Renegades Epic taught me 1,000 writing and blogging lessons
Renegades Epic is the perfect mess of a shared universe. But man, seeing the project through was the ultimate teacher in writing and blogging.
The Epic was the greatest language arts, English, and writing teacher ever. That means the teachers I had in government school were pretty freaking hopeless, and I don’t regret saying that.
What? Write reports on books and stories I wasn’t interested in? Or, even worse: Open up those boring ass English books and complete a mundane assignment that left me debating on whether I’d have a better time hitting my head off the cinder block wall.
Then, about nine years after I graduated high school with a solid 2.43 GPA, some cute girl named Tarja Titan, 18 years young at the time, invaded this nightmare I was having and shared with me a few fun facts about spirits. From there, and the fact I binge-watched the Marvel Cinematics Universe, it was all over.
Renegades Epic was some fun, self-directed learning
The shared universe is proof that learning is, inherently, self-directed. It’s organic, and when I look back at the way I used to try and “promote it” on this same blog through “updates” that held no real weight, I can’t help but laugh.
Or those first few drafts of Wind Wielder. I mean, dialogue tags galore, explaining every which way my characters unleashed wind, fire, earth, and water attacks multiple times, long, drawn-out scenes of exposition, I can write a book on all the errors I made.
While I’ve since cleaned up the book, I’ve left those scenes virtually untouched, but it’s also why I’ve recommended readers to begin the Epic with the final first-in-series I wrote, Cursed Mage, if they wanted my strongest work first.
No book is perfect, and Cursed Mage is a hot mess in its own way. But it flows like a novel should, with plenty of action before I even consider diving into exposition. It’s not the case with Wind Wielder, Spirit and Fire, Civil War, Tarja Titan, or The Rebellion Awakens, the other “entry points” to the Epic.
Still, writing this shared universe was a passion project turned into a way to get my 10,000 hours in mastering the creative writing craft.
Without those books, which readers generally enjoy, later works like sequels, the Arcane Elemental Academy series, and even Beyond the Lost, wouldn’t carry the same, streamlined vibe.
No longer holding back the Epic
For a while, I debated: Should I market the Epic, or relegate it to an unlockable backlist? The answer was this: No, I’m not holding it back. Those books have impressed my core readers, my right readers, and there are thousands more looking for libertarian-based niche fiction waiting for me.
So, you know what? No, I’m not hiding the Renegades Epic in right field. There’s not a single author out there, especially self-published or indie authors, whose earlier books don’t add up to their later works.
Therefore, why hide it? It makes zero sense. So, if you’re looking for my series starters in the Epic, catch them not at Amazon, which is a libertarian’s nightmare, but at my Payhip store, The Rebel Lore Vault. And trust me, you’ll be far more impressed with Cursed Mage than you will with Wind Wielder.
But nevertheless, they’re one and the same.
