Writing Update: August Edition (Patreon)

Time to do an overall writing update. So, let's see:

System Apocalypse

Still waiting for final word that book 12 is recorded. Nick announced he's working on it a few weeks ago, but we haven't had further word since then, so we're just waiting. Hopefully we'll see the book soon. 

System Apocalypse: Australia 2 (Flat Out) is recorded from both narrators, with the new male narrators voice with the editor. We expect to get it back next week, and for any final fixes / pickups to be sent after that. If we're lucky, it should be ready end of next week (or whenever ACX decides to approve the book).  

Book 3 is scheduled for September, so we should hopefully see it in October or November. 

System Apocalypse: Relentless 2 (Dungeon World Drifters) is scheduled for release in September. We are just finishing up edits on it and then it goes to proofers and our patrons. Audio will be a few months after.

We're coming up to the deadline of the System Apocalypse Anthology 2 submissions. We currently have about half as many submissions as I'd like to have to do the anthology, so we're hoping to see more as the deadline closes.

A Thousand Li

A Thousand Li: the Third Kingdom released last month and has been doing well, with over a thousand one hundred reviews already! We're incredibly grateful to all our readers and continue to see good sales and support.

A Thousand Li: the Third Realm is up on pre-order too on Amazon for a tentative February 1, 2023 release date, though we'll likely also have the book up on our own site early. Patrons are already getting early chapters. The Third Realm is going to be the largest book by far (it's nearly 140k words and I'm still writing, though I'm near the end).

Not many new shorts being written at the moment, though I have a few ideas. I'll probably tackle a few more and then throw it all together into a full collection, possibly by the end of this year. If you don't want to wait, they're all available either via Patron or purchaseable on Starlit Publishing.

There's also a semi-secret ATL project going on (okay, 2 such projects) but we'll let you all know more details when we are much closer to completion.

Adventures on Brad

We released the final omnibus collection this week for books 7-9 at the start of this month. That brings an end to Daniel's story in this world and I'm unlikely to revisit Brad anytime soon.

Hidden Wishes

I might have started a new Hidden Wishes project, though it's mostly just set in the same world. Henry and Lily will be making a guest appearance, but the story will NOT focus on them.

No release date (see below).

Climbing the Ranks

My serial tower climber is well on its way, though updates have slowed down on it. I'm at around 72k, with the end of the first book within another 30-40k possibly. Maybe? I don't know. You know how bad I am at guessing speed for endings.

Either way, that will be my main focus probably next month after or something, with 5-10k added every month at the moment. So, a while before release.

Co-Author Projects

Most are being worked on in the background. I'll let people know what they are when they are much closer to completion, since co-author projects are hard to offer proper timing on.

Other Projects and Writing Speed

As mentioned before, what I'm doing these days is splitting writing time between a main project (A Thousand Li last and this month) and a bunch of side projects like Climbing the Ranks or the Hidden Wishes world work. These projects are my 'fun' projects since I'm not entirely sure of their commercial viability, but still want to write them.

It means I generally put down more words than before in a shorter timeframe, but it does mean some projects take longer (e.g. ATL should take 2 - 2.5 months, it's now at month ummm... 3? 4? ). I roughly put a thousand words a day into ATL, and the rest of the other consistent thousand goes into other side projects. Which means an ATL 120k word book now takes 4 months to write.

What it also means is that we end up an inconsistent release timing for all the other projects since I don't focus on one specific one, but bounce between depending on inspiration. 

Thus the 'no idea when X will release' notations. It also doesn't help that if the books have no consistent release timing, the next book won't do as well; so I might hold off on 'wide' release till I have at least 2-3 books ready.

One way to fix that is to post them on Patreon (like for Climbing the Ranks). We'll see what happens, we don't have enough finished work for it to be a problem yet, so we'll worry about that till later.

It does mean though we'll likely have sudden bursts of book releases, and then a quieter time. I expect 2023 will be somewhat busy, but who knows. I haven't decided on that just yet, so we shall see.

I can say that 2022 will be very quiet, since only Dungeon World Drifters is expected to release this year. Of course, who knows, I might end up finishing some projects much faster than expected and decide to let them loose early.

Anyway, that's pretty much the extent of the update.