Tag: Patreon

Different Directions

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi
For my birthday, an artist drew me.

It took me longer to listen to all the My Darling Tragedy entries from the first journal. It wasn’t because of extensive note taking while listening, it was because I’ve been exhausted and stressed from my day job. But last weekend, I finished writing the first entry of the second journal. I’m five weeks behind in my writing schedule. I’m hoping to shave that down to three weeks behind if I can cram during the Thanksgiving weekend.

Next month, I’m hosting a Zoom meetup for my Patreon patrons to discuss the first journal of MDT. Today, I made a little game for us to play. I’m also holding a contest for my patrons to guess which character name the second journal will begin with. There’s even a prize that I have yet to reveal but have been working on for a couple of weeks.

On Halloween, I spent $50 on candy and didn’t get to pass out a single piece because no one came to the door. On November 5, I turned fifty-three. I don’t feel any wiser. My heart has been hurting a lot lately thinking about poverty and hunger in the world. It feels so unjust, especially when some people have so much. My shrink advises I limit my exposure to the news because of how it affects my mood, but I saw on Bluesky that DOGE was cancelled. I’m hoping this will mean the immediate return of USAID. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it in this blog, but earlier this year I began sponsoring a child living in poverty in the Philippines. My shrink says I’m doing more than most people, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Still, she’s very special to me. I sent her a Christmas gift today.

I’ve kept my walking streak going. Yesterday was day 36 of getting at least 5,000 steps, and usually I get around 7,000. The streak is a good motivator, and the new Apple Watch is a good accountability partner. My doctor was happy I’m making efforts.

I wish I had more to report about what I’m writing but it feels like there’s not much going on. But I do believe my readers will be surprised to see some of the different directions where the second journal will venture.

Before I sign off, can I say I’m already obsessed with the new ILLIT song called NOT CUTE ANYMORE that released yesterday. I’ve seen people post the that the song is too short, but I don’t see that as an issue, especially when you can just listen to it on repeat.

Walking Pace

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi
My new Apple Watch that I’m hoping will encourage me to exercise.

In my September blog post, I mentioned I was going to take some time off from writing My Darling Tragedy to do a writing sprint of a new novel. I decided to give myself 40 days to write as much as I could of the new novel. The first five days started as a sprint, where I was just trying to get down as many words as possible each day. But I pushed myself so hard on the fourth day, netting 2,339 words, that I felt exhausted and began to dread working at this pace. So, I decided not to push as hard and jog, but after day eleven I realized I was jumping around in the story, writing so many scraps that I began to lose sight of the story’s length and pacing. So, I started over, borrowed from the scraps what I could, and wrote at what felt like my normal walking pace. It’s now day 26 and I have only 5,408 usable words. So, it didn’t turn out to be much of a sprint, but I believe I got something important done—I worked out two of the three POV issues I had when I tried to write this book two times before. I’m also writing in a new style. 

Speaking of walking paces, last week I bought an Apple Watch for the sole purpose of it encouraging me to get steps in. Right now, I’m starting slow, trying to get 5,000 steps in per day for 30 days in a row. It’s only been six days, but I’ve achieved it every day. If I succeed in reaching 30 days, I’ll probably increase it. Since I began writing My Darling Tragedy in April 2024, I’ve gotten nearly no exercise. Now that I’ve taken this MDT writing break, I’m hoping to work exercise into my daily routine.

My 40-day break ends November 9. To be honest, I’m starting to panic about going back to My Darling Tragedy. What is the story arc of the second journal? There are things I know I want to do, but I don’t really have an overarching story, and I don’t want to just meander in Orly’s grief without some kind of structure behind it. I have an app on my phone that reads PDF files aloud. Before I begin writing, I’m going to listen to the first journal all the way through. It’s more effective for me to listen to it than read through it as I’m too accustomed to what the words look like on screen and end up skimming. I’m hoping the listening will spark some new ideas.

I recently got new patrons on the MDT Patreon page. They’re flying through the journal entries, and the comment sections are blowing up. It feels good to see readers engaging with my work. I’m grateful to have them.

Hope, Hope, Hope

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi
Manga drawing from Orly's Journals
A scene from Orly’s Journals Entry 33: “Hanabi”

Since my last post, I wrote two more short stories. The first, entitled Yote, is about my childhood best friend Gote. I wrote it in response to a call for submissions by The Sun for stories about nicknames. I felt so good about the story that I submitted it to two other journals as well.

Inspired by the No Kings protests, I wrote another story entitled Five Years. My beta reader and ChatGPT had strong, positive reactions. I haven’t sent it anywhere yet but hope to next week.

In an attempt to cheer myself up, I commissioned a manga artist to do a drawing from Orly’s Journals. I just saw the final yesterday and am very happy with it.

Speaking of Orly’s Journals, I’m currently 10 weeks ahead, and am currently writing Entry 66. I also added two new perks to my Patreon. The first is that I’m now posting screenshares of me writing, to show my writing process. The second is that I’m now calling out my favorite sentence/passage posted during the month and explaining what it means to me.

So, if you’re not part of my Patreon, I hope you’ll check that out. I hope you’ll also wish me luck with finding a publisher for my two new stories. Finally, I hope you like the manga illustration from Orly’s Journals Entry 33: “Hanabi.”

Table For One

Posted on 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 by Robert Tomoguchi
An image preview of Entry 16
An image preview of Entry 16

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 by Robert Tomoguchi

Announcing Orly's JournalsSo, 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.

Cuckoo

Posted on by Robert Tomoguchi

I wrote 7,441 new words during my week off from work and my manuscript reached nearly 43,000 words. I was very happy about that. But the following week, I had severe mental issues, the kind that I don’t talk about much, but it was very hard and I missed work and didn’t write for three days. I’m starting to feel recovered today and I wrote for a couple of hours. I’ve been looking over recent chapters. I have this feeling that they’re not right and I need to overhaul them, but when I reread them, I don’t see anything I want to change. There’s just something that doesn’t feel right about them. I don’t know if it’s tone, or if some of the passages seem rushed. I figure I’ll just keep moving forward and the answer will reveal itself later, perhaps as late as my rewriting period after I finish the full draft.

I’m thinking of starting a new Patreon page where I will write what I’m going to call Crowd Fiction. I will write stories using the input and suggestions of my patrons. The stories will evolve based on what the Patrons submit. I’m worried though that no one will join or that I’ll come across as egotistical to think anyone would want to pay to support my page just so they can write with a nobody author. I wish I had been born with fearlessness and confidence, but I wasn’t. I was born instead with a brain that likes to daydream and sometimes go cuckoo.