Author Update: Very Behind and Struggling.

Hello everyone,

It’s been a bit of a while since I’ve given a general update on how the writing is going and with the holidays coming up, it felt like a good time to discuss. This is a bit more of a candid update as things have been rather difficult to manage these days. Inktober was a good break to focus on improving my artwork to be a bit better and more consistent. It felt important as I want my book covers to look good because we all judge a book by it’s cover despite people saying we shouldn’t. It’s also something I highly value personally as I genuinely enjoy it. However, I had a bit of an unfortunate realization last week that put me in a bit of an existential crisis.

It’s been almost two years since I published my second book, The Legend of Nariko: The Goddess Prophecy

 Now some would say that’s alright, books don’t release that quickly and quality takes time. However it doesn’t help that I’m still a relatively new author and I had a timeline planned for my book. What came about as more distressing was the fact that two years later and I’m still struggling to write out the first draft. The plot line is solidified and the story is set yet I haven’t finished the first draft. I have to finish this draft by the end of this month to publish it hopefully mid-2023.

I don’t quite feel as hopeless as it may seem, but I do feel a bit disappointed in myself that I let it go this far.  2022 has been a very difficult year for me but I treat it more as an explanation and not an excuse. I can still correct this, but I have to buckle down and work hard to finish this draft. While publishing two and a half years isn’t great, it’s still not the worst. Thankfully I may have also figured out how I can publish books 1 & 2 as volume 1 as originally planned, it’s just a question of whether or not the formatting will work.

That being said, I think now would be a good time to take a break for the holidays to solely focus on finishing this draft by the end of the year. However I still want to complete a “Top 5 Characters of 2022” like I did last year. There is a character that I want to explore a bit more to get a good sense of where they place in the ranking. I will have the article posted on the 19^th

Thanks for sticking with me this far and I hope you all have a happy holiday season! 😊

– Raphael