Look at that! It’s a brand-new year and I was nowhere to be found! Where was I? What happened?
I’ll answer all that and more… right now!
Where I’ve Been
If you followed me on Twitter, you pretty much know the answer to this but I took a bit of a break.
Rather than participate in NaNoWriMo, I spent November editing Volume 4 and then publishing it right around the time that I had originally planned. Then… the holidays hit.
I figured that since I wasn’t going to squeeze another book out in 2021, it might be a good idea to put down the proverbial pen for a little while and just relax and take some time to myself.
Another reason why I decided to take a break is because of financial reasons. I know that I cannot afford artwork for Volume 5 right now so there really is no rush for me to complete it outside of just getting it done and moving on to Volume 6, which is, pretty much, the goal still.
Long story short… I was in the hospital back in April of last year with a nasty double infection, severe sepsis, and the beginning stages of kidney failure.
Oof, right?
Well, insurance took care of the majority of a $32,000 bill (gotta love that U.S. health care), leaving me with a $6,000 bill. On top of that, my PC of 6+ years was finally starting to have issues so I ended up replacing it.
Both of those, on top of my student loans, added up to a decent chunk of change that I would much rather pay down first before incurring even more debt on artwork.
The good news is my tax return is going to kill my computer bill leaving me with ~$3,800 of medical bills left to pay. Once I get those down to a low enough amount, I will clear myself for artwork. I’m throwing whatever extra cash I have at them right now and they’re getting chipped away at rather nicely so I wouldn’t suspect it would be too long before Volume 5 gets unleashed.
So, that’s pretty much the gist of where I’ve been.
Volume 5
At the beginning of January, I said that the holidays were over and that it was time to get back to writing.
So far, I have two chapters out of seven done. The first chapter was done by pure discovery writing. I also was as authentic as possible to the rules I set for Ashe’s writing competition. While the chapter itself is more than 8,000 words, the story that opens the book is 8,000 words or less.
It’s kind of fun to set the rules for your own writing competition and then actually do your competition.
The story is a bit awkward because it is dialogue-heavy. Like REALLY dialogue-heavy. Some people who read the book might think that’s a flaw on my part but it’s not. If you’ve paid careful attention to Volume 4, then you will know it is written that way by design. In case you didn’t pick up on that, it’ll be explained at the end of the first chapter when the results of the second round are announced.
It was pretty fun to write! I need to find a way to do more of these throughout the series!
As of the time of this writing, I should have either started or have gotten ready to start Chapter 3 of Volume 5 (or Chapter 31 overall for the series) so I am making a pretty good pace although I will admit work is really stressing me out and I don’t always have a writing mindset when I get home. I hate to say it but it’s really killing my will to write.
I don’t mean that in a way where I hate writing and want to give up but when I get home, I just want to sit in a dark room and listen to music. Hell, I don’t even have the mental energy to even watch anime.
This has left me with the weekends to write which is why after 4 weeks, I haven’t cranked out 18 volumes worth of material as some people think I’m capable of. Hell, if I didn’t have to work, who knows? Maybe I would have finished From Ashe by now, haha.
Until Next Time
Well, that was a pretty short update but that’s all I’ve done over the past month was write two chapters.
I’ve said it before but when you’re down to just writing one series and taking it one book at a time, updates kind of get a bit on the short side but I didn’t want to just toss out a tweet and call it a day. I wanted to at least sit down and properly give an update.
February is the shortest month of the year so let’s see if I can muster up a meatier update for March.
Until next time,
Ja ne!
Joshua J. Piedra 