Book 3 Completion + Hiatus Announcement

Hi hello, all! Book 3 is now complete! Woohoo! 

I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading it even half as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it and getting to share it. When I set out to start the Sylum arc, I expected the entirety of books 2 and 3 to fit into a single book. Clearly, that didn’t happen, and ultimately, I’m pretty happy it didn’t. I’m looking forward to a change in scenery and pace, and I hope you all are too.

Now! Hiatus.

I usually try to take a little bit of time off after finishing a book, both because I need to edit a bunch before I publish it, and because I want to go into the next book with a pretty good idea of exactly what each chapter is going to look like. Last time, that took about a month.

Annoyingly, though, I don’t think that’s going to work this time around. Partly, that’s because I think book 3 needs a lot more edits than book 2 did. More than that, non-book things are a bit too hectic right now. I’m sure many of you have noticed that with how many delays and slow posts I’ve done more recently, which I’d like to stop having to do.

Work in particular is pretty rough, and the new project I’m working on has a deadline of January. With some recent layoffs, it’s pretty much accepted by everyone that we’re going to be working extra extra hard in the next two months, and these past few weeks have been exhausting. I’m finally about to take that week off to destress, and then it’s pretty much just frantic working until the new year. Not that I really want to -- I’d much rather be writing -- but sadly, I do still need this job 🙃 That + house hunting/moving + a lot of obligations around various upcoming holidays means I’m expecting to be stressed and slammed for a while, even without writing factored in.

In general, hiatuses are pretty bad and kill a lot of momentum for a series, and I hate doing them. They’re one of those top few things that everyone tells you to try to avoid as a writer if you can help it. On the flip side, I just know I absolutely will not be able to keep up with everything.

Thankfully, there’s a pretty good chance this would be my last real hiatus -- it’s looking like I’d probably be able to quit my job at some point between March and September of next year (and hopefully the prior rather than the latter), and I’d like to thank all of you for helping me make that possible.

The TLDR of it, though, is that I’m planning on taking a more extended hiatus. The current plan is two months. I’m going to be posting a few polls in the upcoming days and giving people from RR a chance to subscribe if they’d like to read the rest of the book before the Patreon gets locked, but I’m planning on giving everyone two free months, November and December. As is generally true, you don’t need to do anything if you’d like to stay subscribed; you just won’t get charged the next two months. If you recently subscribed, your subscription will take you into January, or if you just paid and don’t plan to keep reading, I’m totally happy to do a refund if you DM me, especially as I wanted to post this as a preemptive warning a week ago instead of now.

Less fun stuff aside, hope you’re all doing well! On my end, I’m gearing up for Halloween. I’m sporting a few stitches from a minor forehead surgery I had earlier this week, and I’m feeling sad I didn’t do a zombie or Frankenstein’s monster costume to incorporate them. Maybe can put together something last minute.

Expect some polls in the next few days where you can let me know what you enjoyed, what you absolutely hated, and what you want to see more of in book 4! I’ll also post what I’m currently reading for anyone who might want a few extra books to subscribe to in the interim.

That’s all I got! Thanks for sticking with the series, and hope to see you for book 4 come the new year!