Article: The Wacky World of (Independent) Writing

An article and an update of things.

Hello all!

This will be a quick one. I don’t know if I’m going to call it an article or an update, but it is something. Now as you may know, I have just finished the last chapter of Love Your Enemy: A UEC Story. If you want to read the story here it is:

At this point, I’ll be taking the foot off the gas pedal with Germanicus Publishing. Now don’t worry, I’ll still be posting in this Substack. But I won’t be posting stories any time soon because honestly, I don’t really have anything “postable”. As for what I’ll be posting... I’ll get into that later in this article.

At the moment, I have various projects I’m working on (at least in my mind, if nothing else). There are also my nonfiction endeavors (AKA Indonesian and American) in the works and not to mention my personal life. Not that I’m going to blame them for my general malaise. Frankly, I have been a bit lackadaisical as of late. Even so, it makes me think about this world of writing.

The Wacky World of (Independent) Writing

Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash

Yes, I am an “indie” writer. I don’t like to refer to myself as such, but I might as well own up to it. It’s not like I should be complaining. If anything, I should be grateful. When I began to seriously write over a year ago, I never really imagined how far I could go. But now I have all these subscribers and followers, especially on Substack. My subscriber count is still in the hundreds, which isn’t much in the grand scheme of things but it’s better than when I first started.

It’s funny that I owe a lot to Substack because there are times where I criticize their moves.

And to be honest, I can’t help but feel like the platform isn’t moving in the right direction. Just look at this…

Remember when Substack calls itself  “the home for great writing”? Maybe I’m just overthinking this.

Now despite my various gripes with how the head honchos of Substack is running this place, I still plan on keeping Substack as the “home base” of my writings and I don’t see myself abandoning this ship. I can’t say the same thing about Twitter for example. So why do I complain/criticize Substack? Easy - expectations. I tend to reserve my anger and frustration at people that I have expectations for. I don’t criticize Twitter and Elon Musk because frankly, I don’t have any expectations for them. I know Elon Musk is an erratic figure and runs the place however he feels like it. And this is coming from someone who has absolutely no love for pre-Elon Twitter (to be honest). It was garbage then, it’s garbage now. Just a different type of garbage.

So I love this place. My largest following is from this place. I met many cool folks through this place. Here’s an incomplete list:

Scoot

,

The Brothers Krynn

,

Alvin H

,

Yakubian Ape

,

Alexander Hellene

,

Joseph L. Wiess

, and so on. This is the place that allowed me to grow and flourish as a writer. The reason why people in my actual life know that I am a writer is because of Substack. I bleed orange.

But I’m also realistic, I’m fully aware that I don’t have to stay in one place. That’s the one advantage of being an independent writer, you don’t have to go down with the ship.

POV: You’re Hamish McKenzie and Substack is being shut down

Substack is changing. Whether it’s for the better or for the worse, only time will tell. And at the moment, it does feel like it’s for the worse. But that’s okay, because they serve as a reminder not to put all my eggs in one basket.

Branching Out

If you’ve been following this Substack, you might know that I’ve published my latest novel: The Santara Commentaries (Book 1):

As you can see in that post, I’m selling the book on various platforms other than Amazon with the help of Draft2Digital. I also did the same thing with Inquisitor’s Promise (my first novel). My reasoning is simple - why not? It’s not like everyone uses Amazon. In addition to all this, I also set up my own shop for the Indonesian buyers, since they don’t have access to Amazon.

It’s called being an authorpreneur, I guess. It’s not exactly the funnest thing to do as a writer, but that’s the price of independence.

In addition to all this, I have been putting The UEC Stories on Royal Road. It’s a platform that I’ve tried to get into, with very little success. I’ve heard people saying that it supports fiction in ways that Substack doesn’t. If so, then I’d like to know how. Anyways, here’s the link to my stories on Royal Road:

Moving Forward

So what’s the Germanicus Fiction Empire up to now?

For one, there’s Book 2 of The Santara Commentaries. I already have an idea on how the story will go. I also have an outline which I need to work on. But more than anything, I just need to start writing.

I’m also working on the next UEC story. This will be a follow-up to Love Your Enemy. While that particularly story is finished, the story of the United Earth Coalition and the Cisalpine Legion continues on. So I’m hoping to post a mix of fantasy and sci-fi stories in the future.

What about now? As people may know, I play around a lot with AI images. I understand that people have strong opinions on them. I don’t want to hear them. In fact, I’ve heard enough to last a lifetime. And I’ll be honest, I don’t take the anti-AI camp seriously. Their arguments are incoherent and driven mostly by emotions. The most convincing anti-AI people are those who argue that they are driven by demons. I mean, I remain unconvinced of that (obviously). But at least they have a coherent argument as to why I shouldn’t be using AI to generate images for my stories.

The reason I’m on this seeming tangent is because I have generated a lot of images on NightCafe. Here’s my account:

Thus, while I’m working on The Santara Commentaries and The UEC Stories, I’ll be posting some of the AI Images I have as story prompts for those who happen to run into them. I figured that could be a fun thing to do when I have nothing of substance to publish.

But that’s all I have. As I said before, I am looking to “diversify” myself in the world of writing. So if you want to keep up with me elsewhere, here’s my Linktree:

Otherwise, just read all the stuff I’ve already published in this Substack (here’s the Official Guide). Also, consider becoming a paid subscriber where you can read even more stories:

Or... you can buy my books if you haven’t:

Until next time,

Michael P. Marpaung

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