of fun, and not asking too much of you other than to sit back and enjoy as the sparks flew and the stats went up.

But now I'm thinking of a change of pace.

Immortal Great Souls #4, The Lost Cube, is a wholly different beast. We're picking up with Scorio after the victories and heart break of Book #3, and as such it has a slower start as Scorio has to dig deep and find purpose and clarity once more after his personal losses.

The tonal change thus might be jarring. We're going from Vic and Harald high-fiving over the corpses of Silver-ranked scum to Scorio finding within himself the strength to keep on fighting. And as you might know, I had difficulty writing this book, managing to get some 85k words down before grinding to a halt. Mostly that was due to stuff going on in my personal life (which I'm glad to report has gotten so much better), but also it was the weight of expectation, my setting the bar for this book really high, and needing it to be even better than the first three.

Which, given how much of myself I poured into Bastion, The Rascor Plains, and LastRock, was a tall order.

But here we go. Yesterday I wrote two new chapters, and while I won't say I've found my stride, I've definitely broken through the ice. My goal is to write a chapter a day until it's done (barring weekends), and to post those chapters here at the rate of 3/week. My goal is to finish the novel by the end of August (they usually clock in at about 250k words), and to send it to my copy editor and publish it by October 1st. All the chapters will have been published here before the book is live, ensuring that you get a first read.

Quick note: I'm not going to be writing IGS #4 as a webnovel. I'm writing it as a novel, and posting the chapters here as they'll appear in the book. Thus the pacing might feel slower, there won't be as many intense cliff hangers, etc. But the book will read better as a book, and that's my priority.

Now, IGS #4 is liable to be edited much as the first couple of books of Throne Hunters were. Big picture I know things won't change, but I'll definitely be doing an in depth pass to improve pacing, emotional beats, thematic elements, all that jazz. So what you'll be reading here is probably going to be 90% accurate to what'll eventually be published. This is a first draft. Though as you can tell from the chapters I was posting this past week for Throne Hunters, I write pretty clean first drafts, so it's not as if I'll be posting dreck, but still.

The point bears repeating: these chapters will be first drafts, and liable to being revised down the road.

I'll share all edits here as I did for Throne Hunters, and possibly will make an updated PDF that you guys can download to read the latest edits and all the chapters in one go, one place.

Request: please do not discuss these chapters in random posts over on r/theimmortalgreatsouls. I'll be creating dedicated threads each week for those discussions if you wish to have them, but please don't ruin what's happening in Book 4 for folks who aren't part of this Patreon. Anyone who does will receive one warning, and a second mistake will result in being banned.

Also, please be considerate with your feedback. I'm posting these IGS #4 chapters as an experiment, both as a means to help grow my Amazon-independent income as well as a way to have accountability for finishing this bear of a book. Scathing feedback will very much feel like a kick in the teeth. If you don't enjoy a chapter, or think one part stinks, post these harsher opinions to the dedicated Reddit thread. That's where you can have brutally frank conversations, but please keep the posts here on the Patreon more... civilized.

So! If you have any particular concerns, suggestions, or hopes for this next stretch of the Patreon, let me know here. I'm very open to feedback. I'll be posting the first chapter of IGS #4 this morning, and then, well.

We'll just have to see how this experiment goes.

Regardless, thanks as always for being part of the ride.

Cheers,

Phil