She left Instagram long ago, her email newsletter has dropped off, and her blog his been eerily quiet for months. Where is she? What happened? Is she actually gone this time?
I’m writing to answer those questions. If you’ve followed my blog, or have read certain posts from a while back, you know what happened to my social media presence. And, after all these months of hiatus, I can say now, more than ever, I’m never going back to social media. It’s…kind of a whitewashed sepulcher.
But anyway, I’m now going to vanish from the internet again, because I need to immerse myself fully in the task of rewriting Dronefall One.
The Dronefall Rewrite
If you didn’t get the memo, book one of the Dronefall series is being completely overhauled. I’m going to re-release it before I drop the final two books and finish the series. This has been a massive task already—brain-wracking, creativity-stretching, and sometimes discouraging. But this is what I do, and I want to give myself the space and quiet to do it. And hopefully enjoy it.
I want Dronefall to be a strong first book for the series. That fact that it was the weakest book by far had been bothering me for quite a while, crippling my confidence in the whole story. If people weren’t hooked by the end of book one, they probably wouldn’t read on. They would miss the best part.
At this point, I know for sure I can make Dronefall One a better book. A rewrite and relaunch could be a beautiful thing. It could light the fire to the fuse that could give me the energy to finish book six at last, knowing the whole series was locked and loaded. I’m working on chapter eight of seventeen right now. It’s going to happen.
But I need the breathing room. So, I’m going to vanish from Goodreads interactions (my last social media stronghold) and disappear into the wilderness of art and solitude until it’s done. Probably until the relaunch is quite imminent.
You’ll know when the eagles gather….
It’s Okay to be Alone
This is something almost no one in the writing community will admit, but there’s no right way to create. And that extends to whether you choose to work completely independently or not. Some need a whole community to motivate them to write and help them every step of the way. Others, like me, can be destroyed by too much input. No, it doesn’t necessarily take a village to raise a book. You can do it alone. I’ve found I like it much better that way.
So, bye for now. I’ll be back with a brand-new Dronefall.
I have decided to do something completely different with this blog. I’ve decided to wreck its entire commercial potential as well as its community-building potential and make it a type of blog I can’t even find a niche name for. It’s not going to be an author blog anymore. But it’s not really going to be an art blog either. It’s not going to be a ‘life-updates’ type of blog, or a devotional blog, or a lifestyle blog or anything you’re used to seeing.
UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com is going to go from a useful educational writing blog to an entertaining and hopefully inspiring outlet for all kinds of creative output. It’s definitely a risky move. I can’t even find anything online about how to run a blog like this. I’m going to have to totally wing it and figure everything out for myself.
This is a terrible idea, right? We’re kind of doomed, aren’t we?
Not if you read on. Not if you find anything here that entertains or inspires you and are interested enough to seek out more.
What kind of content can you expect now?
I have no shortage of ideas for what to share with you here. I’ll be sure to put my best efforts into learning how to create the most engaging content I can in this new style. I won’t be droning on dully about my WIPs or doing random sketch-dumps and calling it a post. Writing great blogposts is an art in itself, and I intend to perfect it.
What type of post will likely dominate UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com going forward?
Fiction Posts
I’m really excited about this. I’ve got some specific things planned, which I’ll talk about in a second. Probably about two-thirds of the posts on UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com will be fiction—like my own personal Wattpad website. I’ll do flash-fiction, bonus material from my books, and short-run as well as long-running serial stories. Some will be regular, but others will have random posting schedules to keep you guessing. I’m looking forward to the freedom and variety I’ll get to enjoy writing shorter more informal work. You’ll be seeing some brand-new worlds open up.
Here and there, I’ll do other types of posts, including:
Art Posts
Like I said, no sketch-dumps or single-picture with no caption posts. I want to do side-by-side comparisons of redraws of my old art, detailed character-design sheets and intros to characters (you’ll get to see some of my book characters in vivid detail and full-color for the first time!) my art-journaling pages and processes, sketchbook tours with full commentary, etc.
Tutorials
No, I’m not cutting this category completely. Gotta do something to keep Pinterest happy, right? But probably not a lot of writing how-to. Things like multimedia art-journaling, beating creative block, and creating inspiring creative workspaces are in the cards. I’ll probably branch out into other things as my vision gets clearer.
Challenges and New Media
I want to become more creatively adventurous. I want to try to do stuff I’m terrible at and see if I like it. Whether it’s creating art from random prompts using random materials, trying to learn a brand-new medium or technique in a set amount of time, or something significantly crazier, I want to take a tip or two from the “I tried____” trend and dive into some new and exciting experiences.
And now, I’d like to introduce the first serial fiction series ever to come to UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com.
Dreamscape, IN: a flash-fiction series
“Everything life has to offer can be gotten by accident.”
This is an ongoing flash-fiction series written completely on the fly. Not so much a story as an ethereal rhapsody of reoccurring themes and images haunting one main character. Anything can happen from episode to episode. Read one. Read every other one. Go back and read them all if you’d like. The story is whatever you remember when you wake up.
What’s particularly unique about Dreamscape, IN is I’ve planned it to be a multimedia series. That means some episodes will be mostly writing, but will probably include illustrations. Some will feature multiple more detailed images with snippets of prose between them. Still others will lapse almost completely into webcomic form—some of which will be nearly wordless.
It’s the story of a teenage girl living in some undefined Indiana town in the Great Lakes area. The visuals will be pretty, a bit lonely, sometimes surreal. Dreamscape isn’t a real town. It’s a place she goes in her mind where there’s always the hope of something more to be had but no guaranteed way to get to it. I think, when you’ve read a few episodes, you’ll start to remember you’ve been to Dreamscape, too.
The prologue will be released on 8/11/23, so there’s something to look forward too. Hopefully, episodes will come out weekly.
What’s Next?
We’re about to jump into the regular posting schedule! Keep an eye open for my next post where I will be redrawing my art from years ago. Did I improve? Did I develop a distinctive style? Did I used to have significantly cooler ideas for things to draw?! Find out on 8/7/23!
One More Thing:
So, I’ve tried a lot of different creative and artistic media throughout my life. I’ve only actually gotten good at a few of them and there still some I’ve never tried at all. In the comment section, throw out all your best guesses on which ones I’ve never tried before. Go wild. I’ll tell you if you’re right or wrong. If you can hit on one I haven’t tried, maybe I’ll use it to challenge myself and report how it went in a later post.
