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Well, not too much to say, honestly.
I did manage to get out two more chapters of The Will To Live and finish up Part One of Episode Three of The DOOM Chronicles in February, so that was nice.
I’m going to fire the stories back up, with an emphasis on The DOOM Chronicles and try to just get chapters out this month.
Not too much to say. I managed to launch Episode Three of The DOOM Chronicles, and finally finish up Part Two of The Will To Live.
Unfortunately, February kind of filled up with real-life stuff. Nothing serious, more tedious, annoying stuff. Now, I can say that I will get out two more chapters of DOOM, and that will wrap up Part One. I’ll then take a break to go over what I have for the next part, as it will be longer and more involved. I’ll also see if I can try and get a few more chapters for The Will To Live out, since I’ve actually been feeling the urge to write that one more.
That’s about it. Traditionally speaking, winter is shit for me, with January and February being the worst.
In unrelated news, I managed to get my hands on two new games. One of them was a blockbuster, big budget, AAA game based on a massive IP, one of the biggest ever, and was made by a prestigious studio. The other clearly had a much, much more limited budget, would have been a decent game during 2008 or so, and is based on an IP that hasn’t been taken seriously since the ‘90s.
Can you guess which one I enjoyed more?
The second one.
The first was Fallen Order, which I was really looking forward to. It was supposed to be the Star Wars game that redeemed EA. Or, at the very least, was supposed to be an apology (even if it was a fake one, EA is incapable of being sincere about anything beyond their devotion to money). While the story and the world and the characters are actually pretty cool, there are some serious shortcomings. Besides the fact that although the game is CLEARLY modeled after games like KotOR and Mass Effect, there’s no romance subplots and you only recruit a SINGLE person, and that’s not until near the end of the game, which seems fucking ridiculous to me. But what’s honestly killing it for me is the combat. It’s shit. Now, I will fully admit that I’m also not great at this weird, hybrid, highly timing-sensitive combat, however, there are obvious delays between button presses and character actions, and overall the game severely lacks polish in a number of ways. Which is just beyond frustrating. Like, how do you fuck this up after inciting one of the biggest gaming controversies of the decade? You’d think EA would’ve allowed Respawn to take all the time they needed. Plus, the respawning enemies, just…fuck. That’s irritating. Everyone keeps saying “It’s like Dark Souls! It’s like Dark Souls!” The thing is, I don’t fucking care. I never played Dark Souls because that’s not my type of game. I wanted to play Fallen Order because it was touted as an action-RPG, not a fucking Dark Souls rip in Star Wars.
Anyway. The second game, Terminator: Resistance. Despite the fact that they clearly had a limited budget, and that it feels like a game that’s about a decade too late, I love it! It’s fucking awesome. I bought it brand new and I’m pretty happy about it so far. There’s exploration and crafting and a bit romance and it sticks pretty close to the Future War aesthetic and narrative as depicted in the original two Terminator films, which is awesome. I’m closing to beating it right now and I honestly hope they come out with some DLC. It’s definitely given me a lot of ideas for my own Terminator fan fiction. (Whenever I get around to that one.)
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say. See you in March.
Well, here we sit at the dawn of a new decade. Holy shit I can’t believe it’s 2020. Like…that’s insane. I’m kind of starting to feel old now. Not that that’s really stopping me from writing fan fiction and sci-fi/horror.
So what’s up? What’s happening? Some people might still be wondering, what the fuck happened with my original work? Unfortunately, I’m here to tell that…I don’t have much of an answer. Not for past, present, or even future. In short, a lot of unhappy shit went down over the past few years. Nothing I’d call life-shattering, but either big enough or consistent enough to cause major disruptions to my writing. Some were health problems, mental and physical, some were just personal issues, there was a death in the family that hit pretty hard, there were some financial issues, nothing serious, more annoying, and then your garden variety, everyday, regular life issues that crop up here, there, and everywhere. Combined with my natural laziness that I have to fight every single day. As for where I’m at, writing-wise, overall? Well, let’s take this time to take a good, in-depth look at, well, all of it.
Naturally, we’ll start with the fan fiction.
Let’s take a look at not just what I’ve got going on or coming up, but almost everything. There’s a few things I’m keeping secret, though, so bear that in mind.
—CLASSIC HALO UNIVERSE—
NERVES OF STEELE. Frankly, I’m embarrassed about this one. I started it midway through 2019, and what do I have to show for it? Like six fucking chapters. I had figured I’d be able to do more, but a lot of things aligned against this happening. And it sucks worse because this is like the central pillar of this shared universe. I’m hoping to finish Episode 01 in 2020. But first The Will To Live needs to get wrapped up, and Episode Three of The DOOM Chronicles will be my primary focus until it’s complete, and it’s a LONG one. So…yeah. Sorry.
THE WILL TO LIVE. I’m oddly torn on this one. If it weren’t as popular as it was, I might end up canceling it. But between all the effort I’ve put into it, its popularity, and what I intend for its future in this shared universe, that’s not really an option. So I’m going to try hard to wrap this up in 2020.
TRUE TERROR 2 — CONTAINMENT BREACH. The followup to Gathering Darkness. Definitely doing this, though it may not see the light of day until 2021. Kane’s story is far from over.
OTHER. Though these are the three pillars of this shared universe, I do have a few other ideas that could be really cool. But they’re a lot further down the line.
—NOVELIZATIONS—
THE DOOM CHRONICLES. My primary focus in 2020. I intend to finish Episode Three, which, as I mentioned above, will definitely be the longest. It’s looking at six parts, split between two different protagonists. I’m going to write a LOT for this episode. Once Episode Three gets wrapped up, it’s going back to sleep for a bit, because I’m sure I’ll need a break.
