From Dungeon Cores to Tennis Courts

Welcome everyone to In Other Worlds, a lit, RPG, game, lit and fantasy podcast. I am your host, Jessica, and today we have Jonathan Smith, also known as Rin, here with us. She is the author of the Elemental Dungeon series, Dungeon Corps, Online Resonance, Flamespitter and Aced Just a few Quite a collection of books there. How are you doing? I'm doing well, Thank you for having me. So your first book, your first series that I read, was Bone Dungeon. I don't know if that's the first series you did.

Yeah, that was my first series to release and so that book, that series, is?

uh, it follows the release of the dungeon core online game, where people can go in and enter dungeons and each dungeon has a dungeon core.

You mix that up.

Hmm said, you mix that up I mix that up you said bone dungeon but then you start talking about dco yeah yes, bone dungeon uh actually takes place in the real world. It's not a game, it's. It's not a game. It takes place in the real world and the main character gets killed. Yeah, yeah, the main character uh gets killed essentially for yeah, the main character gets killed.

essentially for standing up to the church.

Yeah, so a goddess I believe it was a goddess turns him into a dungeon core.

Yes, the goddess of justice. Yeah, she's just kind of like sorry, my church wrongfully killed you, so all is forgiven.

She couldn't just bring him back? I mean, what would that tell her followers? Oh, that they were wrong.

So what made you choose Dungeon Corps, the way that that happened was in 2018, one of the members of Portal reached out to me because he was kind of like a friend of mine and he'd been following my writing. I was originally writing like young adult fantasy on Wattpad. And he was like I really like your writing style and I think you'd do good for my company. And he was like have you ever thought about writing like Dungeon Corps? I'm like what is this? So then I spent like the next month just binge reading. I got sucked into Dungeon Corps. I got sucked into Lit RPG.

I was sitting at work like reading just so many novels and I was like, heck, yeah, I'll. Like I love this, I will give it a shot. I play Dungeons and Dragons, I play all sorts of nerdy things. I got this. So then he's like okay, well, you know, write us a pitch for a story and if the rest of the teammates like it, then you're good. Uh, so I just wrote the first three chapters of bone dungeon. I was like, here you go like nice, I loved the genre, I love anime. I'm just like I got this, like I will gladly write this type of shenanigan filled adventure so did you write anything that was not lit rpg before you started writing lit rpg?

uh, not that's been published. But yeah, I wrote, like I said, young adult fantasy was kind of what I was writing, so I had some stories on Wattpad back in the day.

And so that's how they were able to get a sample of your writing. Yes, oh nice, that's cool. Yeah, I like that. So your next series is Dungeon Corps Online. Correct, that one is the video game.

That one is the game.

yes, that's the game. So your most this is actually your most recent book was book five. Yes, that has come out, and that's the end of the series.

That is the end. That marks two completed series. Now, for me that's fantastic.

How does it feel to have another series over?

It's exciting, exciting and honestly, there's some like relief off the shoulders there because, like right, like wrapping up a series is super stressful because it's like you know, I want it to be perfect, I want the readers to be happy, I want to make sure, you know, I tied up the world in a good way, and so there's like all this expectation gets put on it. But then on top of that, it's like you know, there's 500 000 plus words worth of world that's been building across that series. So it's like to bring it to an close. You're like it's just a lot. So I am glad to have completed it, because that takes that stress off my shoulders. It's out in the world. I can't like panic and change that uh, anything.

So like the ending set in stone there's no going back it's also nice because, like I always, I always want to make sure that my readers know that I every series that I start, I will finish, um, and so I don't like to have things hanging for too long without like either giving people updates on them or, like you know, writing new books in them and that's good, because there are some authors who will start a series and then get several books in and get people hooked and then never finish it. Looking at you, Rothfuss.

Yeah.

George RR Martin.

Mm-hmm. So this one I'll be able to explain better than Bone Dungeon. I'll get this one right. This one, dungeon Coraline, is a game that is created and launched. Dungeon Corps Online is a game that is created and launched and it is a virtual reality game where you know, you put on the headset and you are in the game while you're sleeping. Everyone enters the game and they can enter dungeons and explore and loot and fight. One guy enters the game and he ends up being the Dungeon Corps, but he can't tell anyone. He signed the NDA, so he has to create all these crazy levels and try to trip up the adventurers and they all have to try to beat him. And he has this little pixie companion who we think is AI but might not be. I'm not going to give it away. I don't want spoilers for people who haven't read it. We don't know.

When it was originally being written on railroad, that was like the biggest thing was like is rue a ruse?

really. Yeah, it's real rude. I like that. That's funny. So your patreon members? I think I had read somewhere your patreon members got to vote for levels uh, actually it was just royal road members um it was just real road yeah, so it was dungeon core Road members.

Oh, it was just Royal Road. Yeah, so it was. Dungeon Corps Online started as me parodying the lit RPG genre Because Bone Dungeon was in the process of being edited, so I was waiting for edits to take place. I was also in the process of moving, so my wife had already moved out to South Carolina, so I was sitting around in a home that was completely empty with, like, my computer and. Playstation and a lot of liquor.

Hey.

So I spent a lot of nights just writing on Royal Road and that's how DCO came about, which is me just like releasing a bunch of steam and parroting the genre and just being as derpy and crazy and crunchy and ridiculous as possible. Just being as derpy and crazy and crunchy and ridiculous as possible. And so every time a new floor came up, I would just throw up a poll for like the five different floor types and people would vote on them and then I would have fun just coming up with crazy monsters for them.

Nice. Were there any floors that people voted for that? You were just really not happy that you had to write uh, the third floor, the stuffed animals.

