Today through a moment of darkness, I am exhausted from my adventures.

The idea of writing another saga weighs on me more than other days.

It happens, I know, it's part of the game.

Americans call it "the grind," that thing whereby each day, one pebble after another, you build the skyscraper.

With sweat, toil and willpower.

Scrooge McDuck also said:

"You get rich one penny at a time."

But what toil.

Writing The Ring was quite a feat.

In all, if we were to view the story as a single book, we are talking about 280,000 words, roughly 1,100 to 1,200 pages.

And from writing to publication was about 12 months.

In short, I did a really intense sprint, and now I find myself a bit overwhelmed with fatigue, amazement and bewilderment.

Despite the incredible success of the saga, which is approaching the remarkable milestone of 10,000 copies sold, I am not satisfied.

Those who know me I don't think are surprised, but in this case it is a hard feeling to swallow.

I wish I were, I really do.

But the publishing venture I am building, which is slowly bearing fruit, still does not generate a sustainable harvest.

You may be because I'm just getting started, or because I've "only" written one saga, but the path to famous profitability is still a long one.

I could give up and be content.

Write unpretentiously, unhurriedly, and let my texts roam freely, in the hands of a third-party publisher who owns the rights.

But that is not for me.

I have reached an age where I need to feel that the effort I am making elevates my work.

I need to feel the enterprise coursing through my veins.

I wonder why. Maybe because my dad is an entrepreneur.

And by osmosis, despite my artistic path, this inner agent continues to yearn for maturity and success.

The entrepreneur in me has worked, over the years, to leap like a butterfly over the artist's dreams.

With the desire to make them big, unique, personal.

And now, with four volumes to write of the next saga ahead, something in me is tired.

There is a Flavius, the dissatisfied one, with the mogul suspenders and the cigar in his mouth, who says:

"No no. Now you stop and let's see how this thing goes. Let's see if this Ring saga is profitable. If not, we close up store."

And then there's the long-bearded Flavius with his hands full of digital ink, with ideas galore, scratching his head and saying:

"But no, you'll see, the next story is the right one. Take it from me, we'll make it!"

Here I am in the middle of a negotiation between my two souls.

Torn between dream and concreteness, hovering between money and dreams.

Books are strange.

And I think, as an entrepreneur, I still have a lot to learn.

For example, I don't know how long the interest in a book endures after it comes out.

In film and many other industries, the bulk of sales are made in the first few days, then comes the vertical collapse, due to daily overproduction.

I dream of slow and steady growth.

A sustainable business model, where each saga reaches its profitability point and never lets go.

An intellectual property as an immovable value.

A self-sustaining "product" that stands the test of time in both content and business model.

This is the greatest challenge I could accept with myself.

I have not achieved it yet, but I am closer than when I started.

And as one such person said:

"Poi ch'èi posato un poco il corpo lasso,

i resumed my way through the deserted shore,

so that the firm foot was always the lowest."