THE THING. Although it’s quite distant, at some point I want another shot at novelizing The Thing video game and expanding heavily on it. Although I like my novelization, I was always disappointed with the follow-up, and thought that so much more could’ve been done. But this one is way down the line.
STATE OF DECAY. Basically the same story as above. I could see doing a lot more, but it’s very uncertain. Because of the time commitment and my own waning interest in the universe, it’s even farther off than The Thing, if it’s even going to happen at all.
ROCK RAIDERS. A few years back I wrote a short story for Lego Rock Raiders. You can actually still read it, if you want. Definitely going to do this one.
OTHER. I’ve stated that I want to novelize a ton of things over the years, but a lot of them have kind of fallen out of my line of sight. I still kind of want to novelize Unreal II, though not as much. Same with The Suffering and Red Faction games, though ultimately I may just write a simple Red Faction story instead of a full-blown novelization. And I still kind of want to novelize the F.E.A.R. games from time to time. At the moment, nothing else super appeals or is on my radar. That could change, but the problem is I’m already dedicated to so much, I don’t know where I’ll find the time.
—HλLF-LIFE—
BISHOP’S LAMENT. So, still solid on this one. I’m looking forward to it. It’s just a matter of time. From where I’m standing right now, I think I’ll make it a priority in 2021. I know, really far away, and still only the second in the series. Sorry. As for the future, well, right now, I’ve got seven total ideas for stories, (that includes Bishop’s War and Bishop’s Lament). And I know for a fact that the seventh story isn’t going to be the end. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s going to be ten total novels in this series. So it’ll be awhile.
—KOTOR—
AND THERE WAS ANOTHER 2. And There Was Another kind of took me by surprise. In the process of writing it, I actually came up with ideas for two more novels. So it will likely end up a trilogy. There is the possibility of a fourth, but we shall see. I don’t think they’ll be as long as the first one, but you never know.
KOTOR III. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to create my own KOTOR III. I began the process in 2005 when I wrote Heroes of the Old Republic. It was terrible and long-winded, but popular. I intend to do a full (and much better) rewrite that goes far beyond where the original ended, as it was intended to be the first in an epic trilogy back then. I’ve been thinking about this story almost since I first started writing and I’ve got a shitload of ideas. Given how much sense it makes, I’ve decided to just put And There Was Another and that cast into the same universe, so expect Seth and friends to at least make a cameo in this story. Once I finish the And There Was Another trilogy and KOTOR III, I’ll almost certainly be done with Star Wars fan fiction forever.
—OBSIDIAN CLASSICS—
ALIENS VS. PREDATOR TRILOGY. Back in the day, I wrote a pair of terrible AVP fan fictions, based off the 2000 PC game Aliens Vs. Predator. They were seriously awful. But I still love the idea of them, as well as several more pieces of media I’ve experienced in those universes since then. So I think I can get one solid trilogy out of it, especially considering I have what might be a really cool idea for the story.
DREARY. My first real fan fiction was written in January 2004. It was called Dreary, and it was a crossover of Unreal Tournament and The Thing. It was godforsaken. But, in 2013, I rewrote it. It was much better, but still not great. I intend to, at some point, re-release that rewrite, because I think some people might enjoy it. So keep an eye out.
RED FACTION — HUNTER’S WAR. This is that RF fan fiction I was mentioning above. Technically it’ll be a rewrite of a story I wrote with this title back in 2004. One of my earliest stories. Again, it was awful, but I still love Red Faction, and I want to recapture that magic of the original game at least one more time.
TECH-COMM OUTPOST #17: So this is a Terminator fan fiction. Weird, right? I’ve never written one of those before. But a few games, like Dawn of Fate and Rise of the Machines, (the first half, not the second half), left a big impression on me back from the PS2/Xbox days. So I still want to write at least one story that takes place in that awesome, bleak, blue-laser future depicted in T1 & T2. This is that story. If I like it enough and get a good enough idea, I might continue it.
THE SION CAMPAIGN. Another oddball. A Quake 4 story. Basically, it’s meant to translate the feeling I got playing Quake 4 into words, ultimately what still drives me to write most of my fan fictions nowadays. It follows an original character on a moon orbiting the planet Quake 4 takes place on. Looking forward to this one. Quake 4 left a big impression on me, even if none of the other Quakes did.
OTHER. Those are the ones I’m certain about. I’ve still got some ideas kicking around. I may yet revisit Perfect Dark someday, rewriting my second ever fan fiction, An Experiment Gone Wrong. That still appeals to me. There was a Buzz Lightyear of Star Command fan fiction I started writing that I actually still think is cool. I may do that someday. There’s probably a few others I’m just not thinking of, but honestly, anything else that I write that’s a rewrite or reimagining from back then will likely be so different that it’ll just be its own thing, and not a classic.
—OTHER—
A SHADOW OVER LYLAT. So this is what’s getting my attention after I finish all my current responsibilities. Once The Will To Live, Nerves of Steele — Book 01, and The DOOM Chronicles: Episode Three are finished up, I am doing THIS. It’s a dark action-horror story set immediately following the events of StarFox 64, introducing a new protagonist. I’m really looking forward to this one. But I’ll be lucky to get to it before the year’s out.
DEAD SPACE. So, I’ve got some ideas for an expansive Dead Space series. Basically, it would introduce a new character who is on Titan Station during Dead Space 2, and then it would essentially become its own thing, incorporating Issac, Ellie, and other characters and forming my own vision for Dead Space 3. I’m on the fence about whether or not I want to do this. I do love Dead Space, it’s one of my favorites, but it would be another massive commitment, so…I dunno.
