The ABC's of Building WildCraft Press

Hi, and welcome to my very first blog!

I wanted to start off by telling everyone my creative startup's origin story.

But first, a little background about me: I write under the pseudonyms F. R. Dawn and F. R. Dusk, but go by F. R.

Aspiring Author

Like many others growing up, I've read and wrote voraciously, but unlike many others I never thought about it as a viable career path for myself. In truth, I wanted to be a teacher then that dream quickly fizzled out then I wanted to be a doctor until I volunteered and worked at medical facilities. My dream career changed many-a times as I went back to school over and over. I've completed a couple degrees and half-started others, but the one thing that remained constant: reading and writing.

I would take breaks and there were lulls, but I've always came back to it. Always.

2020 - 2023, I read and wrote more than ever before, but even so, I couldn't finish a single manuscript.

2024 was when I took writing seriously and decided two things: I wanted to finish a manuscript and I wanted this to be an official career for me.

I assumed I was a pantser, but I could never get passed the midsection of my manuscripts. I ended up working on a new project only to be stuck in the same place again or worse in the first act. When I learned about plotting, it felt like my world had changed. I dived into more writing craft and advice to help me with my projects, I devoured articles, reddit posts, blogs, videos, books, you name it I've most likely read it.

However, I didn't jump right back into writing with my newfound knowledge, no, I decided if I were to go back to writing a project I would finally finish it. Towards the end of 2024, I created a plan that started off small, but grew into my business, WildCraft Press.

I started off writing down all of my ideas and organizing and planning my projects. Then I dedicated a couple of months to completing a project to prove to myself that I could. Afterwards, I built and worked on my creative business. And now, I'm working in (and on) my creative business to become a successful independent author.

I. Research, Planning, and the Organizing Phase

When I made the decision to become an author, I didn't start off writing and publishing right away. I can be impulsive at times, but I didn't want to set myself up for failure once again. When I jump right into things, it doesn't always go in my favor if I'm not prepared first.

First order of business? I needed to figure out what I would write as an author. I had a head filled with ideas and half-finished manuscripts. It was obvious that I would write in romance and there will be fantasy and sci-fi aspects to it, that's what I read and loved, but I needed to narrow it down further from genre and subgenre.

I scoured my word documents, google docs, and Scrivener for works I never finished and decided if they were worth reviving into a complete story or should they be trashed? Then I searched my own mind of all the daydreams and ideas I've had and did the same. Which were ideas I wanted to write out and had substance and which were half thoughts that didn't form into anything?

I wrote EVERYTHING in Google Keep, both old ideas and new then decided to keep or purge them. If they sparked joy inside of me, Marie Kondo style, I would leave it, otherwise in the trash they would go, (not really I just put them away and decide on a later time if they were still duds or if I could use them within another project idea or on its own).

Once I had a reasonably sized catalogue of stories and ideas, I fleshed them out with more details before I copied everything over to Notion where I created pages regarding the characters, worldbuilding, magic system, plot, and outline with the help of Brandon Sanderson lectures and many other articles, blogs, videos, posts, etc. Honestly, too many to count. There are treasure troves of resources out there if you want advice and ideas on the many ways to plan, write, and complete a manuscript. If you had a similar issue, pick one and see if it works for you, and if it doesn't then try another or tweak it and make it your own, that's what I do.

That being said, I had pages upon pages of notes of all of my project ideas that could rival epic fantasy tomes. It was getting messy and cluttered and I felt overwhelmed just looking at it, so I got to organizing: I used Google Keep for quick notes and ideas and Notion to flesh out all the details. Labels in Google Keep and pages in Notion kept things cleaned and structured.

II. Writing Phase

After all the research and planning and organizing, I needed to prove to myself that I could finish a manuscript. I've spent years creating worlds and stories, and yet, I've never completed a manuscript.

What kind of author would I be if I couldn't finish even a rough draft of a novel?

Out of all of my projects, I decided to start with the first novel of my M&M series. My paranormal romance novel set in an academic and fantastical otherworld setting, to prepare myself I did three things. First, I expanded on M&M's world, plot, and characters. Then I wrote the outline for all four acts with Romancing the Beat (series) and Save the Cat story (novel) in mind and determined based on the scenes, chapters, and beats how many words it would be approximately: 120,000. And finally, I planned my writing schedule which consisted of writing every day with a minimum word count of 3,000.

Despite the health issues that arose around in April and May, with those three in place, I was able to complete the manuscript on May 26th, 2025 with 91,800 words. I did not write 3,000 words every day, but I did write the majority of the time and some days did consist of 3,000 words. It was a good goal to strive for which helped me complete the manuscript.

III. Business Phase

After finishing my manuscript, I was feeling on top of the world, but I wasn't finished, I needed to continue with editing and formatting and so on. Most importantly, I wanted to make this a career, so I needed to think of becoming an author like a business.

I did a ton of research in the previous phase, but I did even more research while building the business. I didn't feel as knowledgeable with the creative side, but I felt less so on the administration side. However, I did build a small business previously, so I had some insight in creating one.

I'm a mood reader as a lot of people are and in turn I'm also a mood writer. There were times I wanted to write about vast fantastical worlds filled with hope and longing between the characters, but other times I wanted to write about a dark, gritty world that resembled ours filled with despair and yearning. So, I decided to create two pen names: F. R. Dusk and F. R. Dawn under one publishing press: WildCraft Press to bring readers into two different types of worlds: dark and light, hopeful and despair, mature and explicit.

When I decided what my "products" would be, I decided to build. After watching videos and reading articles on where to start when building out a business, I created an amalgamation of what I've learned and created the "ABC's of the Creative Startup":

A | Administration Setup

A1) Business plan

A2) Brand and vision

A3) Goals and objectives

B | Business

B1) Business tasks and schedule

B2) Budget and sales

B3) Marketing, community

B4) Collaboration and partnership

B5) Growth and expansion

B6) Income streams

C | Creative

C1) Software and Products

C2) Publishing Business Model

C3) Author tasks, schedule, and timeline

C4) Creation

There were certain sections that I was able to fill out completely, others that I partially filled out, and a few that I left blank to complete at a later date. This document lives in my notion and is a living and changing document. I add, edit, and remove information constantly. I wanted my business to be more flexible and evolve when needed with the data I receive.

After creating the document, I knew when I went back to writing, I wanted to concentrate on the creative side for the most part, so I also got certain aspects of the business completed before I went back to editing M&M and got started drafting another project. I set up social media accounts, the website, newsletter, opened up the business, business bank account, and email. It was also a good way to view it as a business if it was set up as one.

Independent Author

After all three phases were done, I became an independent author.

My debut will be released in 2026, but I work on my creative startup business every day.

My time is split between the creative and admin side of the business: creatively, I'm planning, outlining, writing, and editing while on the administration side, I'm posting videos on social media, creating newsletters and blogs, and going through my email.

I'm still very new to this, but I'm hoping to learn more and make this startup not only profitable, but enjoyable.