If you read fantasy for the magic, the world-building, and the occasional moment of dark humor—I write that. One urban fantasy series, one epic fantasy series, both set in the Fractured Arcana universe, with more coming. My newsletter takes you deeper into the worlds, the characters, and what's next.
Newsletter - August 15, 2024
Turbulence ahead!The last couple of weeks knocked me around. Intel, where I work, announced 15,000 job cuts, which is 15% of the workforce. My projects are quite safe, for reasons I'm sure it would be improper for me to share, BUT for the first time, I'm old enough that I've been offered a retirement package. I've worked there 27 years! That's kinda crazy to think about. Longer than I've been married. Twice as long as my youngest kid has been alive. I don't have enough money to retire--I still have three daughters in high school (okay, one in 8th grade), who will either need money for college or bail money. Either way, if I take the deal, I have to find another job, and finding another job is SCARY (see the 27 years clause above). I know how my job works; I'm scared to death that I've become too Intel-centric and will fail with similar companies. Also, there's lots of warning signs that the tech industry is about to take another nose dive. It would be disastrous to take the early retirement and then NOT find another job. Yet, I hate not doing things just because they're scary, so I've got an internal tug-of-war going on. Right now, I'm leaning towards taking the offer. I am loyal to a fault, but Intel would rather pay me a chunk of change than have to keep paying me--in other words, in their eyes, they're so much better off without me that they’re willing to pay me to leave. I've worked past feeling disloyal--in a financial sense, the loyal thing for me to do is leave, since that's what they think is best. 🤯 Anybody gone through this choice and want tell me about the light at the end of their tunnel? Or the train it was attached to? 🫣 In addition to the work drama, we have multiple elder-care situations going on. Tough decisions to be made. I can't help but feel a little sad thinking about my kids having to go through this with me and my wife some day. :( On the seemingly bright side, my oldest daughter turned 18! It did have a lot of positive points. But it also came with more drama than I expected. There were conflicts of expectations between my daughter and me that caused grief. I grew up with three brothers and a sister in a rural tableau, and now I'm raising three girls in a more urban setting. Let's just say my "normal" from my youth didn't mesh. I wish I could have a do-over for her birthday, now that I understand the expectation on things my daughters all agreed I should just know. 🤷♂️ The deal for that litRPG I’d mentioned seems to have fallen through. We had a verbal agreement on contractual points. Their lawyer was going to write it up, and I never heard from them again. 🤷♂️😪 Moving on... I can’t remember whether I mentioned redoing the cover for Mother of Trees. I tried to create something that aligns better with genre expectations in order to get more click-throughs to purchase. Let me know what you think. It hasn’t gone live yet, but I’m locked into the image. Book 2’s cover will align with that theme (scheduled to start that cover late August). I have the structural edits back for Book 2, and I’m working through them. It’s not going quickly, but not a snail’s pace either. I’ve sent out some independent emails for writers (about marketing, not writing)… if you’re interested, let me know and I’ll tag you to get them too. My next one will be learnings on Facebook Ads. All books by Steven J. Morris Indie Author ShowcasePrevious Newsletters
May you get lost this week in another world. Follow me on Goodreads. |
Steven J Morris
If you read fantasy for the magic, the world-building, and the occasional moment of dark humor—I write that. One urban fantasy series, one epic fantasy series, both set in the Fractured Arcana universe, with more coming. My newsletter takes you deeper into the worlds, the characters, and what's next.
Yesterday I needed to remember exactly how a character destroyed a dragon artifact three books ago. I didn't dig through my own novels to find it—I asked an AI I built to search them for me. It's called the Grimoire: a mini-AI system I put together with Pinecone that I can ask questions about my own books—hair color in a different epoch, a side character I want to bring back, a detail I'd otherwise lose momentum digging for. It keeps me writing instead of hunting. That's the quiet way AI has...
In this one: an old friend from way back, 20k words of progress, and a new reel from Thaumatropic Fractures. Last newsletter I asked for some accountability help. A few people reached out. One was someone I think of as an old friend from high school. But I've got to tell a little story about him. Way back before high school, in 5th grade, I transferred into a new school roughly mid-year. In one of my classes, the teacher insisted I do a placement test. But the placement test was this set of...
Hey Reader, Quick fun bit before today's update: the polls from my last email are in. I'd asked how many of you had actually read the three portal fantasy books that made me want to write the genre: Mordant's Need: 14.3% have read it The Darwath Trilogy: 0% have read it War of the Flowers: 14.3% have read it Almost nobody has read them, which tracks. They're buried treasure. If any of them ended up on your list because of that email, I'd love to hear how it goes. Okay, the actual update. I...