J.C. Staudt is a self-published science-fiction and fantasy author, but only by night. By day, he dons a collared button-down and works as a web developer and graphic designer.
He’s been writing stories since childhood (and actually finishing them since a few years ago). The folder of abandoned tales he produced as a young writer is unlikely to ever see the light of day, though.
Somewhere along the line, he took up the notion that he ought to see one of these stories through to the end. Naturally, for his first novel, he chose the biggest, fattest story he’d ever attempted, a multi-threaded post-apocalyptic fantasy epic called The Infernal Lands.
The book took about eleven months to write and two more to edit. He took breaks from the book during those eleven months to write a prologue novella and another short novel set in a different universe.
2014
In November of 2014, Staudt published his first piece, the aforementioned prologue novella, entitled The Shepherd. He followed that up in December of 2014 with The Infernal Lands.
2015
In January of 2015, he published the first book in his Steampunk/Cyberpunk series, Driftmetal, which takes place on the shattered world of Esperon.
Throughout 2015, he wrote the next four novels in the Driftmetal series, releasing the fifth and final volume in February 2016. He also wrote the second volume in The Aionach Saga, a massive tome entitled Children of the Wastes, and finished the first book in a new fantasy series called Warcaster.
2016
In early 2016, Staudt completed the first six-episode season of a steampunk adventure-romance serial entitled Skyjackers, which takes place in Esperon, the same world as Driftmetal (only several hundred years earlier in the timeline).
In the spring and summer of 2016, he wrote the first novel in a new trilogy and released it under a pen name, completed the second book in the Mage Song fantasy series, entitled Reclaimer, and finished book one in a new urban fantasy series.
He finished out the year writing Awakener, the third book in the Mage Song series.
2017
For the first half of 2017, Staudt wrote the second and third books of the Solumancer Cycle, and urban fantasy series, and plans to release these first three books over the summer.
This website is intended to serve as a chronicle of his adventures in self-publishing, his thoughts on writing, and his development as an individual encumbered by the double-edged sword of creativity.