February 17, 2024 - Update

Hey!

The big news this week was that Travis started performing Tarot’s Ninth Harbinger. I don’t know how far he made it through the book, though. If you’ve been listening to him on his discord, please comment and let us know.

I pushed myself hard to get Travis a polished manuscript by Monday morning and that, coupled with the weeks of revising, burned me out a bit. This meant I didn’t get any writing done this week at all. What I did accomplish is the list of items that I want to address in book 10, along with some of the motivations for various groups.

I also made a decision regarding two previous books I wrote and the Divine Apostasy Universe. I don’t need to tell you how complex the Universe already is, and the end of book 8 and all of book 9 explodes the scope of that. The story is incredibly complex and interwoven with tightly coupled storylines that make my head hurt when I try and hold what I’ve written with what the future will bring.

Some of the ideas in Divine Apostasy have secret older siblings, including the two books I mentioned earlier. It has been easy to keep everything separate until now. But in book 10 I need to commit to a path.

Specifically, do I brush against these other books and reveal the connection they have to the Divine Apostasy? One of the books is published already, and since I’ve only released one book other than Divine Apostasy, it’s not hard to figure out that is the Grey Warden. The other book is sitting patiently on my hard drive, nervously awaiting my decision.

Now that I think about it, there are three paths. I could ignore these worlds completely and no one knows the difference. I could lightly brush against those worlds, leaving the door open for future interaction, but not complicating the current story structure. Or, smash them together.

It is probably obvious because I’m telling you all this, that I’ve already decided to release the other book (probably sometime this year), and the interactions with these other worlds will be light. The only world I plan on going in depth with revolves around the Ash storyline. I certainly don’t have the bandwidth right now to do the same for two other worlds.

One of the reasons book 9 was so difficult for me to write, and why I’m worried about how it will be received, is because of how I expanded the Universe. In my head, I had thought the expanded Universe would drip out slowly, and maybe if I had another year or two to fiddle with book 9, I could have managed that. Instead, it was like a dam bursting, and I struggled with how to convey it.

I’m concerned I am stepping into the same trap with these other worlds. Are they linked to the Divine Apostasy timeline? Yes. Is it critical that they are revealed in the Divine Apostasy books? No. Well, maybe. My fear is that touching these other two worlds will open pandora’s box.

Was the DA Universe complex before book 9? Absolutely. Will book 9 shine a light on the first layers of a bigger, vastly more complex truth? Yup. Is it really smart or in my best interest to expose a story line that doesn’t absolutely need to be uncovered in DA? Probably not.

I really went on about this for too long. This is a small glimpse into the madness constantly churning inside my mind. Sorry.

I opened up chapters 2 and 3 of the Royal Road story (which isn’t actually on RR yet) for Root.

I opened up chapters 4, 5, and 6 of the RR story for Harvester.

I added chapters 7, 8, and 9 of the RR story for Step Master, Blapy’s Favorite, Divine, and Axiom.

Enjoy!

Thank you for supporting this story. I took off two days from work last week to work on the revision and that was only possible because of you. You make a difference and I appreciate that so much. Thank you!

Take care,

AFK