Dispatches from the Anxiety Den: Failure, Feedback, and Forgotten Dungeons

Once upon a time (before the chaos of Reverse Harem), I tried to write LitRPG, you know, those stats-and-swords stories where everything has an XP bar and readers track inventory like accountants of destiny.

I thought, what if I added romance?
Turns out, that’s not what the LitRPG crowd usually wants. 😅

I got some harsh feedback. The kind that sticks to your ribs for a while. The books — The Dungeon Master’s Wife, Rolling for Love, and Wizards and Wives’ Tales — never found their audience. They just… existed quietly on Amazon, half-forgotten digital relics of my learning curve.

But here’s the thing: those “failures” taught me how to write better, deeper, and braver. They made me fall in love with storytelling for its own sake — not for the reviews, not for the rankings, but for that spark of what if? that starts every book.

My husband read them first. Then a few friends. They didn’t see failure. They saw potential. And they told me to keep going.

So I did.

Now, I write the kind of stories that feel true to me — dark, emotional, and full of messy, magical love. I’ve learned that some genres fit like armor, and others feel like borrowed clothes. Someday, maybe I’ll return to LitRPG (armed with everything I know now). But for the moment, those books remain as quiet ghosts on Amazon — technically unpublished, but still part of my origin story.

Every world starts somewhere. Mine just happened to begin with dice, dungeons, and a very patient husband. 🎲💀