Blackrock Mercenaries

Hi all, so this is an attempt at a retrospective, and I apologize in an advance if it's weird. But here we are, so let's talk about Blackrock. Fair warning, this will get a bit of stream of consciousness at points, but I'll try to keep it organized.

What was the original idea for Blackrock?

Weirdly enough, it was supposed to be a dumb harem novel, thus why the MC was called Chad, and all the mercenaries were various flavors of attractive women. It wasn't meant to be subtle (I'll post the original cover here as well.)

The reason for this is after burning out pretty heavily on Punchrelia (Which was never completed, sorry), and messing up the AA Kindle launch (Don't hire sketchy editors off Crowdsourcing sites), I was feeling pretty bleh about the whole writing thing. Thus, I figured I may as well write something stupid that I didn't care about.

I plotted out a whole arc between Chad and Rita. He was going to be your typical "Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist" kind of character. There were going to be romantic advances, dates over corpses, and Penny shot more people. The typical thing.

Things, obviously, did not take this path.

What changed?

I found I liked the characters and setting. Are they super unique and special? No, but I found it hard to write them without being able to take them seriously. Thus, I began rewriting, and you know what they say, rewrites are the death of passion. If they don't, they should because oh boy.

So I decided I didn't want it to be harem nonsense anymore, and I tried to change it, so it wasn't. This was harder than I thought, and I actually ended this project having written 370k, 167k were usable if that helps.

First was the villains. Originally, the big bad was going to be the Peol Mercs and not anything to do with the Lace Courier Company, who came later. I ended up writing a couple of different beginnings, but the Peol Mercs were so big of an organization it was difficult for it to make sense. For example, they had the power to block off the gates of a major city and the like. I couldn't justify why Chad, whose goal originally was to build up the company, wouldn't just get squished immediately.

That was why they ended up against the LCC, who came about kind of by accident. I'm a pantser by nature. It's terrible and I don't recommend it. Chad also became less rich, and Rita more standoffish.

Honestly, the list of changes is long. I spent seven months writing/rewriting/freaking out over this. To make a long story short, it started as harem nonsense and then wasn't because I grew attached and wondered about my RR reception. A fact I kind of regret, but that's for…

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Things I learned thanks to this project

That I don't do well when I'm constantly worried about fan reaction. I'm not saying I shouldn't (Readers are the lifeblood that helps bring me money to buy food), but there were a lot of times when I froze or continuously rewrote things based on "What if they don't like this?"

Stress is bad. Anxiety is bad. Is that an excuse? No. Is that something I need to manage? Yes. But the other thing I learned is that I'm not interested in harem romances. They sound fun, but I just… cannot write one. Also that writing rich, smart characters is hard, which is why it faltered so much.

It's hard to break out of the "everything needs to be a fight" even when reading works such as Dreamers Throne where it doesn't. Characters can just be fine. No one was complaining about chapters where Chad and the girls discussed battle plans over tea and then went to stalk someone.

They complained when stuff made little sense. Which happened a lot at the start, mostly due to me trying to fix issues at the beginning. This ties into why rewriting my story three times before I wrote the ending was a bad idea.

Another thing I learned is that not every criticism is wrong/bad, some are, but I need to really take a critical look at what people are saying. That will be an ongoing project, I think.

I do want to try my hand at a romance. Nothing spicy, but something light. Maybe a boy and his AI? I'm not sure.

That I should absolutely not post until I finish a book and have it read over in full by someone else. Some people can write and post as they work. I am not that person. I wish I was, but I am not. This was a lesson I thought Punchrelia instilled in me, but apparently it didn't stick. The way I'm solving this one is making sure everyone I talk to about posting virtually slaps me.

What about us readers?

You're all great. For everyone who put money towards this, I know how rough everything is, and I'm overjoyed beyond words. You all mean a lot. It's insane. Thank you for taking the time to read either the book or just this retrospective. I cannot overstate it.

The next book will be.. Something. I have a few ideas. I'm dabbling with. A rewrite of Garbage Gladiator. A litrpg or cultivation novel about a man trying to get revenge on the monster who killed his brother. One about a mob waitress who gets Isekai'd and goes bandit queen in a bunny girl outfit. Another that's Solo leveling portals, but set in apocalypse australia with lovecraft monsters. The main city is called Bris-bane. Also one about what if John Wick was a cyberpunk horse that is legally not a my little pony fanfiction. This one has cover art by a friend, and it's ridiculous. Patron will be paused Friday, so don't fret about being charged. Thanks!

Book recommendations

Have some books I think are good.

Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break]

I Became a Vtuber to Cope After My Husband Divorced Me

Death of the Party [Zombie LitRPG]