I was like what am I doing with this? Like what am I doing with my life?

why did I let you do this to me, guys?

yeah, because like the first, I mean the first floor I came up with on my own and. And Demonic Farm Animals was just hilarious.

That's really funny.

Just so many good punchlines and jokes that just I kept on going back to through the whole series. Then the second floor was Steampunk Dinosaurs. I'm like it was so cool that was a good floor.

I had like fusion going on. I had some heavily like Zoids inspired stuff going on because I love Zoids. And then I'm like, running up the polls and Stuffed Animals wins. And I'm just like and it's also like I know Stuffed Animals won because of Threadbare. Threadbare was like super popular at the time. I mean Threadbare is still super popular, but everybody was loving it. And so the moment I had stuffed animals up there, I'm just like I know this is going to be the crowd favorite.

Did you choose their options or did you let them choose options and other people vote on them?

I would just come up with like five different options and then put them up for voting.

See, you almost did it to yourself, then I did. You're the one who put stuffed animals up there.

All right. Well, it's like I said. I was just going ridiculous. I don't know, it's funny though, and you can only pick so many like obscure, crazy, random things, and then I would add, like you know, extra fun by like randomly generating the environment that he then had to build them on. So, like I was like, okay, well, he got stuffed animals, but oh look, it's in a freaking swamp gg that's awesome.

Were there any floors that really, really wanted to win? That didn't that you really wished you could have written.

Technically no, and only because I'm a little shit, and so when the candy dungeon lost in one of the polls, I just turned it into Blank's dungeon, so I got to write it anyways.

Nice, that's good. I mean, you're the author, you get to cheat a little bit. It's okay, especially if it's what you really want to write. So there are a ton of Easter eggs in this series. A ton, oh yes. Yes, were there any that you wrote in that you were sure people were going to get that. Not many people picked up on.

Not that I know of, and I think that's only because, like, people generally don't mention to me, like when they I don't get messages where they're like, hey, was this an Easter egg to that? So I'm like I'm just assuming that they got them all. But I also tried to spread across, like my pop culture references across generations so that, like, no matter the age group of the reader, they'd be able to get the references or get some of the references, because it's always fun when you're consuming media to like be like, hey, that's a nod to this other thing that I really love, and so oh yeah.

Yeah, I try to include a wide variety of that, just so that everybody had a little something to make them smile and laugh at as they read through it. I had a bunch of shameless self-inserts, because who doesn't?

I mean, why not? I would Right. I liked the Monty Python references. Those were good. The knights who say me we are the knights who go me, bring us a shrubbery.

Tis but a flesh. Tis but a scratch.

Yeah, it's good. It's good stuff. That is a really good series. I haven't read book five yet, but I have it, I have it and I'm excited to read it. I've read all of your other books, so I think the next book was Resonance or was it Aced?

Technically it was Dicking Around.

Yes, okay, that's another one that I haven't read yet.

Yeah, that one follows Alex's point of view in DCM. So it's just a lets people get a player point of view. So it's super like low stakes, like it's almost cozy, and that is literally just Alex and Fel playing DCO.

I like it.

With the worlds intertwining, because it gets to show you, you know, part of the DCO world that you don't get to see because James is stuck being the dungeon core.

Yeah, he doesn't get to go anywhere.

But yeah, so technically Dick and Around came out, uh, and then aced. Aced was the next one and aced is golf tennis tennis, god damn it.

I had that written down too. I'm the worst girl. You were killing me here. I am the one I've read this book.

I loved this book there's a tennis player on the cover. I know it's a. It is a term.

I have it right behind me.

It is literally a tennis term, as somebody that also golfs ace does not in there.

Yeah, well, I don't play either sport. Yes, it is tennis. I swear I read the book. I loved the book. Did you know I did so? What made you pick tennis of all things like? I know that you, you play tennis and you enjoy playing tennis. Is that why you chose?

to yeah. So I started writing ace like halfway into covid, uh, when I was getting stir crazy in the house and wanted some way to get outside, and they had just announced that, like tennis was one of the few sports you could play safely outside. And so I looked around, found a tennis club and was like hey, can I get a tennis lesson? Because I'd never played tennis before oh nice and so I fell in love with it.

And then, essentially, writing a tennis based sports lit rpg means that I could write off my tennis lessons.

That's really why you wrote it.

But on top of that, like I said, I love anime and I love sports anime. So I'd already watched Prince of Tennis, major Second, so I love sports anime. So it just made sense to make a sports lit RPG. In my mind I was like, yes, I can combine this new passion. I've got put in a lot of realism because I'm getting it directly from my lessons. Add in characterization and a game system that's based off like the Sims meets Elder Scrolls and go to town.

Nice and it was actually like, as someone who doesn't really enjoy sports I don't play, I don't really watch sports it was really good. It was very good. The characters were fantastic. I really liked his progression through the story. I can't wait for number two.

Yeah, number two is like a third of the way done. I just haven't had the time to work on it because it's one of my. It didn't sell well. Trying to sell a sports lit RPG is kind of hard.

I could see that.

It had to get on the back burner a little, while I focused on other stories to try to keep the bills paid.

It was definitely probably one of my favorite. I listened to the audio, so Soundbooth Theater did the audio and they did a fantastic job on it. It was really really well done. It was probably one of my favorite audio books of last year.

Yeah, ryan, I was so excited because I met Ryan two years ago at the Lit RPG Under the Sea event and he's like I'm going to be narrating Aced for you and everything, and so it was like we connected really well there and it was like one of the first things he did for sound booth, I think. But like I listened to the audio book because they sent it to me and they're like hey, you know, listen through this, make sure everything's good. And his narration, like this characterization of the character, is like I was crying in some of the scenes and I'm just sitting here like this is bullshit. I wrote the damn thing. Why am I crying? Like I know the lines, I know what's coming up, I know everything in it and yet somehow I am sitting here crying, which just attests to how good of a job ryan did, and so I fell in love with ryan's work then and there, and he's just a great person. Yeah, they did do soundbooth theater does have a special audio version of ace on their website.

