Hello dear readers! We have at last reached a point that I must admit, part of me was afraid would never come. Yes, dear readers, we have reached the end of this tale. It is a point that had always been coming, one that I have earnestly reached for and dreaded the moment of in equal measures, and I can't help but drift into more "flowerly" language as I think and type about it. Before I start going on and on about a few different topics, I'll address the most important part.
Thank you. Without out you, readers, I wouldn't be anywhere near where my life has ended up. Because people were willing to spend time reading my story, I got picked up by a publisher, published my story as a series of novels, and am making enough money to support myself as an author full time. (That may end shortly, but that has nothing to do with my writing and everything to do with the economy. That's an entire different discussion, though.) So darling readers, I now express my unending thanks to all of you, for reading any amount of my story. Whether you loved it, liked it, tolerated it, or hated it, (I doubt anyone who hates Blood Shaper is going to read this) it's thanks to people reading it at all that it's done so well. Thank you.
Now, for a slightly less harmonious topic. The fact that this is indeed the end of Blood Shaper. I'll try to keep this bit quick, but I have to say that I don't mean this to call anyone out or compare myself to anyone except for in the absolutely obvious way. I've seen a few comments and received a few messages that all iterate on some version of "What? This is the end? You mean we're not going to get more of X?" Yes, yes it is, and no, you won't be getting more. I'm sorry to those that want this story to keep going and going, but I can't be that author. I look in the direction of such names such as Shitaloon and Zogarth (to use some of the more personally recognizable ones) with both awe and terror, because the idea of writing the same series for as long as some people have is both inspiring and frightening. I can't do that. Not only do my ideas either come with or develop into semi-structured plots that come with definitive endings, but I find the thought of writing the same character or characters for that long utterly boring. There are so many stories, characters, and worlds to write about and I want to spend time in as many of them as possible. S~eaʀᴄh the NovelZone.fun website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
So yes, Blood Shaper is done. I will add the "for now", because you never know. I might one day return to Torotia for more stories, perhaps even stories about Kay. He's certainly going to be at least mentioned in the stories about his friend's I'll be writing, and who knows, he might appear in them even. But for now, that particular story is over and I'm moving on to the next one.
This next bit is probably the longest one, and its... I don't actually know how to describe it, actually, so I'm just going to start. Have I ever said that Blood Shaper started with me reading a book and then going: "that was terrible. I can probably do it better." When I actually pulled my head out of my ass and realized that my love of reading and stories might translate into a love for writing, the first book I wrote (a "meh" level urban fantasy that you can only find in limited physical copies in the hands of my friends and family as of now) was it's own thing, but when I decided to start on RR and try to write LitRPG (which ended up as more GameLit, because lots and lots of stats is hard as you all know from my numerous mistakes in Blood Shaper) I decided to try making the better version of that one book.
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What was that book? I don't remember it, but it was a book about King Arthur returning as a vampire and making a harem. That's right! That's where both the king Arthur stuff in the first book that dropped off as people weren't into it came from, and why Kay was always going to be a vampire, even if it didn't happen as I originally planned. In fact, a lot of the original plan got changed over time as I learned more about my own style as an author and what I liked/saw in other books over time changed. Blood Shaper was originally going to be a harem series with the potential for spicy scenes! That went away when I realized I couldn't write said spicy scenes well and also I didn't enjoy writing harem. A few early versions of very early chapters were tossed away when I had that realization. That's why Murunel was a potential romance character for as long as she was, she was going to be in the harem! Eleniah was going to be the "lead" of the harem, with Murunel, and Cindy definitely being in it, and some others being maybes.
The vampire stuff came from the same place, although the whole vampyr/vampire thing came from somewhere else that I can't remember. The eldritch corruption that became such a big part of the plot also came out no nowhere from my perspective and just wormed its way in as a major plot point. (Ooh spooky! Maybe it corrupted my book!) Dumb jokes aside, that's what happened to a lot of the plot points I had planned. I think I sit somewhere in the middle of the pantser and plotter spectrum, but I do lean toward writing by the seat of my pants. My outlines are loose, and ready for my characters to go do shit I never thought of, or for people I never planned for to just start existing mid chapter. I find it fun, but it does derail a lot of the finer points of my outline, which makes certain scenes I have planned or ready to go suddenly need some twisting, or to be relocated. If they survive at all.
I could go on and on and on and on about little details, big sweeping generalizations, discussions about characters, the power system, the System, Classes and Skills, and more, but I think I won't It's more fun for me as both a reader and an author for there to be things that are never fully fleshed out. It's not a story in my mind if you have all the answers. I might do some kind of AMA around the time the last book gets published though, so keep an eye out for that if you're interested.