You might be coming into this post wondering why it’s called 3.5 and not 4. Well, the honest truth is that there’s not nearly as much to update you on as I would have liked. In the past month I’ve been incredibly busy with work and my studies and although I did spend some time writing during my May Break, it wasn’t nearly as productive as I would have liked. As a matter of fact, I’m going through a bit of a writer’s block right now and although I’m hesitant (haha) to put this on paper, I think I might need a bit of a break from writing. Not completely, of course, but I’ve been trying to write at an honestly ungodly pace while combining it with the rest of my life. I think I’ve been a little bit burned out. As of this post, I have about 2 months of work to go before the year ends and I get a bit of respite. Part of July and the entirety of the month of August will be my summer break and that tends to reinvigorate me quite a bit. But we’re not there yet and the exhaustion is definitely weighing on me. But it’s not all negativity, let me update you on what I have been able to do in these past few weeks.
When it comes to volume 4, I’ve been trying to navigate the early chapters of the Shark Tooth Island arc. It’s a story beat I came up with pretty quickly before struggling to properly make it work. There’s some great moments in what I wrote for it last year, but there’s really no glue holding it together. Not to mention I never got to properly write an ending to it, as I’d reached the 50.000 words for November and then kind of put it aside since I’d run out of ideas by that point. I was pretty far ahead at some point earlier this year, but as of this post I’m only one chapter ahead of schedule. That’s still better than the amount of wiggle room I had during the first three volumes, but since there is more I can get stuck on for this volume, it worries me that it’s not enough. So keep in mind that a hiatus might happen in the near future, although I’ll try my best to avoid it. I am excited for you all to meet a pretty important figure in the lore of this world soon.
Meanwhile I’ve been focusing a lot of energy on volume 1 as well, but I’ve been struggling on that front too. The gang is still in the Milinia forest, making their way towards the elven stronghold. I want to flesh out the forest itself and make it clear what sort of place it is before they actually stumble into the city proper. One thing I found lacking in Milinia was building a proper population. The council felt like it was introduced and then forgotten (and I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot about it for a big part of writing the subsequent volumes). There were gifts and bonds that were completely dropped by the time we were back in Saphestan and although the blog version of this story was always going to be incomplete and rough around the edges, I want to make very sure that the final version I’m writing right now is much more complete and waterproof. I’m not perfect and I’ll probably miss some stuff, but I want it to feel like a satisfying story. I’ll be working hard on the next couple of chapters in May and although my initial hope of finishing the draft by late June is probably a lost cause, I still want to have it all finalized by August. I’ll just have to print it out at home on a small printer. I shudder at the thought.
Now allow me to change the subject a little bit before I end this post although it’s probably not exciting news for readers of this story. I’ve been feeling that itch to continue on The Necromancer’s Daughter. It’s changed a ton in its form and although I haven’t put much time into actually writing the story itself, I have been collecting notes and ideas in a document that’s becoming larger and larger. I was hoping to keep this story on the backburner for a while longer as I put all my time and effort into The Hesitant Hero, but with how much this story is still nagging me I might have to start giving it some attention. Part of me wonders if the writer’s block I’m feeling will be fixed by a change of pace. This doesn’t mean that new chapters or new editions of The Necromancer’s Daughter will be posted anytime soon. I’ve learned my lesson, I’m not doing so until I have at least two dozen chapters I’m satisfied with and I highly doubt that will happen before late next year. I might also post something soon that’s been in my folders for a long time now. I had an evening where I suddenly wrote a couple thousand words of a completely new story out of nowhere and I quite like the setting, but there’s not enough of it to be all that interesting. Perhaps just posting a chapter of it online will help get me some feedback. But that’s another case of not wanting to put too much effort into too many different projects. As of right now, my main focus should be on The Hesitant Hero until I have a satisfying draft done of the first five volumes or so, before continuing the story from incomplete drafts becomes too chaotic. Some consistency would be nice for online readers, after all. Luckily volume 5 should enter us into a completely new arc which allows me some time to fix some old mistakes before we continue existing storylines. But let’s not get too much into spoilers.
To make a long story short, I’m still working on The Hesitant Hero. I want to branch out to different stories a bit, and I need to get through these next two months before I can get some more peace of mind. My body is also constantly in pain due to the effects of stress and exhaustion, but it’s not as bad as it’s been in the past, so I’m pushing through most of it. Expect some delays and breaks here and there in the next two months but I promise you that things will be back to normal once we’re well into summer and I have some room to breathe. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 