The Journey

Post Spirits Unleashed

During the initial period following my release of Spirits Unleashed, I instantly jumped into writing Spirits Primal. I knew the general direction of where I wanted the story to go from the initial world I created in the first book, and writing was fairly easy to get rolling. That is, until some personal issues came up. The largest of which was financial.

Budget and Motivation

Roughly a month into writing Spirits Primal, finances took a turn for the worst. A combination of across the board inflation on my monthly costs, as well as a sudden drop in hours at work due to business slowing down immensely, and suddenly I was struggling to pay even the most basic of my monthly costs. My mental state took a turn for the worst, and with it, my motivation. Seeing that I wouldn’t be able to afford the costs of releasing Spirits Primal, I instead buried it. I could have continued until I finished it. But I know that if I hit the financial wall in the process, I would only drag myself down further as I struggled to find my dreams of being an author crushed by the turn of current events. Spirits Unleashed had sold enough to pay for its own costs, but it had not made enough to fund the second in the series yet. As such, I instead focused on staying afloat in life.

Hiatus

During the downtime that I now had from writing, I delved deeply into some of my hobbies and interests. I spent more time on my photography and put COUNTLESS hours into gaming. I probably spent around six months away from my book, but throughout this time, my ideas and inspirations only grew. By the end of this period, my rough idea of how I wanted Spirits Primal to flow became a fleshed out web of twists and story developments that almost gave me a sense of pride in how the story looked. I once again became engrossed in the world that I had created, which gave me back some of my motivation to see it through.
 

Passion Re-Ignited

The final turn came about when I figured out a way to pay for things like my cover art and ISBN. Once I had the finances secured, I began to write with a renewed fervor. Halfway through writing, I ended up coming up with twist after twist on my original planned story. So much so that the second half of Spirits Primal turned out NOTHING like what I had originally planned. And in the end, I ended up liking it even more. While writing these changes, I even began to flesh out an outline for book 3, and a loose plot for book 4. The entire series now had its flow designed in some manner, and I was ready to push forward.

Final Touches

I probably spent 6–8 weeks on touch ups, formatting, and editing. In total, I believe I did 8 editing passes, as well as a handful of beta chapter reads. No issues were found after the beta reads, so my last few passes over it focused on slow read-throughs spread across periods of downtime to catch any remaining grammatical issues that I might spot, or to reword a sentence if it sounded better a different way in my mind. But eventually, it was finished. Which brings me to…

Release!

Spirits Primal, Book 2 of the Spirit Wars Series, now has a release date! The Ebook can currently be pre-ordered on Amazon here, and the paperback will release on both Amazon and IngramSpark on April 22nd, 2025! For those who choose to read it, I hope you enjoy the story just as much as I had! If you would like some early access information on discounts, as well as information on book 3, make sure to join my newsletter!