They have an audio immersion. It's only one episode at the moment. If it gets enough love, though, there's the potential for it to become something more.

Which would be fantastic. Which?

would be fantastic, because it is all completely rewritten.

Ooh.

Yes, so that first episode. Ryan hopped on a call with me and I spent like four or five hours hammering out 10,000 words purely with. You know the intention of it being an audio drama, so it's all completely rewritten to bring it to life more in that. You know, war of the worlds audio drama way.

That's pretty cool though. Yeah, it was. The audio book was fantastic. It was one of my favorite listens of last year. It was so good I loved it.

Who doesn't love a derpy little high schooler trying to get good at tennis to impress his love?

Really it was super cute. It was very cute and very heartwarming.

And then Peter is, just like I don't know, peter's such a good character. I love Peter as a character.

So then was Resonance.

Flamespitter that was Flamespitter resonance flame spitter. That was flame spitter. Okay so, but to be fair to you, flame spitter and resonance, both released a week, a month apart. Okay, I, because I read resonance before I read flame spitter yeah, because you picked up a resonance copy at dragon con when I was handing out the advanced copies yes, but I also had the kindle.

I had the Kindle art copy. Oh right, that I had read.

Yeah, but yeah, so that was like I said, to be fair to you. They released like I think it was like three weeks apart One was in the end of September and one was early October.

So Resonance is an AR augmented reality phone game and no one realizes. Well, not no one, but the majority of people don't realize that it's real. Yes, and no one realizes well, not no one, but the majority of people don't realize that it's real.

Yes, they all think it's just a game.

They all think it's like Pokemon Go.

Yeah.

But a select few load it up and become like hunters? Yeah, they become exorcists, so but I don't know. I don't remember if it specified in the book what it was about him specifically uh, so it.

It's essentially the whole process of it. There's a nerdy part of me. Like I said, all every part of me is nerdy, um, but essentially certain people have a different resonation about them that lets them resonate more with the other dimension. That's kind of linked into ours, so it's like there's two dimensions. It's like a venn diagram. You've got the dimensions kind of like implosing on each other and so there's some overlap and so some people just resonate at the right frequency to be able to like manifest powers and connections to the other dimension nice, and so the first.

So he loads up the game and he becomes an exorcist, and the first one that he gets is wink, just this floating eyeball just a floating eyeball with an eeyore personality. Which is the perfect name. It's the perfect name, but he's like this very weak. He's like a very weak character, yeah, and then he gets. It's like Dog.

He gets Narcissus.

Yes.

Bladed Drake, yeah.

Who is just a pain in the ass. A pain in the ass, but very powerful, very powerful. So I'm kind of excited for book two of that series.

I'm actually working on it right now. I'm just past 10,000 words into it. I had to slow because I'm editing the second book of Flamespitter right now.

So you've got your hands full?

Yeah, that's good, though there's never a dull moment.

Always busy. And so then obviously, flamespitter, the kind of alternate history western with magic.

Yes, like magic bullets, people have magic it's a wild west cultivation novel, but yeah, like you said, it's like it's like an alternate history, so it's still following like it still has the historical events that you know we had going on. So it takes place the time just after the civil war. So you had a lot of outlaws and bandits coming together. You had the growing tensions between the American government and the indigenous people over the gold and the black hills. You've got the rise of rail barons and the race to build the railroad to connect the East and the West. So it's all of that time of just outlaws and gunslingers and goodness. And then you throw in magic cultivation and see what comes out.

I really like the way that the magic was implemented into that whole world, though. Like it was really well done, I really liked it a lot.

I'm slowly learning how to do these things correctly.

You did really good and so you did a bunch of research for this book. This is all very based on actual historical fact. Yes, that's impressive.

Yeah, I spent a lot of time watching documentaries for book one. Book two same thing, a lot of documentaries. We actually went to washington dc in april so that I could go to some of the museums up there that cover the indigenous history so I could look at, you know, the different tribes and the people and their culture aspects more, because book two gets a lot more of that thrown in. So, yeah, a lot of a lot of research to go into it to make it keep like to feel historical and to feel, you know, authentic in a way, while also capturing, you know, the western movie vibes that everybody grew up with nice.

So book two you're working on the edits. Yes, and that's going to have a lot more of the local indigenous people. How is their magic going to differ from the people that we've already seen in the book?

It differs because every culture essentially uses the mana within them differently. So in the first book you have essentially colonizers. You have a culture whose whole thing is manifest destiny. You go out, take land, claim it for your own and keep pushing your ideas. You're in a might-makers-right mentality and so their cultivation is formed mostly for war, which is why everybody learns how to form bullets out of their mana and use their mana as a weapon.

When they interact with the indigenous people, they learn that the mana isn't just a weapon. So the indigenous people have more of a connection with it with regards to the natural spirits of the world and the nature um aspects. So they're actually able to use, like fire, mana to purify, to cleanse, you know, like venom and toxins from the body, and they can use water mana to heal wounds. Earth mana they can toughen their skins or, like you know, create walls and brick and like so it's, it's a lot more. Or grow you know, grow like flowers.

