PtM Book 17 Announcement

Hello Everyone,

First of all, thank you so much for following on Patreon. The first half of the Heartforge Realm arc is now over, and the rest of it will conclude in Book 17 - Bloodstorm. I hope you're all enjoying this arc so far.

As much as I'd like to get straight into Book 17, that's not going to be possible this time around. I know I promised I would, but I've got to face the facts - the book's not even completely written yet (I'm still 5 chapters out). I therefore have no choice but to take a month off first. I'll be suspending Patreon contributions until then.

I realize I've been doing this more often lately. My apologies for this. It wasn't intentional. To alleviate your curiosity, I'll explain a bit of what's going on. 

The first reason lays with Bloodstorm itself. I've been trying really hard to limit how long my books are, and I succeeded with Heartforge. I failed miserably with with Bloodstorm. I estimate that Bloodstorm will be as long as Book 13, around 240k words or so. 

The second and more important reason is stress-related. The pace that I've set myself, one book every 3 months, is just not realistic. If it's a 150k book, that's totally fine. With a 200k word book, which is what I've been producing lately, not so much. 

Since all awful things come in three parts, there's naturally a third reason, which is also stress-related. If any of you are paying attention - I'll be moving moving back to Canada at the end of October. In fact, I'm already half-way moved and living with my in-laws, and have been for the past month. This has resulted in a very stressful situation where I don't have a permanent home. My productivity is at an all=time low, and until I've regained stability in my life, it will continue to be that way.  

Based on my observations, writing 50k words per month, including a second and third draft, is sustainable, at least for me. This assumes there are no major life events getting in the way. So going forward, I'll be posting 50k words a month on Patreon, and will be releasing on Amazon based on a similar schedule.

So here's the new plan. 

September - No Patreon. 

October 1st - Start releasing Bloodstorm on Patreon over the next 5 months. 

October 15th - (approximate date) Release Book 16 - Heartforge on Amazon. Book 17 - Bloodstorm, would come out 5 months later. 

Since Bloodstorm will be spread out over such a large period of time, I won't take another break while I'm moving to Canada. I'll schedule chapter releases to cover the most tense period. Will it be enough time to finish the next book? I'm not sure. But we can always try.  

Super-long-term, I plan on finishing the Inkwell Plane Arc up with Books 18 and 19.

This matter has been stressing me out a lot, so getting it off my chest is a relief. I'm an aggressive planner, sometimes unrealistically so, which leads to a lot of pressure. Inevitably, life gets in the way and messes things up. It's something I need to work on, because some people can force out a good story like toothpaste out of a tube. I can't. 

Anyway, that's all for today. I hope you all enjoyed Heartforge, and I'm looking forward to sharing Bloodstorm with you all in the near future.

Best,

Patrick (a.k.a. RedMirage)