GEARS OF WAR. Yet another series of games I love that I have an absolutely MASSIVE idea for. The one thing I know about it now is that it would pretty much be me translating how I feel about Gears into words. So, you know, cast of OCs doing their own thing alongside Gears 1, 2, & 3. Think Bishop’s War but for Gears of War. Again, huge commitment, but I love Gears, so I’ll probably get to this someday. Maybe when I’m 40, lol, and we have Gears of War 9 out on Xbox 4.
HALO TRILOGY. Back in 2015, in a fit of frustration over the embarrassing state of the Halo franchise with the release of Halo 4 and 5, I conceived of my own followup trilogy to Halo 3. I still feel strongly that this is a good idea, and someday wish to do this, but, obviously, it’s a matter of time. And Nerves of Steele is going to go on for probably the next decade. So…someday.
SUPER SECRET RE-IMAGINING. So…I’m keeping this one mostly on the DL for awhile, because yet again, time. Let’s just say that I managed to track down the author of a very, very old fan fiction I read at a very impressionable time in my youth, so it left massive scars on me (good and bad), and asked them for permission to rewrite that story. And they said yes. More about this when I actually get time to do it.
OTHER. Of course, I’ve had dozens of ideas that have passed out of my memory, or out of favor, over the years. I’ve been writing fan fiction for so very long now. Honestly, something I’m hoping to eventually achieve is to find myself with enough free time that I can actually work on a project when I get struck with a brand new idea, instead of having to store it away and maybe find time to work on it three years later. Or, maybe, I’ll run out of fan fiction ideas after this and shift entirely back to original. Who knows? But for now, I’m probably set into my early forties. Oh, and someday, I want to write novels about Jason Voorhees. Other than that, who can say.
Man…
It seems impossible to me now that I wrote 15 novels, 3 novellas, and 9 short stories in three years. Like, just impossible. The Shadow Wars was crazy. I don’t even know how I did it, looking back on it. And I wonder if I’ll ever be back up to that level again. So where am I at, in terms of original fiction? I spent a long time amassing ideas, and then, as I started heading into my late twenties, I began chopping away at that list of ideas as some of them became redundant, some I forgot what the hell I was going for, and some I just don’t care about anymore.
Let’s take a look at what’s up.
KANE’S WAR. This is what I’ll almost certainly end up writing. It’ll technically be the third series in The Shadow Wars universe. The first series, which is the prequel trilogy and books 1 - 10, is Dark Ops Rising. The second series, which is books 11 - 15, is Anomalous Operations. This will be the third series. Originally, it was to be 5 books, then 7, now I’m not sure. For some reason I’m really favoring adopting an idea of writing a novella in between each of the main entries, and they’ll be important to the story, like, even though they're novellas, they will be counted as primary entries in the series. I’ll make that clear. I’ve got a strong idea for the first novel, and I did some preliminary planning before it got derailed. Ideally, I’d love to find some time to get to work on this in 2020, but we’ll see.
THE FOURTH SERIES in this universe will almost certainly be the last. I’ve got a vague idea of what I want to do for it, and it’ll have a much tighter narrative than the first two, while still being broad and epic in scope.
OTHER titles in the Shadow Wars universe are fickle things. I still have a handful of ideas for novellas or novels that take place outside of the primary narrative, though not as many as I used to. They’re the kind of books that I’ll see if I can make them work when I actually get around to them.
SINGLE NOVELS are so rare for me now. I still have a handful of ideas. An action-oriented near-future thriller about mercenaries and memory loss. A man, through unusual circumstances, living in an extremely haunted location and dealing with it in a way that you would not expect. A Fast & Furious sort of story about hover-bike racing. Yeah, I know, weird for me. An absolutely bug-fuck crazy near-future sci-fi story about one man’s insane search for God. Like, it’s nuts. Totally nuts. And a few others I don’t even want to mention because of how weird they are, and I’d rather they be surprises.
HORROR SHORTS. I’ve got some of these floating around still, ideas for cool horror shorts that I thought were too neat to abandon. Someday, I want to do a collection of them.
There’s a handful of other random, weird ideas that may or may not get written. Again, I don’t want to talk about them because they’re so weird or (hopefully) cool that I want them to be surprises.
Of course, there’s my idea of starting a new pen name and writing a lot of more commercially viable stuff for that. It’s still kicking around. I mean, I did write Dead Winter with that in mind, and I still feel good about that story, and future ideas. My best non-Shadow Wars ideas are now pinned to this name, so obviously I’m keeping them under wraps for now and probably a few years more. I’m still…figuring that out. It’s stalled a number of times, which is embarrassing. Really, it’s a matter of commitment. Take Dead Winter for example. Let’s say I publish it, it gets some attention, and then I’m not going to write a sequel for another year or longer even. It loses all that traction it might’ve built just because I wasn’t ready. You can see my problem.
So yeah, ultimately, the best I can do is: Maybe Kane’s War will kick off this year. Sorry.
Boy I really dropped the ball on this one again. I get all fired up and release End Credits and Not Alone 1 & 2, and then…nothing. I’m really sorry about that. The answer for this one is that when there’s not enough time, something needs to get cut, and the first thing on the chopping block is always going to be machinima because it’s a hobby, a time-consuming hobby that I’m still figuring out and am not good at.