Plants encourage natural growth with that stuff, whereas wind they can use wind to send messages, to speak far distances, and so they still have aspects of it. They can still use it to fight, because that's still a part of the culture as well, but it's in a very different manner than what we see in book one, and that's just because those cultural ideas come through differently. And that's a big point that I'm doing across the entire series is as they're showcasing different cultures. It's showcasing how their histories, their ideas, their beliefs change and affect how they use their cultivation and how it's shaped through the millennia of each culture.

I like that. It's more of a natural kind of support based use of the magic. That, I think, is really cool. And then I think you said china's gonna be in the series later somehow.

Yes, each book is essentially an outlaw of the week vibe. So he's hunting down, uh, this gang of outlaws who killed his mentor, um, a couple years ago, and so that's the whole drive for his story across. These and other stuff gets added in as well, like he gets other missions added into, but so each book is essentially a monster of the week, outlaw of the week, and so, as he's going, he's interacting with different cultures, and so it's working its way from east to west, though. So he starts out in the very first book. He's in St Louis, and then heads to a little podunk town in Kansas, and that's where we had the first setting. Second book he heads up to the Black Hills, so we go up to the Dakotas, and so, like, the fifth book will be ending in California, and, historically, during the time of the rail being built the West Coast, a lot of the workers were men from China, and so he's going to actually interact with, like, a cultivator from China and get to learn those methods of cultivation as well.

And so they will use their magic in a completely different way as well. Yes, Nice.

Yeah, every single culture is going to use it in a different way.

It's a lot of different ways to come up with.

Yeah, but I like research and I like learning about different cultures, and so it gives me a good reason to like dive in and research them. So, like the third book, he's going to head to Texas and like Mexico area, so he'll get more like that, mayan.

That is so cool.

Yeah, A touch to it and then the book. After that I'll go to Colorado and then California.

I love that. So there's going to be five books in that series. Yes, and then how many books do you think AST is going to have?

AST is probably just going to be duology.

Okay.

AST is just going to be two books for the human world, for Dan.

What about the not human world? We'll see Alright, and then the human world for Dan. What about the not human world? We'll see Alright, and then Resonance. How many books do you think are going to be in?

that Five books as well.

So do you have a plan figured out of where all these books are going to go, how they're all going to end?

Nope, Nope, I pants most of my stories. I'm a huge pantser.

so residence, I have an end you just don't know how we're gonna get there.

I don't know how we're gonna get there, uh and then flamespitter, like I said, I kind of I have the regions and the cultures and stuff that I want to research and then I have like some of the overarching plot stuff going on but I'm still definitely a huge pantser and so, like actually the end of book two, I introduced some stuff that I had no idea of and then all of a sudden it was just like, oh well, that's a thing now. So I was like, oh, we're going to have to figure that out as we go along. Don't know where that came from.

Is that what you say? The hardest part about being a panther?

Yeah, it's definitely. The characters will take you in some weird places, and so I think it's got its ups and downs. I love it. I love to let the characters kind of just run the story. It's great. But when it comes to like meeting deadlines and you know writing books that are supposed to be published, it's a little more stressful than when you're just writing a web serial and it doesn't matter.

True.

So web serial panting was great because it's just complete crazy flow. And you're like you know, I don't even know where we're going this week, but things are just happening and words are still happening, and so it's fun and great. And then when you're writing and you're like, oh, I need to keep the bills paid and I have to meet these deadlines, all of a sudden the pantsing train gets a little uh problematic at times when your characters go to derail something and you're like, well, that's an extra 50 000 words that I wasn't intending to do things with.

So being a pantser and thinking ahead and saying, okay, so Flamespitter is going to be five books, do you get to a point where you think you'll find yourself so derailed or the characters will take it in such a direction that you'll say, okay, okay, well, maybe I have to add another book, maybe it's going to be six books, or do you think you can keep it contained enough to keep it within that five books?

I think flame spitter. I've set myself up to be able to keep it contained fairly well, just because the books themselves aren't overly long, so there's a lot of room for side shenanigans if they decided to take me on them like I. I ideally for the flamesteader books, I want them to be short and punchy and like quick, and so I shoot for them to be about 100 to 120 000 words, which is shorter on the lit, rpg, gamelit side, which it didn't used to be.

But uh, the trend the last few years has been trending towards larger books and it's killing me yeah, but so flamesteader books are generally on the shorter side because they're meant to be quick and fast paced and, you know, keep that sense of urgency as they go through. So if the characters decide to derp off and do something stupid, I can. Uh, I've got plenty of space to where it's not going to be like too problematic with regards to writing timelines and getting things done.

I like that. They are on the shorter side. Books now in the genre have gotten so big. I used to be able to read four or five books a month. I would go through a book a week, sometimes a little bit more depending on the book, but now it's like I'm reading three books in one. They're just so you know you've got normal books. Are this big and lit RPG books?

are this big Right. It's a hard one too, because they're like I get the idea, like the concept of more bang for your buck, Like people want to use their credits on longer audio books, and so that was what kind of like I feel like that's one of the aspects, not the main, but one of the aspects that started pushing people to tend towards longer books was longer books mean more page reads on Kindle Unlimited, and they mean more recording time, which means someone's more likely to pick it up with the credit because it's longer and they're getting more value. Yeah, which there's logic there. But at the same time, I don't know, I like fast paced, punchy little novels because they I don't know, they just hit the spot and you can go through and you know experience and immerse yourself in a lot more stories that way and like growing up, a lot of novels were on the shorter side.

Yeah, I could knock out an entire book in a weekend.

Yeah, I was gonna say like I mean, if you Google novel, it'll be like oh, a novel is 50,000 words. A novel hasn't been 50,000 words in a long time. I wish they were. If you look at the length of, like the original Hobbit, it's a shorter book. Yeah, that's like. And young adult fantasy, I think, is like usually 70, 75,000 words long. And so when the genre started, like when I started writing in the genre in 2018, it was like oh, yeah, 100,000 words or more is just the idea. So I was like sweet, easy, that's fine. And now people are like, yeah, at least 150, least 150 000, but probably closer to 200 000, and it's like I just can't listen.

