New Novel & New Audiobooks

This will be the first blog post I've done in almost three years! Back in 2016 and 2017, I was burned out from writing eleven novels in four years, so I got stuck on two that I had planned on writing after I had finished with The End Times Saga and Perilous Times series. I promoted my novels a little after that, then it got to barely, and by the end of 2022, I was over the whole idea, or so I thought.

So, one the novels I had planned on in 2017, was a sequel (or full series) to The Long Journey, where the next novel has the main character and his family dealing with the Civil War and its fallout. So, I began doing research, but due to the MC being Cherokee, I discovered the Cherokee nation had its own mini-civil war during the main war, so I got discouraged and stopped because I wasn't sure how to weave the story correctly. At the moment, that's really far on the backburner and I will revisit it, eventually.

The other novel that I started writing after getting stuck with the other one, is a what-if story about a Gen X man (write what you know, right? lol), this time briefly set during those fun days of 2020. He's watching YouTube videos about Gen X nostalgia and wishing he could be thirteen again so he could change some things in his life that he had always regretted. I had about four chapters done when I pretty much lost the plot, not really knowing where to go with the plotline since I myself really couldn't remember things from 87-92. The novel started meandering and then I just hit a brick wall creatively. So, I walked away from it and writing in general, thinking I was done with sixteen novels to my name.

Then, I lost my job this last July. I've been having difficulty even getting interviews/jobs thanks to companies relying solely on checking resumes with ATS (Applicant Tracking System) and using video interviews (one way Zoom/Teams interviews are so stupid when I live in the same city as the company and also kind of intimidating for an introvert like myself), so I began wondering what I should do to keep busy in the meantime. I decided to see if I could restart my freelance proofreading WFH business that I stopped in 2013 due to my dads' health failing and mom needing a lot of help, which eventually required almost my full attention for a couple years, so I abandoned the idea. I realized as I was trying to figure out what to do that I'm so far behind on what freelancing has turned into thanks to AI and tech in general, that it's pretty overwhelming.

But, also thanks to AI and updated technology, I realized I could make every one of my novels into audiobooks, so that's what I've done. For The End Times Saga, only the first four novels were audiobooks because it was easy and affordable to get voice actors before Amazon bought Audible and changed the rules, so that's why there was only four audiobooks, instead of seven, for that series. Now, because those four are exclusive, I could only make the next three novels exclusive to Amazon/Audible, as it wouldn't make sense to have the last three available everywhere, but not the first four. Anyway, using Amazon's Virtual Voice, I now have the entire End Times Saga available as audiobooks in just a couple days as I listened to make sure the AI pronounced things carefully, although flatter than I would've liked (I'm not sure I could do any better).

For other novels that I could add to my store on Gumroad: the three in the Perilous Times series and The Long Journey, I used Amazon's for Audible, then used the AI from Google Play books to create those so I could use Voices by In Audio for distribution to other platforms, but that takes time. With Google Play, I could have separate voices, which I only did for the female characters in the novels for the Perilous Times. Unfortunately, the female characters almost all sound the same to me, like Siri or Alexa, but with accents. Anyway, those four novels are available on my store and currently on Google Play. Samples are available to listen to on my Soundcloud or on the Gumroad product pages.

Now the what-if novel. I decided to restart it. Still not sure what to do with where I was stuck and my outline not being nearly as laid out as I thought, I went to ChatGPT and gave it some prompts. It returned with clearer ideas than what I originally had, along with an outline that was laid out better than what I did. It also helped with giving me the slang of the period that I didn't remember due to me being a nerd who spoke "proper" American English, and other sensory details and pop culture references that I didn't remember or know either, like hanging out at the mall, since it was too far from my house. Yeah, it's...

So, now I have clearer vision of where I want my novel to go story wise, which is called, Second Chances. So, look out for that in the coming weeks or months, depending on how long I'm down the rabbit hole of Gen X pop culture videos.