I’m going to finish and release Not Alone 3 next, that much I know. I think one of the problems is that creating machinima is such a daunting task sometimes. Like, sometimes I’m excited and happy and having fun, but sometimes I’m just like: This is so awful, this sucks, doesn’t it? Why am I even doing this? I know everyone gets that, but it’s a LOT more powerful when you’re doing something you have very little experience doing.
I’ve got a lot more ideas of what to do after, but at this point the field is so massively open that I don’t want to commit to anything right now. I’ll have to see what appeals the most once I finally finish the Not Alone Trilogy.
So yeah, that’s about the size of it.
In 2020, I hope to…
Finish The DOOM Chronicles - Episode Three.
Finish The Will To Live.
Finish Nerves of Steele - Book One.
Finish Not Alone 3.
Start writing A Shadow Over Lylat.
Start writing Kane’s War.
Do more machinima.
Yes, clearly, clearly I am aiming for the stars.
I’m mainly hoping to get better with time management, and with perseverance, and inspiration. I know it’s a terrible idea to rely on inspiration in any creative field, but you do need some. Hopefully my mental health will even out a bit more this year, and decade, and I’ll go back to being more consistent.
Hopefully.
Wish me luck.
-Sean
November didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped, though this time around I at least have a little bit more of an excuse. I ended up having to leave town for half a week to attend my mother’s wedding and watch her place while she went out of town. Being out of town means I can barely write, and even when I get back, it takes several days to fully recover.
I don’t travel well at all.
On top of that, shortly after recovering, I got really fucking ill. I caught the stomach flu and it laid me the fuck out. Easily the worst day of the year, and then I had to recover again for a completely different reason, as it really took it out of me.
To make matters worse, I’m sorry to report that my supplements are not as effective as I would have hoped in regards to my Seasonal Affective Disorder. Winter is here, it’s cold and gray most of the time now, it gets dark by goddamned 5PM, and I’m fucking drained. I’m doing what I can to help maximize my ability to fight it, but it is a fight, pretty much every day.
That was why I didn’t manage to get nearly as much done on The Will To Live as I had hoped. I’m also having some trouble writing for it because I’m kind of burned out on it and it also did not turn out the way I initially intended. I feel a little stuck, because it’s surprisingly popular for what it is, so I feel compelled to keep writing it. Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near the point where I can just power through it and wrap it up. I’m not even halfway done yet, and I don’t want to rush it, because that will just screw it up.
The good news is that now that December is here, I have officially begun pre-production on The DOOM Chronicles: Episode Three. I intend to plan it out and have several chapters written, edited, and ready to publish for my January 1st, 2020 launch date. I’m very much looking forward to this, and have been for months now. Putting it on hiatus for so long was ultimately a good idea, I think. Even if they pushed the release date of DOOM: Eternal back by four months. But at least we got a confirmed re-release of DOOM 64! That will definitely help with inspiration, since I’ve never actually played it all the way through before.
Although The DOOM Chronicles is now my main focus, I’ll be attempting to get work done on The Will To Live in the background until it is complete. I have no idea how long that will be. Just like last month, I intend to finish Part Two this month. I’m about at the halfway point. Honestly, I’d like to get the story wrapped up during the first few months of 2020, but that seems pretty unlikely, given how huge it’s gotten. I mean, it’s like 70,000 words right now and not even halfway done.
So yeah, that’s what I’ve got to say: More The Will To Live coming in December, and The DOOM Chronicles is being prepped for relaunch.
Also! I just made the Kindle version of See You at the Bottom available for download! All you have to do is download the file by clicking the Download Kindle Version button, hook your Kindle up to your computer via USB, then drag and drop the file into the Documents folder on your Kindle, and that’s it!
So, not really much to say this month. I’m kind of feeling in a summarize kind of mood, so here’s a bullet list.
And There Was Another is done! Finally. There will be a sequel…someday.
The Will To Live is back in production. I managed three whole chapters in October! I may be able to finish Part Two this month.
No news on the machinima front. Sorry.
The Shadow Wars is now enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited. Check it out.
That’s it, really. Although my new supplements are definitely helping, winter is here! And since I’ve got Seasonable Affective Disorder, that means now my newfound better mental health will be taking on an additional workload, so we’ll see how that evens out.
So…I’m back. For the most part.
First off, my S. A. Lusher WattPad account is gone. Everything has been deleted, up to and including the account itself. I’ve also gone through and removed The Shadow Wars from everywhere I had it available, save for the Kindle, so that I can enroll it in the Kindle Unlimited again.
So why aren’t they enrolled into the KU right now? Well, they would be, but I’ve run into a weird problem. Basically, there’s some kind of glitch that’s disallowing me from doing exactly that. I’ve contacted Amazon about it and hopefully the problem will be solved soon.
Now, fan fiction.
As per my Facebook post, I stepped back entirely from writing earlier this month due to a number of difficulties. The good news is that I’ve since started taking the supplement that’s supposed to help deal with my genetic mutation that causes depression and it WORKS. I wouldn’t call it a cure-all, but it’s definitely helping. So that’s nice.
I’ve been making progress on And There Was Another. Presently, there are just three more chapters to go. Well, technically, two chapters and an epilogue, but whatever. One of them is written, but not edited. I’m going to try and get this wrapped up as soon as possible. (How many times have I had to say that so far?)
At this point, it’s very obvious that I will not be able to finish The Will To Live AND Nerves of Steele Book 01, AND have time for The DOOM Chronicles in the three months that are left in 2019. If I was at the top of my game, maybe I could do it. But I’m hovering somewhere below the mid-tier of my game. On some days. It’s hard to gauge, to be honest. So this is what I’m going to do instead: finish And There Was Another, and then try to get as much done on The Will To Live as possible through October and November. December 1st is going to be a hard deadline for me. Once December 1st hits, I will go into The DOOM Chronicles mode.
