Hello everyone!
Bit early to be talking about 2025, but I’ve been thinking about my book publishing schedule a lot lately. The main issue I’ve been having is that there’s been a roughly three year gap between each release which isn’t good. It occurred to me how detrimental that is when I was writing my character refreshers for the beginning of book 3. I had to reread book 2 to remember everything that had happened so I didn’t miss any core details and I’m the author! How can I expect my readers to remember how the story is progressing if the gaps are so long.
When my editor told me that he’d only be able to finish editing book three, The Legend of Nariko: Shadows of a Dead World, I started to, admittedly, feel a bit down knowing that the release of my third book was so late because I took so long to finish the first draft. I know part of that was due to fatigue from quarantine, it affected a lot of us and I was no exception. But now that’s not the case and I need to consider my audience and release schedule so that the gaps aren’t so ridiculously long.
With that being said, while publishing the new editions of books one & two, my goal for this year is to try and finish writing the first draft of book four by the time that book 3 releases. I know I’ve said something like this repeatedly for book three and failed to do so. I need to push myself if I really want to take myself seriously as an author.
But other than book four, what else is on the horizon? There’s a couple ideas I’ve been tossing around as I think about what else I want to create. After the fourth book in The Legend of Nariko series, I was considering writing a new book or series in more of a science fiction setting. I’ve had several ideas of settings to take place for such a story but still in a conceptual stage. I might try drawing out the characters to get an idea for who they are and the story I can tell.
I’ve also been watching a lot of wholesome slice of life style anime with my friends and it got me thinking it might be fun to start a simple and silly manga series. While the idea is floating around in my head, it’ll be a side project that won’t take time away from my main body of works.
There’s a lot on the horizon that I plan to do and I really hope I can achieve all of these. If I need to re-orient my life to accomplish these goals I will as these creative projects have been the most fulfilling aspects of my life and I want to keep pushing that further.
Thanks for following and I hope 2024 can be a productive and accomplished year!
– Raphael
Raph's Cozy Musings 