Slow Down?

Posted on February 3, 2025February 3, 2025 by Robert Tomoguchi

My Instagram post honoring my MacBook Air

This past weekend, I wrote six hours on Saturday and seven hours on Sunday. The whole time I was working on Orly’s Journals Entry 43: “Obscure.” It felt like a difficult entry to reach a point where I felt satisfied. But overall, I think writing the journals is going well. I’m maintaining a pace of completing one entry per week and am still eight weeks ahead of the publishing schedule. I don’t know how they’re reading though. Instinctively, I feel like things have become compressed, with too much happening in too small a space. I mean this for the relationships Orly is developing. I feel like things should be progressing slower so that they have more time to take root into something that feels lasting because it’s now deep. But I’m also wary of slowing things down as I don’t think it will appeal to the journal readers. I feel like I’ve lost my global view of the story, and though that’s uncomfortable, part of me is okay with it because it’s a serial and feels closer to real life where everything can’t be planned, things unexpectedly pop up, and your short-term goals shift quickly. But I really do wish I had a better feel for what the reader experience is like.

Sunday morning, I was writing at Starbucks and my MacBook Air crashed twice, both times causing me to lose text. I’ve had the laptop since 2014 and apparently, it’s going to continue to crash because I haven’t been able to update the OS since 2023. So, I’ve decided to retire it as I can’t continue to lose text while writing. I feel very grateful though for all this laptop has given me. The entire Black Wax Vampire Trilogy and The Last Midnight were written on it over thousands of hours (I’m guessing). But until I replace it, I’ll do all my writing at home on my Mac Mini.

Table For One

Posted on November 27, 2024 by Robert Tomoguchi

ChatGPT drawing of Orly Bialek and Yelena Solodnikova — ChatGPT’s rendition of Orly and Yelena

I’m still at it—writing Orly’s Journals. I had another slump like the one I mentioned in my last blog post, where I was stuck on a single entry for a couple weeks. I’m now only seven entries ahead. But with the time I’ll have off for the holidays, I’m hoping I’ll get caught up, if not get ahead. So far, all the journal entries total just under 41K words. That’s half the length of The Scribbled Victims, and I only began writing in April. Despite my depression being very bad and work being tough in recent months, I continue to sit down to write every single day. Of course, some days are more productive than others. My best days usually involve activating my Freedom internet blocker.

I recently started asking ChatGPT for author advice on how to grow my readership. It’s given me tips I’ve heard before, but it also suggested things I hadn’t heard and never considered. To my surprise, it knew about The Scribbled Victims. It got some plot points wrong and knew less about the subsequent books, but I was still amazed it had a general understanding of the characters and storyline. Because one of the things ChatGPT suggest I do is hold a fan art contest, today I prompted it with: “Can you create a picture of Orly Bialek and Yelena Solodnikova?” What it returned was more than I expected, although I think it still doesn’t understand Orly’s scribbles. Still, it made me feel my books are more recognizable than I thought. Maybe I’m fooling myself though—maybe ChatGPT knows I’m the author and is just being nice to me. If anyone reading this post uses ChatGPT, I’d be very interested to know if it recognized Orly or Yelena or The Scribbled Victims for you.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I’m going to Shojin in Culver City for a vegan Thanksgiving omakase dinner. Table for one. That’s my life. On Monday, my shrink and I talked about loneliness, and how, because of wanting to write, I often make choices that result in being alone even though I feel lonely. What to do?

On Patreon last week, I asked readers which characters they’d like to see more of in Orly’s Journals. To my surprise, the most votes went to Ji’Indushul. Because of this, my next “Scribble Secret” post on Friday will be about that character.

So that’s basically all that’s going on with me. With so much nothing going on, it must be no surprise that this is only my fifth blog post for 2024. LOL.

Orly’s Journals Update

Posted on September 17, 2024 by Robert Tomoguchi

Orly’s Journals, my serialized online novel through Patreon is going quite well. I have eleven subscribers already and am hoping for more. I want more subscribers to increase discussion among the readers regarding Orly’s new ongoing story. I’ve been posting a journal entry each Thursday. This Thursday will be the be the sixteenth post. To keep up with the demands of serialization, I’m nine entries ahead in writing and am currently working on Entry 25.

In addition to the journal entries, I’ve been posting image-based previews, solicitations from readers for character names and plot points, and my favorite—what I’m calling Scribbled Secrets where I post trivial information about Orly’s universe, inside and outside her trilogy, that the reader is likely unaware of. It’s fun to tell mine and Orly’s secrets.

As an independent author, I do have a small budget for marketing and promotion. But because that budget is small, I must be very selective when choosing what to throw my money at. Should I spend it on Amazon book ads? Instagram sponsored posts? Book review services? I’ve tried various approaches with limited success. But I feel like I should be more active in my attempt to increase awareness about Orly’s online journal and her book series. If anyone has any suggestions, my ears are open.

Other than that, I recently went through a minor writing slump where I was just spinning my wheels on the same entries. I think, at one point, I was only five entries ahead of what had already posted. I’m sure some, if not most, was due to depression. But I feel like I’ve gotten back up and am enjoying the substance and pace of what I’m writing again. If you’re one of the eleven people subscribed, I hope you’re enjoying reading the current work as much as I am enjoying writing it.

Announcing Orly’s Journals

Posted on June 6, 2024 by Robert Tomoguchi

So, way back when I last posted in March, I talked about writing two stories at once, because one was good for providing the regularity I need for maintaining my mood and the other because it excited me. Well guess what happened? I put both of them down. I know that sounds bad but let me continue because it’s actually good.

When I woke on April 5, I was thinking about Patreon and had the idea of writing there in serial form, a new novel made of journal entries penned by my character Orly Bialek, picking up where The Black Wax Vampire Trilogy ended. This concept excited me more than anything I’ve felt in years. I kicked around the idea for a few days and then decided to go for it, and it was then that I put down the other two books.

So, for the past two months, this is what I’ve been working on every single day. I’ve been writing as Orly again and building the Patreon page which launched a few days ago. I plan to release a journal entry there every Thursday evening.

Today is Thursday. Her first journal entry drops tonight.

I have no regrets putting the other two books on hold as writing Orly again makes me feel happy. I do have fears though. I’ve never written in serial form, and her POV is slightly different because of the nature of journaling. But more than that, I feel like some series continue long past what is beneficial to the thrust of the story and the universe created. Though I love what I’m doing now and look forward to releasing the installments, I hope I recognize when to stop.

So, if you enjoyed her trilogy or are new to Orly and want to read a new vampire story, I hope you’ll check out Orly’s Journals.