Happy New Year! And thank you all!

Happy New Year, dear readers!

I made a post like this last January 1st, so I thought I might do another this year! Don’t feel you have to read all this, it’s just over 1k words, but there won’t be any special secrets or important information buried here; I just want to say thank you, and also keep everybody informed of the current trajectory and future plans for my stories.

First off: thank you all so very, very much, from the bottom of my heart. As of the time of writing this post, my Patreon is at $1853 per month.

That is a staggering amount of money. I really don’t know how to say thank you. Nothing I can say would do justice to how your support has transformed my ability to write the stories; none of this would possible otherwise. This time last year I went into some detail about my intentions to possibly write full time — I was very hopeful about that, but I wasn’t certain. I didn’t know if the Patreon would continue to grow. But it has.

Thank you. I couldn’t do this without you.

More on that in a moment. But first, the stories! Unlike last year I don’t have a lot of news, but I want to keep everyone updated.

I really thought Book One of Katalepsis would conclude in 2022; my plan was to finish Book One, then spend a few weeks writing all the planned side-stories while I got Necroepilogos started. But the first phase of Heather’s story is still going! There was considerably more to unfold than I first thought. That isn’t a bad thing! Book One is still on track for the same end-point as before, but it will likely be somewhere around Arc 21, give or take room for falling action.

My aim is to bring Book One to a close this year, in 2023, I hope! Book Two is ready to go, with multiple PoVs, entirely new plots, and all the loose ends and character arcs from Book One as well. I will likely have an intermission between the Books, for all the side-stories I promised. I did successfully get that second Patron chapter out earlier in the year, so, hooray! I may try to achieve that again and push it up to three chapters, but that’s a big maybe.

Volume Two of the ebook/audiobook combo is on the way! It’s arcs 5-8 and I’m still editing it now. I’ll let you know more once it’s off to the publisher and I have a release date.

I dearly hope that everybody who listened to the audiobook Volume One really enjoyed it. I know I have, it’s amazing narration work, and very strange to hear my own writing narrated like that!

For those who don’t check often, there’s also been a ton of Fanart and Memes this past year. And the incredible Acatalepsis podcast to accompany a re-read of the story.

So, Katalepsis Book Two this year. Fingers crossed.

It took me longer than I wanted to get Necroepilogos started, but now it’s fully underway and going so much better than I dared to hope. I really wasn’t sure how this story was going to land; it’s such a different beast to Katalepsis, both in tone and content — weirder and more violent — and also in the process behind the scenes, which is completely different. But I’m really enjoying it!

Some readers have asked about my plans for Necroepilogos: is it a long-term project, will it run as long as Katalepsis, etc? And the answer is yes! I have big plans for these revenant girls at the end of the world, for Elpida and others. The story is now here to stay.

I’m less certain about two chapters a week! I set out with the aim of each chapter being about 2.5k words, published twice a week, but chapters seem to naturally be falling more around the 3.5k-4k size. If they drop back to 2.5k, twice a week might be more possible. While I am trying to make more time (full time?!) I am also going to allow the narrative itself to determine chapter size. I don’t want to mangle the story by accident.

As for other stories — okay, haha, no, I’m kidding. I don’t think I would be able to write three stories at once, however much I would love to.

But! At the request of some curious readers, I am putting together a list of all the stories I have in waiting, whatever form they’re in: novel drafts, extensive outlines, experimental chapters, rough plans, etc. It’s not ready yet, but I’ll probably share it here when it is, though it will be super informal. Anything on that list is far in the future — but real. As I said, your support makes all this possible. Writing is what I exist to do. You fund all this, you make this possible, so I thought it might be fun to share some long-term prospects.

So! Writing two stories weekly has made my schedule tighter, but as I mentioned at the start of this post, I’m staring down the potential of doing this full time, with no other work responsibilities. I don’t want to treat this like a secret or something: this Patreon now represents the overwhelming majority of my income. It is the most money I have ever made. That’s your support, for my writing, for you, so I want to be completely open about that.

At this level of support, things are easier for me than they used to be. I’m not totally free of other responsibilities, but almost. My intention this year is to pull ahead, to offer more advance chapters of Necroepilogos, to build a backlog and … maybe more! I’ve probably got a move coming up in early summer, which might suck, so it’s my intent to build backlog before then, in case of disruption. I promise to look after my health and avoid burn-out too, which is also very important. 

Katalepsis will continue to Book Two. Side-stories are lined up for the gap in between books. Necroepilogos has a long, long narrative arc ahead.

I cannot thank you all enough. I couldn’t do this without you. Every one of you, patrons and readers, your support is an alchemy far more potent than any reality-warping brain-math, any nanomachine soup, any Outsider or God-machine. I write for you, and this is what I was meant to do.

Thank you! I hope to bring you lots more story in 2023, and make my little corner of the internet a good place to be. Happy new year.