Happy New Year! And a big thank you.

Happy New Year, dear readers!

I’ve made a post like this on January 1st the last two years running, so I guess this is just a thing that I do now!

Don’t worry — this post won’t contain any important information or schedule changes or anything like that; it’s also quite long, so feel free to skip it! Katalepsis will return from Outside on the 6th of January; Necroepilogos will resurrect on the 4th. I just want to say thank you for the support, write a few words about where the stories are at, and share some future plans.

(As a quick aside, Patreon introduced the ‘free’ follower thing this year; all the actual story update posts are behind the various tiers, so this might be the first time some of you have actually seen a post from me! If so, hello, welcome! You’re more than welcome to hang out in the free tier, and thank you very much for the interest in my stories. This thank you goes out to you as well, to all my readers, regardless of if you’re a paying patron or a public reader or if you’ve stumbled here from the ebook somehow!)

Thank you, all of you, patrons, readers, every single one. I cannot thank you all enough for your support and patronage. I cannot find the words. I have drafted this line about a dozen times and there’s just nothing I can say.

My patreon now regularly hovers at just under $2500 per month.

Thank you. I don’t want to be secretive about this: that has rapidly become a life-changing amount of money. It’s allowed me to get the right kind of glasses to stop my eyesight deteriorating; I now write while sitting in a proper ergonomic chair rather than a decade-old seat with missing parts (no more back pain!); I’ve been able to look after myself in ways that perhaps I couldn’t before. And I have dedicated myself to writing.

Last year I mentioned the possibility of writing full-time — and now I do! I spend about 2 days a week on Necroepilogos, 3-4 days on Katalepsis, with a bunch of floating time for comments, admin, and other tasks.

Your support and readership and comments and encouragement and enjoyment makes all this possible. You give life to these stories; I’m just the one pressing the keys! I cannot find the words to express my gratitude that I have been given the opportunity to bring these stories to life for so many readers. Thank you. My only wish is to keep doing justice to that support.

So! The stories!

Katalepsis is now, finally, for real, on the last arc of Book One!

I thought Katalepsis would reach this point last year, but there was more story to unfold than I predicted. Arc 23 will be the final arc of Book One — barring any structural surprises and epilogue material. I’m not sure precisely when Book One will conclude, but I’m pretty confident it’ll be in the first half of 2024.

I’m not going to sugar-coat this: after just over 2 million words, that’s a lot of pressure! The ending of any story is extremely important, even when it’s going to continue into a sequel right away. Large portions of this final arc have been outlined and planned since the very beginning, since before I wrote that first scene of Heather meeting Raine. I cannot promise that every story element will be 100% satisfying, but I can promise that I will give this climax, conclusion, and ending my absolute best. I’m taking further steps to prioritise quality over speed for this final stretch of Book One; I’ll try my absolute best not to skip any updates, but it might happen if I have to sacrifice for the sake of quality.

And then, onto Book Two! I’ve mentioned this before, but when I started Katalepsis I had no idea if it would be at all successful, so I left Book Two as as a tentative maybe. But now, with so many readers and patrons, Book Two is going to happen, if the readers want it!

Book One is planned to conclude with the main conflict which started the story; Book Two is going to fan outward, expanding through the rest of the setting and the other characters. Katalepsis has a lot of characters, many with their own stories, often intersecting with Heather only on occasion. So, that’s what Book Two is gonna do, show a lot of other POVs!

I’ve not forgotten about the side-stories, either. Last year I mentioned that I would attempt to write a number of side-stories in between Books One and Two, but as the outline for Book Two has evolved, I’ve ended up folding the side-stories into Book Two itself.

Everything I promised will still exist, just as part of the main story instead. I figured this was easier than splitting the project up.

As for who will appear as additional POVs in Book Two — I’m going to leave that as a surprise for now! I’ve mentioned it in some comments before, but I don’t want to put it in stone here, in case anybody would rather not know.

And now, Necroepilogos, gosh!

This time last year Necroepilogos only had a handful of chapters, so it was difficult to judge how it was going to grow, or if it would attract much of an audience. But it did! And it’s grown beyond my wildest expectations! In size, too; Necroepilogos chapters are now regularly about 5k words, which is a lot for that kind of story, but it seems to be working well.

Necroepilogos has kind of proven to me that I’m capable of writing in many more styles and modes and tones that I expected. I’m hoping to sort of ‘backport’ some of the stylistic success from Necro into Book Two of Katalepsis, though they will remain very different stories, of course!

I’ve got much less to say about the future of Necroepilogos because we’re still right in the middle of it, with so much as-yet unexplored; right now it’s very healthy, I have big plans for the future of the story, and I hope you continue to enjoy!

For anybody who doesn’t check very often, the Necroepilogos and Katalepsis fanart pages are full of new stuff this year! (As are the wonderfully silly memes pages.)

(I'm also intending to get new cover art and possibly new banner art for the Necroepilogos wordpress page this year! And maybe a surprise for Katalepsis, too.)

2023 hasn’t all been smooth sailing, however. This time last year I intended to pull ahead with a backlog for both stories, offer more chapters ahead for patrons, and perhaps even publish Necroepilogos twice a week. This I have failed to do! Those failures came from changes in scope: Necroepilogos expanded and got more complex than I expected, while Katalepsis turned out to have a hell of a lot more story before the end of Book One. I’m still hoping (trying! a lot!) to push both stories further so I can offer more chapters ahead, so we’ll see. Writing full-time and managing two stories has been a challenge, especially across the final 6 months of 2023; I want to repeat my promise that I will do my best to avoid burnout. Some readers have asked if I should be taking more regular breaks, and while I don’t want to commit to any actual schedule changes yet, I am considering this — possibly skipping one chapter every two or three months? I don’t know. I’m not settled on anything yet, and I want to see what happens across the final stretch of Katalepsis Book One, because I’m so excited for it!

I’ve also gotten a lot of questions about the Katalepsis audiobooks; I know a lot of readers really enjoyed the first volume of the audiobook, and are still waiting for the second. There’s been some behind the scenes issues that I don’t think I can go into; the publisher — Podium — is not at fault, though! They’ve been great and incredibly helpful. It is still my intention to publish more audiobook volumes, so watch this space.

And now, other stories.

Oh dear! Oh no! However much I want to do so, I don’t think I could write a third serial at the same time. I do not believe such a feat lies within my powers.

Yet.

Earlier this year I wrote up a big list of possible future stories. I don’t recall exactly when I posted it, so here’s the link again for anybody who didn’t see it the first time. I am toying with publishing some openings — test scenes, if you like — for a few of these, possibly in a short break between Katalepsis Book One and Book Two.

This isn’t a promise with a schedule or deadline; if these do appear, they will come as surprises, messages from possible futures, from things we might see after Katalepsis and Necroepilogos (or alongside, if I somehow carve out time for working on a novel or two! Who knows!) I want to give you, my readers and patrons, a taste of what might come in the future.

Thank you all so very much, dear readers, once again. I know I’ve said this before, but I couldn’t do this without you and your support. This is what I was made to do; I am so very humbled and lucky that I get to do this, that I get to write stories for such a wonderful audience.

So, much more Katalepsis and Necroepilogos in 2024! And maybe even more! I will keep trying to make my little corner of the internet the best it can be.

Thank you, and Happy New Year!