Postmortem: Valen the Rogue and the Starlit Scepter
The process of writing Starlit Scepter went much more smoothly than that of writing Domain of Darkness. With that fact, I am pleased. After jumping around and attempting many different writing techniques, I had finally settled on one that worked for me. And after putting the work into outlining, the process of writing went much more smoothly this time around.
That said, I did try to skip ahead after finishing chapter one. I wrote chapter one, then seven, then four. After that came two, three, five, and six… only to discover that chapter seven no longer made sense, and chapter four wasn’t nearly as strong as I’d imagined.
In hindsight, jumping around didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. The outline wasn’t as airtight as I thought. I stumbled into a few unexpected plot points along the way, which needed to be referenced consistently in chapters I’d already written. And I realized that I’d made assumptions about how chapters four and seven would function that didn’t hold up once the rest of the story took shape.
Also, I found myself in need of adding an eighth chapter, despite my hope to keep all Valen the Rogue stories to a consistent seven-chapter length. But the idea of making each day of the Stellentian holy week a single chapter in the book was too appealing to pass up, so the story’s conclusion had to occur in its own chapter.
🧠 Personal Problems
I suppose the greatest item worth mentioning that affected the writing of Starlit Scepter comes in the form of a health issue I encountered in early November of 2024. I woke up in the early hours of the morning experiencing what turned out to be the first of three strokes over the course of that day.
At thirty-six years old and in otherwise excellent health (something I began to take much more seriously with great success between 2020 and 2022), I stayed in the hospital five days awaiting a myriad of tests and the results thereof in order to determine a probable cause.
I imagine it’s never fun to be a medical mystery. Unless the mystery is how you’re so effortlessly toned and handsome. Regrettably, that was not the case here. Instead, the mystery was why someone four decades shy of the usual stroke demographic would end up in that situation at all.
All told, I’d strongly recommend having a stroke. You get a few weeks off of work. Your friends come visit you at the hospital. They bring snacks. They tell you how much they love you. It’s expensive, but what can I say? Can’t put a price on getting a little attention. 👍🏻 10/10
In January 2025, I had heart surgery to close the hole in my heart (a patent foramen ovale) that likely caused the strokes. As of this writing, I am still recovering from both the surgery and the original injury. I have a baseball’s worth of scar tissue in my brain and my heart is still growing new tissue around the implant and acclimating to pumping blood at full capacity for the first time in my life.
Despite the difficulty, and the lasting deficits, and the uncertainty, the Lord Jesus Christ has been a faithful and good shepherd to me, as he has promised time and again. Though I am not yet grateful for my stroke, I pray that I will be one day, and that evidence of the perfection of the Father’s loving plan will be undeniable to those who have yet to believe.
📈 Sales
But I digress… back to swords and sorcery! I’ve read on a number of self-publishing Internet groups that releasing sequels boosts sales of the first entry in a series. I had no idea what to expect for my own meager novellas. But the advice turned out to be true.
Domain of Darkness sold about a dozen copies on release in June 2024. Then sales dwindled to nothing. I think I sold an additional copy here and there throughout the year, but nothing worth mentioning to anyone other than Uncle Sam come tax season.
Then, two weeks ago, Starlit Scepter went live on Amazon. For every copy it sold, Domain of Darkness sold five. Whether anyone actually returns for the sequel remains to be seen.
It’s given me a new appreciation for the importance of a strong first entry… and a newfound sympathy for George Lucas and his endless desire to revisit old work. I’ll try to resist the temptation, myself. Probably.
🪺 Valen the Rogue and the Adventure Number Three
I’ve already begun to outline the next novella. Like Domain of Darkness, it’s one I’ve attempted to write in the past, but never completed. I hope soon to overcome that obstacle and get the story out of my system in a full and complete form for others to enjoy. Or ruthlessly criticize. Reader’s choice.
I doubt I’ll write later chapters early. But I may experiment with writing the roughest draft imaginable as early as possible. Just abysmal prose… riddled with repetitious language, weird descriptions, and jarring and unatmospheric imagery.
It’s easy to make a very bad draft better. It’s very difficult to put words on a blank page. I’d like to reduce that friction as much as possible wherever I can, and hopefully churn out a story a little more promptly. Barring any unforeseen major medical events.
🔌 Shameless Plug
Valen the Rogue in the Domain of Darkness is available on Amazon as an eBook and in paperback. Its sequel, Valen the Rogue and the Starlit Scepter, is also now available as an eBook and in paperback.