I have so much content to help me now. I mean, first off, DOOM: Eternal will be out by then. Secondly, DOOM 1, 2, & 3 are out for the Xbox One and I already have them lined up and ready to go. Plus, I want to replay DOOM 2016. On top of that, we now have confirmation that DOOM 64 is being re-released for the Nintendo Switch in November, so hopefully that means it’ll come to Xbox One as well? It’d fucking better.
Even more so, I have some of the DOOM books, and the expertly written ‘The Plutonia Experiment’ by Mike MacDee. If you haven’t already, please, please go read Mike’s trilogy. It’s a diary-style narration that covers the original three episodes in DOOM, each from a different perspective, and it’s not only the best DOOM fan fiction I’ve ever found, it’s some of the best horror fiction I have ever read in my life. Everything I’ve ever written for DOOM is fucking nothing in the face of this guy’s work. I genuinely mean that. Go read it. (And then come back and keep reading The DOOM Chronicles.)
On the machinima front, I don’t really have anything to add unfortunately. I’ve gotten some preliminary work done on the treatment for Not Alone 3, but that’s about it. I’ve also sent out a few tentative requests to some YouTubers that I enjoy to see if they might be interested in providing a little bit of voice work. I doubt I’ll get any hits, since I know how insanely busy they must be most of the time dealing with their own projects, let alone helping someone else out, but hey, you never know!
And that’s about it. So, to summarize…
Finish And There Was Another ASAP.
Do as much work on The Will To Live between the end of And There Was Another and December 1st as possible.
Once December 1st hits, I will begin preparing for Episode Three of The DOOM Chronicles, which will launch on January 1st, 2020.
Once I begin working on Episode Three, I will continue working on The Will To Live and Nerves of Steele Book 01 in the background until both of them are complete, at which point I will shift all focus to Episode Three until completion.
I’ll also be working on Not Alone 3 in the background.
The Shadow Wars is going to be on the Kindle Unlimited as soon as I can get it there.
Not really sure what I’ll do after that. Maybe I’ll finally write Bishop’s Lament.
So…
Some big changes.
First, let’s discuss some of the things I actually managed to get done in August.
I released two whole machinimas!
For those of you unfamiliar, machinima is the making of films using video games. And I have wanted to create machinima using a few of the Halo games for a long time now. I now have the ability to do so, and am slowly finding ways to carve out time here and there to put some together.
I created Not Alone in its entirety in 2016. Then I felt I needed a break. That became a few months, which became six months, which stretched on and you get the idea. Eventually, I began production of Not Alone 2 in 2017. I got through about 85% of it, and then gave up, because I realized that not only had it been an entire year since I had uploaded anything to my channel, but at the time I felt like I wasn’t going to have the time to regularly, or even irregularly, produce machinima, so I took down Not Alone and gave up.
Recently, I started thinking about machinima again, and finally decided to get back into the game. I made a brand new channel, and a new machinima that’s like a bleak music video for Halo 3, (you can see it here), put back up Not Alone, and got to work finishing up Not Alone 2. Which I finally did just a few days ago.
Soon I will begin production of Not Alone 3. I have a lot of ideas for it and I hope it doesn’t suck.
And then I have a lot more ideas after that.
On the fan fiction front, I’ve decided to say fuck it, and just work on one thing at a time. So The Will To Live and Nerves of Steele are back on hold. I’m sorry. The good news is that I’ve made kind of decent progress on And There Was Another, and it’s almost done. We’re on the last planet and the endgame of the story. Ideally, this will be wrapped up this month. After that, I’ll work on The Will To Live and try to get that wrapped up. But fuck, that one has a lot more to go.
Okay, time for the big update.
I am removing all of my original content from WattPad and deleting my S. A. Lusher account.
I debated doing this near the beginning of 2019, but this time around, I’m not doing it for emotional reasons!
I’ve been considering this for a little bit now, and ultimately I asked myself the question of: why am I keeping The Shadow Wars on WattPad? There’s a few reasons, but none of them really seem to outweigh the benefits of enrolling them back into the Kindle Unlimited. I know, I know, I’ve been down this fucking road before. More than once.
At the end of the day, I need to pay bills, and I can earn more money being in the KU.
If this decision is annoying or it pisses you off, I am sorry. I’m genuinely not trying to be a jerk or anything, I’m trying to do what makes the most sense for me and my own life. Although I think at this point that my presence on WattPad is minimal at best. I’m not sure how many people will actually notice the absence of The Shadow Wars.
So when will this happen? In one month. October 1st, 2019, the stories get deleted and the account goes down.
And so where does this leave us with future original content? I’m going to go back to my old-school form of posting: I’ll upload it as I write it, to my Obsidian Productions account, give a fair window of time for everyone to finish it up while I edit it, and then I’ll take it down to upload it.
Which begs the question, what’s next?
Well, at some point, and it’s genuinely hard to say when, because I feel so stretched thin with my current fan fiction stuff, I want to finally begin working on the followup to The Shadow Wars: Kane’s War. I still know exactly what I want to do for the first few novels, and I’ve got a decent idea of what I want to do with the series as a whole, and I’m actually kind of amped to write it.
But I need to clear the table first.
Which, I would like to point out, YES, I realize the hypocrisy of opting to work on fan fiction instead of original content after I just got done talking about how I need to do what makes financial sense. Sometimes I’m stupid, and sometimes I’m just listening to my brain, even when I don’t know why it’s saying what it’s saying. Who knows, maybe I’ll get my shit sorted and start working on Kane’s War at the expense of my fan fiction. We’ll see.