It's too much, I don't have four years of backlog from railroad to pull for right.

Well, and with the speed at which people expect books to be released now, I mean everyone. If you have a series, everyone wants you to have a book out every month right, yeah it's unattainable like it's on.

It's unattainable at those word counts and lengths it's, it's a rough, ever-shifting um genre, uh, but there are definitely, the trend has definitely moved more towards rapid release and you know, know 150,000 plus word stories and it's like, oh, if you're going to put that out every month or otherwise, you're not going to get your series take off.

It's like hey, if you get a book one out, you better have book two out within the next two or three months, otherwise good luck, luck. And then, oh, by the way, now it's trending to where a lot of readers won't even pick up a series unless there's at least three books out, because of the trend of people not finishing novels and not finishing series, so it's like every step of the way there's just new challenges that appear for authors at that point, just have your entire series done I mean, that's and that's what some authors will do, like they won't and then release the books one month at a time, yeah, and then, while those are releasing, write your next series, yeah there are.

There are definitely some authors that have taken that route. I know dakota's done that with a few series and it's nice. I'm jealous of people that have the luxury to be able to do that it's not a sustainable, a sustainable model, I think.

My bills say that I can't afford to do that. My backlog does not generate the income to let me do something like that. But yeah, it's a viable business model for those that can do it and those that can keep that type of production going. But yeah, I just I can't. I would burn myself out way too quickly trying to push myself to to that degree. So I just try to focus on creating fun stories that people will enjoy when they get out there and hope you know well, you're very good at that I'm hoping yes I know you're good at getting the stories out there that people enjoy.

I've enjoyed them. So you go from an a you Dungeon Corps, and I'm not going to say these in order. You go from a Dungeon Corps to an AR phone game, to a Western, to tennis. Why is there such a wild variance in what you write?

part of it, like I love dungeon core, but dungeon core is more niche than lit rpg, yeah, so dungeon core is just a smaller, and so after writing eight books of dungeon core, you know it's kind of kind of burned out, like I do. Still, I have plans to go back to it. I have plans to write a standalone that takes place in the elemental dungeon world.

Um, yay yeah, and like I have all these other plans for things. It's just a matter of like time, and part of it was also, for the most part, when I'm writing a series. I like to write stuff on the side as well, just to keep myself from burning out, so like I don't have to force myself to write something on a given day that I don't feel like.

So I like to have options.

And so that's how Aced came about, because it was just my fun little side story while I was working on some of the other DCO books.

Resonance came out because it was a fun little side story that I was working on while I was working on like DCO books and Hallowed Bones and stuff like that, working on like DCO books and Hallowed Bones and stuff like that.

So it's like these are just stories that I was doing on the side to have fun with and to like kind of decompress and just try writing something different than Dungeon Corps while I was doing Dungeon Corps stuff. And then Flamespitter came about because back when I used to do a writing stream, I had a prompt that was like magic and Wild West and I wrote like a a thousand world, a thousand word thing in it and like I really liked the vibes in it and I was like it really resonated with me. So I was like I need to do something with this and so I kept the idea playing around in my head for a few years, told my publisher about it and they were like, oh my god, yes, and so and I mean, if you talk to ste Landry and Tori, they heard me drunkenly talking about this concept along with James Hunter on an Uber back from Medieval Nights.

I love it.

Back in like 2021. So the story has been brewing for a while, and so I just finally got around to getting it, to bringing it to life last year, and so I'm super excited about that.

And, like I said, book two is already done I'm just editing it now so yes, Well, I'm glad that you decided to publish the fun stories that you were writing on the side, instead of just writing them for yourself and then like putting them away and going OK, these are in a drawer now.

Right.

They were just for fun. I'm glad you published them.

Yeah, I'm glad I fall in love with all the characters that I write, so I'm always like you know, they deserve to be shared with the world and I just I'm lucky enough that my publishers and other people are, like willing to give them a shot and like the concepts enough to like make them into reality yeah, they deserve for other people to love them too nice.

so when you started writing the lit rpg uh, dungeon core books, that was so they had you had been asked to do that without having written any lit rpg books before did Did you have any idea what lit RPG was?

No, I hadn't come across the genre yet but it was. So I didn't realize they were books out like that. But at the same time it wasn't something I was like unfamiliar with, just in that I already was watching a bunch of isekai anime and portal anime and Video games, was watching a bunch of isekai anime and portal anime and video games. I played a bunch of mmos, so it wasn't like I was unaware of the worlds like that. It's just I didn't realize it had become a literary form outside of light novels, because I used to read light novels as well. So, like I was used to reading sword art online as the light novel. So I'm like this is, this is a thing already. But they're like no, no, these are books, not light novels. And I'm like, okay, I'm interested, I'll check it out.

So you started with the Dungeon Corps books, because that's what you were getting ready to write.

Yes.

Which book did you start with?

The first one I started with was Slime Dungeon by Jeffrey Falcon. Okay.

I've not read that one.

Yeah, he's got some of the oldest Slime Dungeon and Divine Dungeon. Both started around the same time on Royal Road, I think.

Okay.

Don't quote me on that.

Divine Dungeon I've heard of, but Slime Dungeon I haven't.

