February 20 Update!

The year's fast underway and keyboards are being destroyed. I thought it might be a good spot to take a look at where we are right now, before any big announcements.

My next story, the fifth installment in "A Hero Past the 25th" web novel series, is currently in the editing phase. The first draft is completed, the basic wireframe model of the story is there, displaying what happens when and where, and whether the concept is literally viable or not. It is, and I'm personally quite happy with how it turned out, in the end.

What does editing phase actually mean?

As obvious as it seems, there are probably just as many answers to that as there are writers. 

At Royal Road, where I'm posting these stories, most users are amateurs—and so am I—and editing at all is something of a rarity. 

Authors simply post their chapters as they write them, and build vast narratives over the years, spanning millions of words. and gain thousands of followers along the way. And, well, I find most of those stories kinda hard to read, in all honesty.

I want to do it another way.

Even though my works are available to read for free, I get no ad revenue or anything, and whatever I earn is only by the good will of my patrons, I still don't think it's okay to just play it by ear and hope for the best. I want to give a quality story, an experience that you can enjoy for the clean prose alone, and which hopefully only gets better as we go on.

That's what the editing part is about, and it also necessitates these long gaps between releases.

I'm not just weeding out typos, misplaced words, grammatical errors, and such, which always pile up when working in a hurry, but I'm also analyzing the text as a whole. Does the way things are presented sound pleasing? Does the text "flow" naturally? Do the characters talk like real people? Am I describing the scene in a way that puts the reader in the right mood? And so on.

It's also about ensuring that things keep internally consistent. 

So that I don't write something in chapter 4, without thinking, which later makes what I had in mind for chapter 15 completely impossible, and breaks the whole plotline. When I have chapters 4 and 15 both in front of me, I have a chance to fix these things before release, and don't have to pull any desperate retcons.

I'm a stupid person trying to write an intelligent story, so that kind of things can happen.

A Hero Past the 25th is about taking a very tired and silly setting, and making it seem as life-like and immersive as possible. Of course, it's still a work of fiction, it's meant to be funny and entertaining, so realism has to take the backseat at times. But, in principle.

I mentioned this on twitter, but the fifth part was intended to be light and simple, shorter and more straightforward than the previous story. 

No tough moral choices, the resolution of which makes the readers tear their hair out and bomb me with confused comments, no love trouble, no heartache, just a good, old-fashioned adventure. Something of a palate-cleanser after the tragic fourth path, and before another more complex work.

And that didn't go according to plan.

The first draft is already the size of "Fire of Prometheus", and my drafts tend to bulk up a lot during editing. Writers generally cut content when editing, not make more, but I usually write very bare-bones drafts at first, and only flesh out the details afterwards. Like sketching a picture. I find that works for me, but it also carries a certain element of surprise.

At any rate, we have enough material for another long run, and that's great. You don't want a story you like to stop too soon, right?

Then again, this might turn into, "when does it stop? please let me out right now!" but we'll see.

Since we're still early into the editing phase, I can't make any promises regarding the release date yet. I hope I'll be able to give one soon, together with the title reveal. 

Why won't I give away the title right now? I have it, don't I? 

Well, because I want you to wait for it! I made a cool logo too. You'll see.

Right now, I'd say, the launch date will be either March 5 or March 30. But definitely not any day in February. I don't want to push it back to April either. There are a LOT more things planned, I have to think about the rest of the year too. You push one thing towards the end of the table and something else falls out and there's a mess. Not cool.

Side Story B will then follow some time in the summer.

Besides these works themselves, my patrons will get to enjoy profiles and concept art for the new characters to be introduced in the upcoming stories. I have quite a list of them.

Naturally, if there is some character in particular you'd like to know more about, which I've left out, feel free to make a request, and I'll try to make the time for it.

That's all for now! If you're an aspiring writer yourself, or a seasoned one, I hope there was a thing or two up there that you might find helpful or interesting.

Thank you for your support! See you soon.