Something I’ve had in the back of my mind to do for a while now is put out a collection of my stories. I actually did that. That’s the collection you can purchase over on Ko-Fi in the form of a (at the time of writing) 201 page PDF. After discussion with some lovely people over on Twitter/X, I have come to the conclusion that I want to release a physical collection as well. The problem with this is that about 70-80 of those 201 pages are dedicated to poetry, and about half of those 70-80 pages is from my previously published collection, “Me, Myself, and I – From Euphoria to Misery & Everything In Between.”
I don’t want to just rehash that collection again, as it’s already out there and available. I’m also working on a second collection entitled “Heart On My Sleeve,” which focuses more so around my own general life philosophies, thoughts, and view on life. So that leaves me with maybe five or six appropriately themed poems to include in a horror collection, which is great. I’m sure peppering those in there alongside short stories/novelettes will be a refreshing step away from the harder hitting material. The issue is that leaves me At about 120-130 pages of actual content that would be put out there in a physical format. That simply won’t do.
Ideally, I’d like this collection to be about 250-300 pages. That means I have a ton more short stories, flash fiction pieces, novelettes, and poetry I need to write in order to meet that goal. Furthermore, I’d like to have this collection out at the appropriate time, around the Halloween season. I’d probably be shooting for October 15th-16th or so. That gives me three months. That sounds like it’s not a lot of time, but I’m fairly confident I can make that happen without sacrificing quality and improve previously published works along the way.
That brings us to why Sovereign Echoes is in the title of this. Sovereign Echoes is the novella I began working on in March of 2023. I wanted to have this out on August 31st of this year, but the more I look at it, the less confident I feel in it. I love the concept and the characters, but something about it has felt off to me for a good long while now, I just haven’t been able to put my finger on it. Until recently, anyway.
It’s the setting. I don’t like the setting. When I conceptualized the story, it was set in a vague ancient era because it fit with what I needed from the narrative, but if you look at everything else I’ve written, it’s all contemporary. The unfortunate truth is I can’t change the setting without changing the entire story. There’s that and the simple fact that my writing has improved drastically between the time I began drafting that story to now. I understand my own writing style now. Hell, I understand myself better now.
I think it’s best to put Sovereign Echoes away for the time being. My stomach dropped while I was typing that. I’ve put so much time and effort into it, but the combination of factors listed above are preventing me from really loving it the way I should as its creator.
For now, I’ll be focusing on this collection. After that, I’ll probably be returning to Harbinger to finally get that finished. That’s my other novella that I have so much more love for. In between everything, I’ll be working on Heart On My Sleeve, more short stories, flash fiction pieces, etc.
So in the meantime, bear with me. If you were looking forward to Sovereign Echoes, I apologize for the disappointment, but if I’m not happy with something, I’m not releasing it. That said, revisiting the concept in a different setting is very much a possibility.
Welcome to the abyss 