The Vitmar Chronicles (2008-present)

In its original conception, I planned to pitch The Vitmar Chronicles as an epic trilogy: two books made up of year-chapters, and a third full adventure novel starring the next generation of Vitmars. However, when I lost faith in the integrity of modern traditional publishing and steered towards self-publishing, I realized it made more sense to release each chapter on its own as a stand-alone (ish) novella.

Every Volume of the series involves its own arc, though I can’t promise there won’t be any cliffhangers. Nevertheless, you should be able to start anywhere in the series; going backwards should hopefully only be necessary to give you more context.

By its release in 2023, Volume I: An Ending & A Beginning had been through 16 years of rewriting. The first fifteen pages alone (available here) have undoubtedly been through the most iterations and rewrites, ultimately acting as my practice ground for how to open a book/series and create a compelling narrative arc. In that time, I’ve learned about hooks, pacing, reveals, and so much more that has only made my writing better.

I’ll admit… I got distracted a lot on my journey to being a fantasy author. I zigged when I should have zagged too many times, and in the process, I missed a lot of trains and a lot of opportunities. I harbor a lot of regrets, but at the same time, I’m someone who likes to look for silver linings…

In that perhaps-not-so-wasted time, I’ve also learned a few things along the way. Through my metal journalism, I met a Theology PhD (also a metal bassist) who tore apart my story (gently) and in so doing, taught me about narrative and pacing. As a journalist, I learned to analyze media objectively against what I personally like or dislike. I learned to stop laying everything out on the table and implement show-don’t-tell. I stopped using characters for exposition. And I’ve observed people from all over the world after becoming an immigrant. I’ve lived more of a life, learned infinite new things, and gained vastly different perspectives, all of which have had a profound affect on the world and characters I wanted to explore with this series.

Ultimately, when I hit my limit with music journalism and pivoted back to writing fantasy, I had already gotten experience with querying and the traditional publishing grind via my (currently on hiatus) children’s book series, Islands of Nightsea. In that time, I learned that trad pub is really not what it used to be, much in the same vein as record labels in the music industry. They only care about your potential to make them profit, they don’t invest in you (marketing, etc.) unless they expect you to be their big seller of the year, and if you don’t do a ton of your own marketing, you might get blacklisted from future publishing/agents. All while losing the rights to your intellectual property. To me, that doesn’t seem worth it anymore. Nowadays, add this whole AI mess into the mix and the trad publishing seem feels like a dying industry and it’s not worth hopping onto a sinking ship.

As such, my story split from a trilogy into a long series of novellas. Nothing has changed, really, except the way I publish. Since each chapter works as a stand-alone year-chapter, there was really no reason to not split the series into smaller segments and start publishing sooner than later. This keeps me working and producing text, rather than endlessly fiddling away at it and never moving things anywhere.

Unfortunately, my pre-midlife knot and career change meant that I was very fed up with a lot of things, so I went very gung-ho on writing and publishing, but didn’t put much effort into publishing when the time came to release the first Volume. I just wanted the series to get out of me and into the world. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t do nothing for the release, I just didn’t do a bunch of the things that I now realize I should have done: namely, find ARC readers to build some hype and that sort of thing. The series did not get out there as much as I hoped (meta ads were worthless, by the way).

Ergo, for the release of The Vitmar Chronicles, Volume III, I’m planning a full series reboot. I didn’t commit to making physical copies of my books in the past because I have a strong desire to have my books printed in an eco-conscious high quality manner, which I will obviously not get from the mass-produced books that Amazon produces. As such, my goal for the series as of 2026 is to crowdfund a full re-release, including the new third installment, with physical books and audiobooks!