Confession time.
So, the time has come to reveal my latest venture: House of Massan. This is a new book series I've decided to start. However...
Let's talk about The Twisty Passage of Time: Veer Left for Home, for a moment.
I released Twisty Passages in November of 2020. I was excited to finally publish the work I had been doing for literally years. I had no idea what lay ahead. First, what happened in 2020? The pandemic. The world was shut down. Second, I started a new job in February of 2021. If anyone has ever started a new job (okay, all of you have experienced that) you know it can consume a great deal of time. And so it did with me.
So I half-heartedly let Twisty Passages sit out for sale for a long time. I sold maybe 80 copies? Probably the biggest issue was I had it reviewed by a big-company to get some street credentials. Well, they gave it a 1-star review. They pointed out several issues, none of which were fatal. But seeing the other challenges I was up against at the time, I just let the project drift.
Fast forward to three years later. In January this year, I woke up in the middle of the night. I had this strong desire hit that I had to take another swing at this.
I got off the ground, dusted myself off and opened up Twisty Passages. I am certain, Twisty Passages has the legs to be successful (and stick it to the 1-Star guy that ripped my heart out.) I just needed to tweak a few things. Five months later and countless revisions later, I reworked Twisty Passages to make it the story it should have been the first round. Thus House of Massan was born.
House of Massan took twisty passages from 72000 to 100,000 words long. It added the final eight chapters that would have made Twisty Passages have the satisfying ending it needed. In addition, I did a lot of soul searching to remove unnecessary exposition, tightened up scenes, added key emotional details. The House of Massan has a stronger voice and emotional punch. I believe it will have that magic-sauce emotional punch that readers are looking for from a Young Adult Fantasy novel.
I admit these changes only to those that read Twisty Passages. But to those that never read the story (I'm looking at you 7 billion people of earth, minus the 80 that read Twisty Passages), I hope you will give the story a read.
I don't feel terrible that I abandoned the Twisty Passages. The 80 people that purchased the book, can contact me and I would be happy to send a ebook version of House of Massan for free. I don't know if anyone will take me up on that offer. For them, the genie is out of the bottle, so its hard say if they'd be interested. But its on the table for a few months after I release House of Massan. I know several people personally that bought the book, and I will deliver them a physical copy to say, "I'm sorry. But good news! Read this, because its way better!"
So here's to do-overs!
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