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I apologize to anyone affected but during some updates some user accounts appear to have been lost. Not sure who’s or how many but there were at least a few that were inexplicably removed. Please create a new account if this affected you. Thank you.

I have been considering various ways to write this novel, specifically how I am starting it. I have gone over it a few times now but I have yet to finish. It is such an awful ordeal when trying to write that your work sounds great, you edit it and it still looks wonderful to you, then you come back later and read it again and it just doesn’t seem right. I’m having that issue with the start of my novel right now. The tone of the scene and how I originally imagined it are not meshing together well. I will figure it out sooner or later.

I decided to add a donation button to some of the pages, set it up through ko-fi, in case anyone down the road would like to help support me. Some medical issues have already kept me from working a regular job and it looks like I will be having surgery before long. I am not sure how long it will take me to recover, or how long until I will be able to perform a regular job. While I am out though I plan to dedicate as much time as I can to writing.

I have been working on some techniques to help keep my mind focused while writing. I am almost certain I have some form of ADHD and without something stimulating to my mind, in a very specific amount and way, I have great difficulty keeping focused. The last few months I have been focused on trying various ways and ideas to help with this issue. I have found few ways to actually help with the problem but none of them are really consistently viable. They usually help for a certain amount of time but I have to then switch to another idea and continue like that as long as possible.

I am hoping the additions tonight will be an interesting read for everyone. Tomorrow night I will be trying to add more to the locations page and see what else I can get into after that. Wish me luck.

Wow, I cannot believe I have not posted an update in over a year. I am so sorry. To everyone interested in my novel and to myself for not putting forth better effort. I worked through most of quarantine, switched jobs, been fighting to better myself and get a variety of things taken care of. Not trying to make excuses, just wanting to explain myself.

Anyway! After finding a writing contest thanks to an email, albeit barely before the submission window ended, I am back to writing. Due to some, unfortunate events in my life, there’s a better chance I can put more time and energy into this. I am reinvigorated by the contest, on a path to better my health, and ready to get back to work.

Thanks to some forethought on my part I have some better tools to help me write as well; better organization and editing tools, many different items which will assist me in being creative, plus resources that will help me consider things I normally wouldn’t think of until much later. I am hopeful I will make better progress moving forward.

Before I end this I want to apologize again. I should have already been better focused and putting more time into this. There’s no excuse for it and I need to change. I am happy to see that there are some of you still watching, still waiting and looking forward to my writing. It means more to me than I can rightfully express. You all have my utmost gratitude.

You ever get into something thinking it’s going to be difficult but believing you can handle it, only for it to kick you down and prove you wrong? Yea, I’m not there yet but this project is certainly trying to do just that to me. Part of it is the design of things in my world, part of it is the sheer amount of work and thought that goes into everything that makes up this world and writing about it.

Admittedly, part of me is rushing things, which is not a helpful thing to do. But I am determined to do this. I won’t lose this fight. It will simply take time, lots and lots of time. And right now I am sorry to say that what I am working on is not something I can put up on this site yet. So my progress is invisible to anyone lurking here, and I apologize for that.

Books take time to create, and although I wanted to do things faster than I am, I cannot ignore the fact I need time to do this. Lots of time. I cannot explain how small a project this was originally and how big its become. I never thought it would ever become something like this. It was meant to be a basic story written for my kids, something I would enjoy and hope they would enjoy. Something to leave them to always have from me. And now, now I have plans and wants to do so much more, its simply overwhelming.

And that’s a big part of my issue, being overwhelmed. I am sure that I’m overthinking a good amount of the world building but I don’t know how else to work on it really. It’s my world, I need to know as much as I can if I am ever going to bring it to life for my kids, or anyone else. I want to know everything I can about my world too, so if it’s time and a lot of effort that I need in order to do that, I will have to ask everyone to wait for me. That includes giving myself the time and grace I need for this. Which I find very difficult.

Progress is currently slow, but life and family take priority. Trying to figure out some answers to questions, how some stuff works in the world, how some of the races think or process information. This is especially important when it comes to magic. As I put in a spoiler, magic in this world is interesting, and because of that I have a lot of figuring out to do with it. It is certainly not an easy task and it is so open ended, I really need to focus on the limits.

That being said, progress is still progress. Although I cannot really show you it, I promise it’s there and once I have enough to put up here on any given topic, I will update it as soon as I’m able. Health is a bit of an issue right now and for the next 8 weeks, but I am planning to try and spread my time out as best as I can to do everything I want.

Alright so several of you have pointed out that the website is lacking in content and polish. I agree, however please understand this is entirely new to me and I am learning how to do this all as I go. Considering what I have setup, I am rather pleased with the progress despite being unhappy with the general polish and level of content.

Now, there have been some major updates which no one will really see yet, which is very sad. Well, if you want to you could see one page of the updates <a href=”beta-reader.a-dragons-soul.com”>here</a>, but there’s not much to it. And since no one is set as a beta-reader yet, even if there was more you wouldn’t have access. Side note, the pages to this and other subdomains will appear unsecured due to the domain name not matching. Because of my web provider, I do not know how to fix this. As far as I am aware, the entire site and sub-sites should still be secured https but the certificate wont show it because its only listed for the main site.

Anyway, this is a big move for me because it allows me to run multiple sites in a simple way. It will potentially slow everything down some overall, but it’s worth it to get the look and feel I am wanting right now. Maybe one day I will have an actual web developer making everything nice, but until then I am doing my best.

In other news, I am working more on content meant for the site, as well as beta-readers. I really hope some people will be interested in becoming beta-readers because it will give me more motivation to work on the first chapter. Once I have the beta-reader site further developed, it will be posted there once its done. Possibly beforehand. Anyone wanting to weigh in on that please do so because I would like opinions on whether I should upload it once finished, or update the site as I make it and get feedback as I write it. I should find a way to make a poll….

Trying to find ways to get more steam to power my butt to work on things in a better, more timely manner. Unfortunately with this COVID-19 pandemic going on, there’s multiple things I’d like to do to improve myself that I simply cannot do until it’s over. Hopefully once COVID-19 has been dealt with, I can really work on improving myself in a variety of ways, which should also overflow into helping me work on this.

In other news, I’ve created an Update page to show the newest updates and additions to the site (if anyone knows of a simple way to automatically do this, I would love to know so I don’t need to remember to update the updates page by hand). I also added and updated the Maruva page the other day and am quite happy with the content. It is not quite finished yet but with any luck, it will be soon.

An inside look into my creative process for anyone interested, I am a mad man. I am an over-thinker and that causes problems time and time again with continuing to work on this book. Even when inspiration strikes, if I haven’t finished a thought related to that inspiration, it can completely derail my progress until I finish that thought. So I run through many options of what I would like to work on until I come to one I feel able and inspired to do and hope I don’t run into some new wall I haven’t seen yet. Such a drag…

Those that know me know why I haven’t updated anything here for a bit while the rest of you don’t. Changes at work, more responsibility from a promotion as well as being on third shift, have slowed my progress. More than I’d like to admit even. What time I have though I have been thinking about different elements in my book and how things work, so it’s not a total lack of progress.

I’m hoping that I will be able to get back to working on this once I find a good routine, but for now balancing work and personal life alongside this is proving difficult. It’s really just a juggling act and in time I will get better at it.

Anyway, I do have some things soon to be updated, its just a matter of finalizing the wording and finer details involved. Mostly it’s historical information on a couple locations but it’s something. And some of it may have very far reaching aspects that if i overlooked, could ruin any number of things, so I’m not inclined to rush right now.

I think I have said everything I can think to say right now so thank you to everyone for your patience.