Extended Writing Update

The plot, it thickens.

I mean, tbf I designed it that way 😂 I got a good amount written and also restructured chapter one again - shocking no one, really, not even myself at this point. I'm trying out something I've never done before, which is taking the pacing slow (by my standards, anyway). I'm usually very leery of that because I reside mostly in the school of thought that says Things Always Need To Be Happening, but in this case I think the opposite is true. There's a brief timeskip, (as you'll know if you saw the prologue preview I posted here). Which basically means I've gotta fill people in on what happened during that timeskip, including one thing that's a big deal™️.

So yeah, jumping right into the action while also trying to convey timeskip events just left the chapter way too fast-paced for it to be good, and I like it now much better at half-speed. It still kind of follows my rule, just instead of "things need to be happening" it's "things need to have happened," lol. And the thing is, if any chapter has slower pacing it should be the first one. Which is funny since I think the complete opposite is true for L:CotS. I got into the action there as fast as possible - literally in the prologue and then jumped back into it as soon as I'd introduced the game's mechanics. But that's because it was a first installment. For subsequent games in a series I think the slower (but not too slow) pace feels grounding, like easing into the world again instead of being chucked into the deep end 😂

I feel like I'm finally getting back into the swing of things a little. The period after finishing the first game has felt very moorless for me - like, I know it's done but it isn't out there yet. It's a little scary to start writing book 2 when I don't even know if book 1 will sell. But I've been trusting that my love for the story will drown out my doubt, and I feel like steadily that's been growing more and more true.

Here's this week's preview, hot off the presses of book 2 ~

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"The letter did give us a location."

"And told us little beyond that," Keo replies. "After all the trials we have passed through, we are still not trusted."