Irons in the Fire

About this episode

Xero discusses the importance of focus in creative projects and the challenges of indie publishing.

In this episode, Xero talks about the danger of having “too many irons in the fire” and what it really means to protect the creative spark. The fire, as he explains, is the inspiration and creative drive that fuels everything — writing, comics, books, and all creative output. But when too many projects compete for attention, the risk isn’t just burnout — it’s losing the fire entirely. He walks through the history of his comic project, from writing the original story years ago, turning it into an audio drama, then later adapting it into a comic with hired artists. He talks about the realities of indie publishing — the difficulty of getting comics into stores, experimenting with platforms like Amazon, Global Comics, and Webtoons, and the harsh truth about how little digital platforms actually pay indie creators. From there, he explains how this led him to shift toward writing books and prose, which are faster and cheaper to produce than comics, allowing him to expand the story world more efficiently. Over time, he realized he had to scale back articles, video, music, and even posting frequency in order to focus on finishing and releasing books properly. The main theme of the…

People in this episode

Host: Xero

Topics covered

• creative process
• indie publishing
• focus
• project management
• burnout
• storytelling

Keywords

• creative spark
• indie comics
• publishing challenges
• project focus
• writing books

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Amazon, Global Comics, Webtoons

Books & works: comics, books

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