January 2025 Update
New year, same work
And so the first month of 2025 is drawing to a close, with nary a public peep from me since last year (hah)! Consider this post to be a quick update and progress report about what’s been happening behind the scenes.
Where have I been?
Since Shadowbound’s 1st anniversary - or, rather, if you want to get technical, since December 25th, which was when I posed my last YouTube video of 2024, though I’m well aware that my cross-audience is quite small in that regard - I took some time off from social media at large.
No Substack. No YouTube.
That doesn’t mean I’ve been idle all this time. I’ve been working on Shadowbound’s sequel - a.k.a. until the title reveal: The Manuscript - and I’m happy to say that it’s 2/3rds of the way fully complete, with Act 3 left to flesh out before moving on to the editing stage.
This has been much more of an undertaking than it first started out as; the more I’ve written, the more complex it’s become. Worst of all, I’m practically tearing my hair out over keeping it all a secret! I have reached the “it’s totally not finished but I want to share it anyway” stage of production.
What happened to The Great War?
Admittedly, I wasn’t planning to take this long of a break from it. My original plan was to be back releasing weekly chapters by the 3rd… which was 4 weeks ago.
The Great War started out as many things: a writing exercise for when I wasn’t working on my manuscript, extra world building for my book, something to build a regular schedule around, and more. And I don’t intend to abandon a half-finished story. I do, however, want to take a more thoughtful approach to it.
I’m not all that experienced with serial stories, believe it or not. And I know that inexperience has shone through more than once last year. I’ll just say it: I’m not happy with every chapter that I wrote, and if I want to continue The Great War, I need to change how I approach serial writing as a whole.
As of right now, The Manuscript is my top priority, so The Great War will continue to be on hiatus for a few more months.
Current manuscript timeline
While certainly not definitive and most likely very hopeful, I’d like to quickly outline some of my current deadlines and hopes for the next few months:
February: Write the bulk of OR finish Act 3. I hope to finish Act 3 on a functional level before March only because I originally budgeted January and February for Act 2, which was completed a whole month ahead of my old projections, but I’ll see if that actually happens or if I’ll need some extra time.
March: By the end of the month, Act 3 should absolutely be finished on a functional level; the story will have a beginning, middle, and end that can be read in its entirety that hits all of the plot points and emotional beats it has to.
Assuming that I’m ahead of schedule by March, or that I finish Act 3 before the end of the month, late March to early April is when I’ll be reaching out to friends and family to discuss beta reading The Manuscript.
April: The first round of edits should be completed by the end of the month, though they should certainly not be dragged out to last all month, either. At best, perhaps a week and a half to two weeks, or even shorter.
This is simply my ideal expectation, but beta readers should hopefully be finished reading before May at the earliest, or by June at the latest. Two months is the maximum time I want to allot to beta readers, though there is some room for small extensions beyond two months built in as well.
April downtime, May, and beyond: Cover art, more edits, processing and acting upon beta reader feedback as it rolls in, and finally formatting, glorious paperwork, and teasers!
All that being said, everything must be ready by September at the absolute latest if I hope to release The Manuscript this year. I’m aiming to publish once more in November, or December if I absolutely have to.
And after The Manuscript is published, there will be one more book on the way - it’s called The Astria Trilogy after all - before I’ve fulfilled all of my current promises and can move on to my next set of promises. Yay!
Along the way, I aim to write a monthly progress report as well, all the way up until The Manuscript is released. This is not only to hold myself accountable to my own deadlines, but also to keep YOU updated on its progress.
If you’d like to support me this year, consider buying Shadowbound if you haven’t already - or maybe get a copy for a friend or family member! - and leave a review for it on Amazon if you can.
But word-of-mouth also helps! Even if you can’t afford the book, consider checking out and sharing around the Shadowbound Audio Book & Author Commentary playlist, where I read the entire novel from beginning to end. All the readings are free up until The Manuscript is published. It’s perfect for those who want to give the story a spin before buying.
Of course, if you have thoughts, theories, hopes, critiques, or anything else about Shadowbound that you’d like to share more in-depth, drop a comment about it down below!
And don’t forget to like and subscribe ;)