So July sucked.
Before I talk about plans, I want to kind of go into what’s been up lately and maybe give some more perspective on why the fuck I’ve had a lot of difficulty keeping up with things. I’ll (try to) keep it short.
I think the foundation of all this can be traced back to 2018, which was one of the worst years of my life. Here is a shortened timeline of shitty things that happened.
Endured one of the worst periods of sickness in my entire life and then had to be alone for about two weeks as my wife went on vacation with her family near the end of 2017. (I realize this can read as anger towards her, but it’s not, it was just the way circumstances fell. The vacation was to see her sister all the way across the planet and not only was expensive, but had been laid in for months, and I was through the worst of the sickness by the time she had to go, so her going was completely the right choice.)
Tried going off my medication to see if it was actually doing anything for me. It was. Wasted three months getting off, then back on, the meds, near the beginning of 2018.
Ran into some SERIOUS financial problems.
Began running into a series of vague and apparently unrelated health concerns starting in June 2018, some of which persist to even this day, that have STILL amounted to basically nothing. (I genuinely wondered if I was dying more than once. Not that I felt like I was dying, more like I was afraid that these vague concerns were the early signs of something that would become lethal in the near future.)
My grandmother died in September, as well as my family dog a few weeks later.
So that was last year. It kind of shook my sense of reality, in a way, my sense of permanence. In short, it REALLY fucked me up.
2019 has been better so far. There’s been a lot more stability, but there have been some setbacks. Probably my biggest problem is anxiety. I’ve had anxiety issues for as long as I can remember. But they have gotten worse over the past few years or so.
And then, a few days ago, for the first time in my entire life, I had a panic attack. It really fucked with some plans, some big plans, that I had made with members of my family, and forced me to cancel. To be clear: I’ve never panicked so hard that I’ve had to outright cancel very big plans. This has kind of shaken me, as I’ve always been able to basically just deal with my anxiety. Like, it sucks, but I can just get through it. And although the panic attack wasn’t what I would call on the bad end of the spectrum, it does make me concerned about how bad it might get.
Anxiety and depression are the two biggest things that kill my productivity. And clearly my anxiety has gotten worse. I’m in the process of figuring out a more long-term solution to it, but my generalized anxiety is probably the biggest reason I’ve not made nearly as much progress as I would have liked.
So where does that leave us with fan fiction?
I think I need to admit something, to myself and to everyone else: I am bad at maintaining multiple projects. Maybe once I was good at it, or even okay at it, but I am bad at it now. Going forward, with some obvious exceptions, I think I am just going to work on one thing at a time from now on. Maybe I’ll feel differently in the future, but I think I need to commit to this for now.
So I am just going to go full steam ahead on And There Was Another for the moment. I am going to try and write it until it is done, given it is the closest to being finished. Once it’s done, I’ll go hard on The Will To Live, finish up Part 2, and then make some more progress on Nerves of Steele.
Honestly, I’m kind of desperate to get all this stuff wrapped up in time for The DOOM Chronicles, because just recently, I’ve actually been really feeling it. Like, I’m actually getting amped to write Episode Four. And I want to go into that with both time for a lot of preparation and a clear head to focus on ONLY writing DOOM. I want it to be really good.
And for whatever reason, it’s just hard for me to focus, to really focus, on more than one thing at a time now. If I have another project that needs finishing, it’s a little like having a radio tuned to static on constantly in the room with me. I can ignore it sometimes, and turn it down low, but it never actually goes away. (Though, to be clear, having something on major hiatus, like The DOOM Chronicles, doesn’t really fuck with me, for some reason. I don’t know, my brain is just kind of fucked.)
So those are my plans.
Also, I’m sorry about not having more machinima out by now. I ran into some REALLY annoying, unexpected problems with Not Alone, so I need to fix those before it comes out again. But soon!
Wish me luck.
Hey.
Surprise, surprise. June was kind of a clusterfuck.
A few shitty things happened, most of them I don’t really want to get into. I also began what is to be a long, drawn-out process of getting my teeth taken care of. They were way worse than I assumed. So that sucks. I’m also getting some medication stuff sorted out, and that’s fucking with my energy levels.
So, I managed to get four chapters of Nerves of Steele up this month. I feel bad about only doing four chapters, but I’m also trying not to rush it. Nerves of Steele feels different than almost any other fan fiction I’ve written. I’m trying to be a bit more deliberate with this one. It’s also turning out longer than I thought it would. What I’ve written and posted so far was initially supposed to be the first two chapters, but I don’t want monster mega chapters this time around. I want decently consistent, roughly 3,000 word chapters. And it also gives me room to breathe and articulate. So that’s going to keep on happening through July, ideally.
I finally restarted And There Was Another! I had intended to get more than a single chapter out before the end of the month, but an avalanche of stuff happened, so I couldn’t. The next chapter is very close to done and should be out soonish.
I am going to resume work on The Will To Live this month. And soon.
My basic plan is to treat Nerves of Steele as the primary priority, while The Will To Live and And There Was Another will be secondary priority, with me alternating between working on them. Eventually And There Was Another will be done, and then it’ll just be Nerves of Steele and The Will To Live for awhile. And then, eventually, Containment Breach.
Although I have to admit, I might not get to that this year. I feel like during May and about half of June I really had begun to make progress and claw my way back to consistency, but I lost a lot of ground I had regained over the last half of June. I’m struggling to maintain my composure at this point. Basically, if I can finish Nerves of Steele 1 and The Will To Live, and there’s time left before I need to begin working on Doom Episode Four, then I’ll write Containment Breach.