Divine Dungeon's, dakota Kraut, slime Dungeon's, jeffrey Falcon. Nice dungeon I've heard of, but slime dungeon I haven't.

divine dungeons, dakota kraut, slime dungeons, jeffrey falcon nice and so, yeah, they both started kind of around the same time on royal road. Uh, if I remember my lit rpg history correctly. Uh, and so, yeah, I read all the slime dungeon novels. I read all the divine dungeon novels. I read some random, obscure ones that people have probably never heard of that I can't remember the names to. I also read the Hugo Hesko's books I forgot the name of the series but they weren't really like proper dungeon cores. They're like dungeon building, but he still gets to go outside of the dungeon and do things.

Like book one's called like Dungeon Lord. I just can't remember. Oh Race Haunt, the Race. Ha race haunt series okay which are very good, and then I was reading like vgo uh vertigate online. I read alpha world, uh, which is dj uh schindhofen should.

I don't think I said that last name, right, but I think that's really, I think it might be schindhofen, I think I think I got close. It was very close. Sorry, DJ we might both be wrong, but very close.

Yeah. So I just yeah, I I was just consuming because, also, like at that time too, some stuff was going on in the real world with regards to my job, which meant I had a lot of time in the office, because that's kind of the type of job I had, that when things were happening, you just sat in the office in case something bad happened.

You had a lot of work-free time.

Yeah, you were just there in front of the computers and you're watching systems, and so I was reading a bunch.

Nice.

And Kindle Unlimited really was getting its paying its worth.

I bet. I bet Getting your money's worth. Yeah, what do you think your biggest influences in lit RPG have been? It's a tough one. Sometimes I ask tough questions.

I know that's a hard one. A dungeon, core related, definitely Divine Dungeon just because, like the snarky humor and the pun stuff is stuff that I could resonate with.

I love it.

But then at the same time that was a rough one, because I loved Dakota's works and I loved his Divine Dungeon series. But then when Bone Dungeon released, there were a bunch of people that were like this is just copying Divine Dungeon because it's got a necromancer in it and I'm like, but it it's not. It's really not like it. It stung a little more because, like, I did admire dakota's works a lot and like, yeah, he was an inspiration, and then people just being like I was copying.

It was like it's it's now. It's really almost impossible to write a lit RPG book that isn't at least somewhat similar to a book that's already been written. Right Well it's almost impossible.

It was frustrating too because, like especially with the Dungeon Corps novel, yeah, the dungeon's's gonna have a core like yeah, and then you're gonna usually provide a companion with the dungeon core so that you know you can have prose yeah, and dialogue and just like duh, like the trope, like it had a very, you know, narrow set of tropes that you had to hit to be in the genre um, especially early on, and so you're just like sorry, like these aspects are just things that make it dungeon core.

It's not someone ripping off somebody else yeah, if you didn't have those things, it wouldn't.

If I didn't have a dungeon, it wouldn't be dungeon yeah, so it's just one of those frustrating moments, though, like can't make everybody happy um ever for anything right, yeah, there's always going to be someone who is upset by something you've done so, yeah, I try to do things that like, at least, are less often done now, though to the detriment of my bank account. So, like, trying to sell a wild west cultivation novel has been extremely difficult, even though the narration of it is phenomenal. Sound booth theater like just completely kills it with an all-star cast yeah same with the sports lit rpg, like.

but at the same time I'm like, yeah, they're just fun story concepts that are things that I enjoy. Resonance comes from my love of like Pokemon and Digimon and Shin Megami, tensei and Persona, like it was all these games and you know worlds that I love, and I'm like I want to write things that I enjoy and love. And Monster Tame Angle at RPG isn't you know all that widespread either. So I'm like it actually isn't you know all that widespread either.

so I'm like it actually isn't, yeah I could write, you know, something that's like super common and popular, that all of the people are like chasing but, and it would probably sell a lot better.

But I don't know but would you write it while you were writing it?

honestly, I probably wouldn't hate the story I was writing, but I would just hate it because I feel like I was just writing to market and I don't like that.

Yeah, but sometimes if you have a really good idea, I mean it's probably not bad to write to market. No, my problem If you have a particular market and it's already a story that you want to write.

My problem is that, especially with me pantsing, I don't write fast enough to catch the trends. That especially with my panting, I don't write fast enough to catch the trends. So even if I was trying to like chase what was popular in the market, I would take too long and then it would be gone you would have to anticipate what's going to be popular.

Yeah so I'm just like, yeah, I don't write fast enough. Okay, I write fast enough, but I don't write stories fast enough that I would like to write for market because I can write ridiculously quick, like some of my best writing days are like 15,000 words, like I could crank out 150,000 word book in 10 days but I don't, because that's exhausting for one and two. That's just not what I do man, that would be intense.

No, don't do that to yourself. No, save yourself, don't do it so it's like I have a.

I have a tower climb on royal road that I did like a hundred thousand words in in like three weeks. That was fun that's and then I had to go on hiatus because deadlines came up and I had to start working on real stuff again stupid deadlines I know stupid responsibilities getting in the way of.

Maybe that can be a fun story that you go back to.

Yeah, that was just my Royal Road one forever. Like the whole purpose of it is just to stay on Royal Road because it doesn't have an ending ever. Okay, that's why it's called the Infinite Tower.

Oh, that makes sense, that makes sense, it's dark souls. Inspired oh, I love a good video game inspired book that's what landed me in grim, dark panel oh, it's a grim, that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense it's a grim, dark novel. That's, that's how I ended up on, uh, that panel yeah, that checks out now I know I look too like happy to be on grim dark well.

Also, I don't know if I would consider any of your other books, grimdark.

I would argue perhaps that DCO's real-world aspects can get towards the Grimdark Okay a little, especially book five the one that I haven't read, but that's not.

But that's not also like overwhelmingly what the book is about correct?

yeah, that's just the underlying dystopian goodness that is late stage.

