Greetings!

Just a quicker, snappier, more easily digestible newsletter here.

In this post, I reflect on balancing my work writing dark fiction with producing a growing catalogue of music. There’s some excellent insight here on approaching passion projects for fellow indie creators.

The Verbs That Just Don’t Flow

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been suffering from horrific lexical constipation (i.e., writer’s block).

I’d sit at the computer, enter the zone … and nothing would come to me.

The few sentences I did strain into being were more utilitarian than inspired.

I’ve always found that when this writer’s block thing happens, it means I either need a break entirely, or that another muse is calling me.

In my case, I was being beckoned by my longtime mistress, Madame Musique.

Music. So. Much. Music!

Leaving my writing projects to simmer for a couple of weeks, I switched gears, locked in, and started finishing some new music that has been at the rough mix stage for months.

I’ve even revisited some back catalogue items.

Like, 40 tracks of back catalog items dating back years and years. Many of these were released under throwaway artist names with zero promotion, minimal vision, and very little confidence.

You see, since I started releasing music around 2009, I’ve had a real identity crisis. I’d create a new persona or “band” for every musical project, primarily because I won’t stick to a genre or scene (barf).

I loathe genre, and I hate that everyone bullies a creator into choosing one, ’cause this strange experience we call life, my friends, has no genre.

People’s tastes, by and large, transcend genre—unless they’re one of these “death-metal or die” types (I’ve known a few of these one-dimensional NPCs).

As with my writing, my music freely roams between extremes; my tunes dive deep into dark ambient fathoms one moment, then pulverize mountains with megatons of heavy metal the next.

Sometimes, I even write strange nu-jazz and psychedelic infused electronica, then randomly feel like riffing out dreamy alt-rock guitar for an entire album.

That’s just how it is, and I love it.

I create first and foremost for me.

I do not need an income from my art; therefore, I don’t need to dial in a recipe, an image, or a signature sauce.

I’m not going to trouble myself with being a brand, with a clearly delineated genre—either as an author or musician.

I’m just me, and this is what I create.

All that said, I’m re-releasing a ton of music in the coming weeks, remastered and enhanced, all under the name Liam Keith.

It’s hard as hell as a creator to breach in the sea of obscurity, so I want all of my creative works curated in one place.

These albums, along with some new tracks, will be out on the usual streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.), and all the micro-content feeding troughs like TiKTok and Meta.

Lastly, I have a YouTube channel launching which will host all the cool visualizers for many of my tracks, as well as any audiobook chapters or author related content in the future.

Again, everything in one pipeline, under one name—mine.

Serialization of Greycross

After going through a phase where I was reading lots of Dickens and studying him biographically, I realized much of his work was published as serialized fiction.

The concept of releasing work chapter-by-chapter was quite common in the 19th century (e.g., The Strand) and well into the 20th (e.g., Weird Tales, Playboy).

I’m drawn to the idea of this piecewise publication style simply because my attention is jerked from project to project, and committing to, say, a fully polished chapter every two weeks feels much more manageable than spending two years holed up writing a novel.

That said, my Gothic Horror / Occult / Mystery series, Greycross, is being relaunched in this episodic format.

I have over 30 chapters drafted and am currently working on final edits. There will be about 10 chapters for the initial launch of the serial, which gives me a buffer of chapters for several months!

As I go along in this rhythm, I may consider launching the other novel I spent a couple years writing, or another IP, in the same format.

Once the first story arc is finished, the chapters will be collected into an omnibus / book formatted for print on demand and eBook.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the world is moving too damned fast for us creators to stand on our ideas for years before executing.

Micro-content dominates the landscape, and you either start carving a niche through it or get swept away entirely.

Summer Draws to an End

My last post was full of bright-eyed optimism and ambition.

I’m happy to say Future Me didn’t let Past Me down—I really made a huge dent in all of my passion projects, from levelling up my writing, cracking the 200,000-word mark on a novel, and producing some really great music.

With Fall and the subsequent close of another year on the horizon, I’m feeling like all of my creative pursuits—those things I’ve toiled away at for countless hours over the last few decades of my life—are all reaching some sort of zenith and interlocking into something incredible.

This has me super excited, because it means I’m finally ready to EXECUTE and move beyond the loop of practicing and perfecting.

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So, tell me, what is that you have been ideating, practicing, or standing on for years that you want to finally bring to life?

Let me know in the comments.

Until then, I leave you with this quote from my favorite Martial Artist / Actor / Philosopher, Bruce Lee:

Stand not upon the order of going, but go at once.