Now, as for an ‘other things’ roundup…
I relaunched Game Talk with a new one: State of Decay. Check it out. The next one, which covers the DLC and remaster of State of Decay, should be out soon. Then I intend to write up State of Decay 2, and the Heartland DLC.
My novelization of Gone Home is now available for the Kindle via a download directly from my site. Just head on over to this page and click that button that says DOWNLOAD KINDLE VERSION, and then take the file you get, hook your Kindle up to your computer via USB, then slip that file into the DOCUMENTS folder. And you’ll be able to read it on your Kindle! I plan on doing this for everything, but I want to give them one more edit before doing so, to polish them up a bit. Some will be easy, others…not so much. And yeah, I’m doing this for The Rookie Chronicles too. God help me.
Finally, I’m actually very close to finishing my first machinima to be posted on my new YouTube channel. It’s basically done, I just need to do some final touches. If you haven’t already, subscribe!
And that’s it. Wish me luck.
Well, here we are again. Me hitting the reset button and making another go of having a consistent, online presence. The beginning is always fun. Hopefully it actually amounts to something this time.
Given this is the first official blog post, and there may be people who aren’t familiar with me reading it, I’ll start with the basics.
I write fan fiction, and will soon be making the occasional Halo machinima. I call myself Obsidian Productions. In real life, I am author S. A. Lusher. I wrote a series of sci-fi action-horror stories called The Shadow Wars that spawned fifteen novels, three novellas, and nine short stories. If you’re interested, the series is complete, and you can pick up the first entry for free on the Amazon Kindle. After writing myself nearly into a coma trying to finish it up, I finally decided to move my original projects into the background, to figure them out and work on them at a slower pace. Admittedly, it’s not going super well. It’s taking a little while to figure out what the fuck I actually want to do, and on top of that I’ve had several setbacks over the past few years that make it a lot harder to stick to it. At some point, I do fully intend to follow The Shadow Wars with a series that picks up a decade later called Kane’s War. I’ve got some really cool ideas for that.
So, that’s my real life, original writing. If you want, you can actually read the entire series over on my secondary WattPad profile, but it would be awesome if you’d be willing to purchase them.
As for what Obsidian Productions is…
Here’s a brief history. I began writing fan fiction in January 2004, and, with one notable exception, never stopped. I’ve written millions of words worth of fan fiction over the past fifteen years, and I plan to write millions more. I’ve got a lot of ideas and I just genuinely love writing fan fiction.
So, the big question: What can I offer you? I’ll write out a list of everything I currently have on offer. After that, we’ll get to the more normal of my newsletter, which I call The Near Horizon because I think it sounds cool. (The more normal portion being current event updates, where I’m at with my varied projects, what’s on my mind, what’s upcoming, etc.)
Let’s get started.
THE THING 2 - INFECTION [W | F]: A novelization of the 2002 video game sequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece The Thing. Complete.
THE THING 3 - ASSIMILATION [W | F]: A sequel to the aforementioned novelization. Complete.
STATE OF DECAY [W | F]: A novelization of the video game. Complete.
GONE HOME [W | F]: A novelization of the video game. Complete.
SEE YOU AT THE BOTTOM [W | F]: A depressing Recess fan fiction. Complete.
GATHERING DARKNESS [W | F]: The first in my True Terror series, of my Classic Halo Universe. Complete.
BISHOP’S WAR [W | F]: The first in my HALF-LIFE series. Complete.
THE DOOM CHRONICLES [W | F]: An epic length full novelization of the entire DOOM universe. On hiatus until 01.01.2020.
AND THERE WAS ANOTHER [W | F]: A KotOR fan fiction. On brief hiatus.
THE WILL TO LIVE [W | F]: A Halo winter-survival fan fiction. Part of the Classic Halo Universe. On brief hiatus.
NERVES OF STEELE [W | F]: The main pillar of my Classic Halo Universe. In progress.
THE SHADOW WARS: As mentioned above, 15-novel Sci-Fi/Action/Horror series. Complete.
DEAD WINTER: A post-apocalyptic action/horror novel. Zombies and ice. Complete.
PROJECT SYN: A Sci-Fi/Horror novella. Mercenaries fighting monsters in an isolated location. Complete.
LIBERATION ROAD: A Mystery/Horror novella. A man becomes trapped in a remote area in Kansas and hunted by a monster. Complete.
FINAL MESSAGE: A Sci-Fi/Mystery short. A technician investigates a solar research vessel and makes an insane discovery. Complete.
DEAD FRAMES: A Mystery/Horror novella. A private eye discovers what could be the first real evidence of paranormal activity. Complete.
HAZARD LIGHTS: A Horror short. A man confronts unthinkable terror after pulling over to help a stalled car. Complete.
BENEATH: A Horror short. Two men encounter an evil entity never meant for our world in a parking garage. Complete.
SHADOWS: A Mystery/Horror novella. A skeleton crew in an office building fight against an impossible entity. Complete.
LIVING DEAD: Very old Halo Horror fan fiction. Part of The Rookie universe. Not very good, but still available.
THE ROOKIE CHRONICLES: Very old Halo fan fiction. Part of The Rookie universe. Not very good, but still available.
ADRIFT: Very old Halo Horror fan fiction. Part of The Rookie universe. Not very good, but still available.
THE ROOKIE CHRONICLES 2 - BLACK OPS RISING: Very old Halo fan fiction. Part of The Rookie universe. Not very good, but still available.
THE LONG WALK: A Rock Raiders short story. I will eventually adapt Rock Raiders into a full story.