Capitalism that's the. Are you okay?

yeah, that's. That's when the editors send me messages like are you okay? Do we do? We need to call You're feeling all right over there.

So you have a ton of hobbies, yes, a ton of hobbies. Do you think that your hobbies play a factor into the books that you write and the characters that you write and the things they do? Or do you think that, as you're writing books and you have a character, do something you write and the things they do? Or do you think that, as you're writing books and you have a character, do something you think that would be really fun to do and you do that?

I think it's mostly that the hobbies that I already have just kind of get tied into it, and that's because it's easiest to pull from real life experience to make my characters feel real and to give them, you know, those realistic aspects or to make a scene really come to life, and so I just have a plethora of hobbies and life experience to pull from. I love to people watch too, so that's really helped me out with, like characterization and just building personalities and aspects to throw in. As for the hobbies themselves, I'm just always wanting to learn new things, and so I like to try new things, like to get new experiences, try to, you know, seize the day type of mentality, because you never know how long you have. So it's I should just do all the things and live life to the fullest when I've got the time and ability to do so.

And these are not normal hobbies that you would think of Like knitting or needlepoint or like not normal skiing, or I can't ski, I snowboard, I cannot ski. These are like cool hobbies Not normal, but cool.

I don't know if people would call tennis cool.

Like smithing.

Yes, the blacksmithing is fun though, and metalworking and just the really cool hobbies. Yes, I was going to say I've got the blacksmithing. I got certified in welding. I used to do jewelry making.

That's so cool. What's your favorite one?

Blade smithing. I love it. It's I don't know, it's just working. Metal is just like really cathartic in general. But then there's like something special about it because you like literally can just start out with like a square piece of metal or a ball of steel and like for just heat and the hammer like you can make it into whatever you want, and like to watch the process happen because like it's so slow as it's happening. But then you just finally like get a finished product. So you'll be hitting it and like in between heats and you're like, oh, this doesn't look like shit. And then all of a sudden, an hour or two later of like you know hard work and sweat and just losing yourself into it, All of a sudden you have like a blade in front of you and you're like, well, looky there. So it's just, there's something magical about that.

Yeah, there has to be a really nice feeling about taking something and then taking something that is just nothing and then making something beautiful and useful, yeah, and difficult to make yes yeah, it's, it's a really fun hobby to have, uh, and I picked it up because I wanted to like be able to make weapons from my books sometime down the road.

Because I was like I always joked, I was like maybe my stories won't sell, but if I can make like a cool weapon and be like, oh yeah, this is the main character's sword from uh, that book right there, I'll sell it to you discounted if you buy the whole trilogy there you go sell the books with the merch there.

There you go.

Some people are like cover sell books.

Buy my entire library of books and I'll give you this free sword.

Right, yeah, it's like some people are like oh, the cover sells the story, no, no, no, the sword sells the story.

The weapons sell it. Have there been any hobbies that you picked up that you just didn't enjoy, or were just like I can't do this?

no, and mostly because trauma. So I was one of those kids like had that super, like the parents had their like super high expectations on them and so like you had to like, either excel or like you let them down and it was failure and that was a bad thing so you just can't stop so, yeah, I'm one of those people that like picks up things really quickly and then I either fall in love with it or I just kind of like walk away, but usually still to a good degree like a decent skill for it.

But yeah, my favorite hobbies are going to be like bladesmithing, baking, writing, obviously, and then playing like Match of the Gathering.

Which you do competitively. Yes, you're very good. Yes, I don't want to play against you.

My running joke is that the local gaming store is going to ban me because every pre-release I show up, I usually take top four.

That would just be mean. That would be mean of them.

I mean you could go in and like throw a game at some point. I got super bored with that, though, because when you play competitively like, you play the same decks nonstopstop, and that gets really boring. Uh, when you're like, literally, you sit down, you watch your opponent play like a single card and you're like I know every card in your deck now, like you know every card, you know exactly how the game's gonna play and it just that just gets boring and it's like exhausting.

so then I started like seeing what derpy shenanigan filled decks I could make and like challenging myself to see how high I can get with those. It's also why I switched mostly to playing like limited and pre-releases is because there everybody just gets random chaos thrown at them and then it's like what can you make from this?

Yeah.

And then, yeah, I play a lot of Arena, but yeah, it's like it's not hard. I play a lot of arena but yeah, it's like it's not hard. She says not meaning to sound like cocky or condescending to like take a net deck and be like, hey, this is, this is the deck everybody's using, and take it and pilot it and be like and look, I am now in the top 200 on mythic like yeah it's not. It's not a hard thing to do, but boring.

I mean, I used someone's deck and got first place in, like a small town tournament, yeah. Having never played that deck before or played in a tournament before. Yeah, there are some decks that just like they win. Yeah, it was just a good deck. Maybe they gave me that one on purpose, because they wanted that guy to lose.

And like to be fair, like at some of the larger tournaments, especially when you've got like 256 people competing or more then yeah, it's, you will.

The the biggest issue usually comes against like mirror decks or when, like because, like I said, everybody knows what the top eight decks being played in the like uh, pro tour is right are right now. Like they all know it, they can see the statistics. There's reporting on it, like everybody knows. So it's like, yeah, you either tweak it in a way that you think can give you an edge or it comes down to like knowing how to play it perfectly against like every situation, because you're going to play against other players of equal and higher skill level who are like using those same decks, so you've got to be able to like play around them and that's where, like, some of the skill comes from. For the professional level is like knowing how to react to that and knowing how to play and sideboard out appropriately, but then, at the same time, it's also there is a slight chance to it, because sometimes you just get mana screwed yeah, or sometimes you get flooded, like it's.

