Beyond Romance: The Evolving Journey of Light My Way

Light My Way is kind of growing. Not in terms of the Patreon count necessarily, but growth has many forms. There are a few more YouTube channels that focus on furry visual novels that have picked up my story. I get a hit of dopamine every time I see a link being posted with Light My Way. If there is any type of drawing related to Light My Way, any mention, literally anything related to it, my day instantly gets better. I smile all day long and am in a great mood. I can't stress enough how much of an impact just seeing a 5* review on the Itch page has on me. When I had my first Patreons I danced around my tiny flat smiling and talking to myself saying: "I did it! I made it!" I still do that now with every new Patreon, because I really appreciate each and every person who is willing to support my work. I feel blessed for being able to do what I do.

I think that in time Light My Way will separate itself from the bigger bunch of romance and porn novels out there and carve its path towards something else. I don't have anything against the romance or porn novels, heck I even read some of them, but I just got tired of them. I really liked Adastra, but everything else after it seemed to just copy it and, well, I didn't get excited anymore about a rehash of the same storyline. It's like watching Lord of the Rings and then seeing a barrage of other fantasy movies that are just there because there's hype for the theme. I wish all those creators the best, but if there's just one thing I'd like to tell them is: romance is great and all, but romance doesn't only mean happiness, it also means, loss, pain, hate and so much more as you will all notice in the next Light My Way chapters.

I have seen comments around Light My Way that I don't agree with. People go into the novel and see the "sex" scene with Lucian and Atlas and immediately imagine that it will be this typical romance story or dateable character thing. In order to get people in the right mood about the novel I will take a break from pushing the new chapters after Chapter 5 in favor of re-writing Chapter 1 to 3. We already have Chapter 5 - Seclusion close to ready, so that will be out soon. It won't be as intense as the previous one was, but there's a certain part that gives me a certain rush when I re-read it. I hope it will do the same for you.

Regarding the first chapters, I won't re-write the entire story, but I'll add more thoughts that Lucian has along the way. I want to enhance the atmosphere around his problems considerably more to get people in the right mindset from the get-go. What got to me was a comment saying: "You have to admit that the novel started with a spicy fox having sex with a jock tiger". I was like: "Damn...That's all that person understood from that encounter. He didn't take into consideration all the awful stuff Lucian is going through although he's crying in that scene from the pain he feels, from the struggle he has with his whole situation." It could just be this one person, but I did consider it as well that I might mislead people in a way, but the reality is that that scene is necessary. Unfortunately, people in the fvn world are hardwired to think that if there's something like that happening then there is no possible way it can be anything else than sex, dating, porn. Once I finish with the new edits, everything will have the right feeling from the start. The story still has a lot of cool stuff happening later on, so don't think that everything in Light My Way is some sort of depressing pit of gloom and doom, because it's not. It just takes time to build up a good story. Patience is an underrated skill in our time, but I assure you that you will be rewarded if you stick with the story.

I would like to know what your thoughts are on this matter. Feel free to leave a comment here or start a conversation in the Patreon Channel on the Bat Studios Discord server. It would be good to know if my thoughts are in tune with yours. Or you can tell me if I'm wrong about all of it and everything already feels fine as it is.

If you're still here reading this, it probably means you like where the story is going. There's still so much left. I want to also update you all on my job situation. Although I will officially start on the 2nd of May, I already have to get a lot of stuff prepared beforehand. I need to create a lot of assets and learn a bunch of new things, but overall it's still a relaxed atmosphere. I've done this before so I know what I can expect. It's a better feeling now though...I'm going back in with a lot of experience and a ton of clarity that I previously didn't have. I know why I want this job and I know what the end-goal of it is: to make money to sustain my ongoing career as a writer. It's a good thing. I'm happy with my decision.

To close this entry I would like to thank you for your support. It means a lot to me that I can count on people somewhere out there who enjoy my story. And to you, my supporters, I promise you this: Light My Way will only get better.

-Hadrian Maximus