HALO MUSIC VIDEO MACHINIMA: I’m presently working on this. I hope to have it out within the next month or so.
NOT ALONE: I made a Mystery/Horror Halo machinima back in 2016, and got about 2/3 of the way through a sequel. After posting the music video, I’ll put this up and finish the sequel.
I also made two kind of random videos and uploaded them to YouTube. The first is a really basic teaser trailer I cut together of The Langoliers. The second is a recut of a scene from Rick and Morty.
That’s it as far as content goes. Not much for 15+ years of work, but most of what I wrote over that decade and a half was crap, and it is safely either deleted or locked up somewhere. You aren’t missing anything.
Now, as for where you can find me online.
WATTPAD [Obsidian Productions | S. A. Lusher]
Now we get to the fun part, the part where I can talk about my plans for the future. Let’s talk about all the things that I hope to do. Not in too much detail, given I want to hold some back, but I still greatly enjoy the theatrical tease of future content. So here we go.
CLASSIC HALO UNIVERSE: Nerves of Steele might be the longest ever Halo fan fiction. The current reigning champ is over 1.6M words, so yeah. I have a SHITLOAD of ideas for this story. True Terror, which began with Gathering Darkness, presently has three more sequels planned, with a few more waiting in the wings, so to speak. The next of which is, if you haven’t guessed it from the cover art, SCP: Containment Breach. I plan to write that this Fall. The Will To Live will go on for quite awhile. It’s got four parts and only one is finished so far. I do have other ideas, but I want to keep them quiet for now.
HλLF-LIFE: I’ll probably write Bishop’s Lament, the sequel to Bishop’s War that covers HALF-LIFE 2, in 2020. This one has roughly nine story ideas right now, and will for sure have more. I do have an end to this series in mind, but it’s a long way out.
THE DOOM CHRONICLES: This has eight total parts, including Episode Zero. The first three are complete. Part Three, which covers DOOM II: Hell on Earth, begins 01.01.2020. I plan to at least finish that episode during that year, and it will be a long episode. If there’s time before 2021 hits us, I’ll write the next Episode, which isn’t anywhere near as long. Again, ending planned, but it’s a WAYS out.
AND THERE WAS ANOTHER: So, this started off as a bit of lark, but is now over 100K words, with probably another good 20-30, maybe even 40K left in it. I do have ideas for several sequels to this, and I’ll probably write them.
NOVELIZATIONS: Although it’s absurd, I do actually want to rewrite my novelization of the The Thing video game. I want to launch a series for it similar to my HALF-LIFE or DOOM series. As mentioned above, I want to adapt the game Lego Rock Raiders. I actually began planning this in 2017, but fizzled out when I became overwhelmed. I really want to do this one. I also have interest in novelizing the game Unreal II: The Awakening, the The Suffering series, the Red Faction series, and the F.E.A.R. series. But those are kind of far out.
OBSIDIAN CLASSICS: I want to write a trilogy set in the Aliens Vs. Predator universe. I will, at some point, re-release my 2013 rewrite of my original 2004 Unreal Tournament/The Thing fan fiction, Dreary. I have an idea for a Terminator fan fiction. I actually really want to write a story set during Quake 4. I might do a series set in StarCraft, but we’ll see.
STAND-ALONE: I really, really want to write KotOR III. I have an awesome idea for this story. I want to write some stories set in the Dead Space universe, the first being a side-story to Dead Space 2, which then leads into the second story, which is my own re-imagining of Dead Space 3. I have a killer idea for an action-horror series set just after StarFox 64. I want to do a sequel series to Friday the 13th. I want to write my own version of Halo 4, 5, & 6.
MACHINIMA: Shit. I’ve got a lot of ideas for machinima. Some of them are adaptations of other games. Mostly they’re horror-related ideas. I don’t think I’m very good at making machinima, and it’s a rather time-consuming process, so these will be slow to come out.
I have other ideas kicking around, but that’s the bulk of it.
Now, as for the more specific goals that I have…
I intend to finish And There Was Another within the next few months. This should be very doable.
I intend to finish The Will To Live this year. This one is less certain, but I will try.
I intend to finish Book 01 in Nerves of Steele by the end of the year. If time permits, I will write Book 02.
I intend to launch and finish True Terror 2 - Containment Breach by the end of the year. I can probably do this.
I intend to launch my Halo music video, and the Not Alone Trilogy by the end of the year. If time permits, I want to get out at least one more project. Honestly, I have no idea if I’ll be able to do this, since machinima production is such a large unknown to me.
Now, with regards to my farther out goals, past 2019, (because I’m so reliable and that’s such a good idea to talk about…)
As I said above, I want to finish The DOOM Chronicles: Episode Three in 2020, and I hope to finish Episode Four as well.
Provided all the above Halo stuff is done, I will very likely write the next HALF-LIFE story in 2020.
I want to write at least one more Nerves of Steele and one more True Terror book in 2020.
I am hoping to get more practice in with machinima and begin to more reliably produce content that year.
I will probably attempt to tackle a new project, totally unrelated to any of the long-running series I have going on, because I have ideas I’d really like to get to. It’ll be whatever I’m really feeling when I actually have some free time.
And that’s it, really. The only other thing that I’ll likely be doing is resurrecting my Talk series. Game Talk. Machinima Talk. Book Talk. Basically it’s just me talking about games, books, and machinimas. Typically ones that I like.
If you’ve read this far, then thanks! I appreciate any and all support that my readers give me. I’m hoping to pick up the pace with my writing this summer, and keep it going. I’d like to produce a lot of fun content and hope to make people happy.
-Obsidian