So knowing how like work around that and just running the odds for everything, like it's, I don't know. It's fun, but it's exhausting, and playing professionally gets boring AF. And so now, yeah, I mostly just derp around with shenanigans. I have a completely colorless deck right now in Standard that I'm tormenting people with and it's hilarious really yeah, that sounds fun it's ridiculous I love it.

It's so derpy. Yeah, I was super excited for the final fantasy set to come out because it made waste standard legal and wastes are colorless land. So because I was getting pissy because the deck was colorless but I had to have colored basic lands in it, yeah.

Just in case, people blew up my lands and I had to go search for a basic and I was like it's not truly colorless because my lands aren't colorless, and Final Fantasy dropped and Wastes came out and I'm like now it's completely colorless. I can be a purist, this is great.

I built a deck a long time ago. I really haven't played in many years and I built a deck a long time ago and I made it a black deck and I put a lot of zombies in it and a lot of rats and some vampires and I called it my night of the living deck. That was my favorite deck for a long time. The puns it didn't do very, very well but I loved playing that thing.

Yeah, my current one is called colorless behavior I love a good punny name, right so uh, but yeah, otherwise, other than doing stuff like an arena, I occasionally play Commander games, usually on streams, with people and Spelltable, and then I go to Magic Con in Atlanta.

Fun. When is that?

The third week of September.

Okay, and is that like a big tournament, or is it just a convention based around magic?

There's a big tournament that you could participate in if you wanted to, and then they have a bunch of like ticketed events you can enter into. I go just because, like it's a massive gathering of players and you get to just play like commander, meet a bunch of people from the community and goof off, and then they also pull in a bunch of magic, the gathering artists and like all the different big shops and vendors and everything show up so there's a bunch of like exclusive magic merch you can get.

I like to try to source my cover artists from magic the gathering artists, because I like to you know, combine those two worlds so like the cover artist for the dungeon core online series does match the gathering artwork and the cover artist for residence does match the gathering artwork, so that is pretty cool best of both worlds yeah, I lived in atlanta for about 20 years and I did not know that magic con even existed uh, it changes locations for some of the cities, so last year I went to it.

I went to the vegas version of it in october okay um, which this year the vegas one is happening this weekend actually. But then the other cities they were doing. They did chicago, and that was at earlier in the year, and then atlanta was the end of the year and so I opted for atlanta because I can drive to it rather than have to fly, so it saves me money. Plus, flying with magic cards is questionable. It shows up as like just a solid black square on the scanners, so it has to get like inspected no yeah, yeah, that made tsa an experience yeah, I bet I can't imagine.

I bet they don't like that at all no and then you're like it's literally a deck of cards, guys yeah, on the way home you could tell I can't imagine.

I bet they don't like that at all. Nope, and then you're like it's literally a deck of cards, guys. Yeah, on the way home you could tell the TSA guy was used to it because it literally all went through. He just looked and he's like magic cards and I was like, yeah, and he's like go on.

I was like, okay, well, that's good, at least I'm sure.

Sure, yeah, they probably saw a million of them yeah, I was gonna say that was the day after the con, so they had everybody flying out that morning. But flying to vegas a whole different story. They were not. So they're like what's in this box? I was like it's just cards. They're like, we'll see about that.

I'm like because you look so incriminating, I know devious.

Hey, hey, the south doesn't like me.

South doesn't like a lot of people. Was there anything that you wanted to talk about that I haven't asked about? Anything you're working on that is not part of a current series.

Yes, but I'm not going to talk about it. Okay, you don't have to. That doesn't get spread to the public.

But it's exciting to know that you're working on something new.

Yes, it's super exciting. There's a handful of people that know about it.

Well, I can't wait to find out. So where can people find you and your books?

So my books are all on Amazon. All of them are available on Kindle Unlimited. They're also available as e-books are all on amazon. All of them are available on kendo unlimited. They're also available as ebooks, paperbacks. Some of them are hardcover and audible my series. I either got lucky with sound booth theater narrating them or travis baldry narrating them, so you know just just some modest narrators yeah, travis baldry did dungeon core online.

Yes, nice um he's a very popular narrator.

He is a very popular narrator oh, the elemental dungeon series also has an omnibus available, so you can get the whole series for the price of a single ebook, or the whole audio book series for the price of a single credit. For those of you who want to save money, on my behalf, I will.

I will link to your amazon. I will link to your um website. Do you have a website? I don't, I'm a slacker but you are on the portal books website I'm on the Portal Books website.

I'm on, obviously, Amazon. I link my Discord in the back of all my books I lurk around the internet.

Yes, so I will post your in the comments to the YouTube video, I will post your Amazon, I will post your Discord and I will post your Patreon.

Okay yeah, my Amazon with my catfish photo.

Yeah, so everyone will know where to find you and how to get in touch with you. Do you use your Facebook page much? Do you want me to link to your Facebook page?

My author page, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, you can link to that. I try to use it. I try to use it, I try to be a responsible author.

It's hard, it is. There are so many social media outlets. I know it's so hard to keep up.

It's just like trying to do that switch of like. Oh, I should switch to my official account to post.

Yeah, it's tough, it's tough.

I'm so bad about it tough.

It's tough. I'm so bad about it. I am the worst about marketing myself. Yeah, so I will link to everything down below. Pick up the books. They're fantastic to read. Once you read them, leave a review. They help out a lot. Yes, they do. Everyone needs a good review. I think that's all I have for you. All right, I think that is it. Thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I love all your books, so it was good. Thank you everyone for listening and watching on YouTube or podcasting platform. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and it also helps if you share the video. Thank you, everybody, and until next time, keep leveling up. Bye.