I will be honest and direct: this is a mess. Being an indie creator —I suppose that is what I am, although this is only an assumption I make about myself, and I do not know how true it actually is— involves many things, especially if you decide to do everything yourself. In my case, furthermore, just to make clear how stupid I am, it occurred to me to reflect this in the brand name itself, so that I could no longer —even if I wanted to— bring anyone else into this madness.
But this decision, both procedural and related to branding, was not made at random: it is a declaration of intent. Of course, there is an enormous number of people doing this very same thing, and in fact many of them have been doing it for far longer than I have, so that does not make me someone special, but merely one more among many. Still, since every individual learning process is unique and non-transferable, today it is my turn to share a little of what I have learned with whoever wants to “listen.”
As I was saying, this is a mess. Being alone means doing many things, not so much in quantity —although that too— but in variety. I am only a writer, and as for design, I know what I need in order to get by on my own. My lack of formal training in this area leads me to spend an enormous amount of time refining whatever I consider necessary in each case. Beyond these two spheres, everything is more or less terra incognita. I have had to learn how to handle WordPress and plugins; I have had to learn digital marketing —especially SEO/GEO—; I have had to learn how to understand the dissemination of my content on social media —YouTube in particular—; I have had to learn how to work with Midjourney in order to extract what I need from it —it is not as easy as pressing a button, and I think I have already surpassed 30k images in tests and trial and error—; I have had to learn some video editing and assembly; I have had to understand how Kickstarter, DriveThru, and Meta’s Andromeda work; and I have ended up exhausted from having to learn so many things while writing Heroes and Foes, and while constantly building and reviewing —and expanding— both my brand strategy, my publications for VoidBorn and future settings/games, and my content marketing strategy —a world in itself— for my website.
These are not easy times for me, due to personal and family matters, and I am writing this with Heroes and Foes finished months ago, with a brutal publication delay, and with a strategic plan that does not stop growing as a result of my excess and my obsession in the pursuit of excellence. I have been working flat out on this for a year and a half, but the work had begun several years earlier, in intermittent sallies and outbreaks of excessive creativity. During this time, I have also stopped doing “what I had to do” for certain periods in order to expand the plan with a mass of ideas for future manuals and settings —inside and outside 5e— and, worse still, in order to escape from reality by endlessly creating things that will not see the light of day for years, according to the publication calendar —or rather, publication order— that I am creating with such exhaustive detail, and expanding without end.
I have more than 400 pages written for 6 different settings. 14 covers, and a very extensive amount of generated images, some as guiding ideas, and others almost final, for many projects that are not VoidBorn, and for others that do not even have anything to do with 5e.
Although I acknowledge that this loss of focus has occasionally got out of hand —given the personal circumstances I mentioned— I am also grateful for these creative disconnections, both in writing and in visual identity. Besides soothing certain pains of the soul, they have served —even if it may not seem so— to “move forward.” In some way, I now have a great deal of material that will allow me to advance more quickly, or to finish some of those projects much sooner, when their time comes. This —although it might seem like it— is not stupid consolation, but a reality; one that is also a form of productive procrastination, but undoubtedly of infinitely greater value than unproductive procrastination.
If there is one thing that 11 years —and around 300 short stories— of narrative writing have taught me, it is that one must be benevolent with oneself, and that creative matter is surrounded by a certain caprice. Although it is ductile, it is also unpredictable, and therefore sometimes one must step away in order to return, some time later, to the place where one left off.
The path of creation is also a path of ego and self-esteem construction. It is essential not to sabotage yourself, and not to believe yourself to be the best. Learning never ends, and one must persevere in order to materialize results.
If you find yourself in the middle of the storm of your own creative process, with a project still taking shape: take heart. Effort and perseverance is one of the precepts of my karate dojo’s dojo kun. Make them your own.
