Hello everyone!
So, about time I did one of these updates. It’s been far too long. So, let’s get into it, shall we?
What’s Been Going On?
A heck of a lot of writing. The first draft of the next book in the Alchemist series has been done for some time now and I’ve been revising it until I want to scream (more on that later).
In the meantime, I’ve also worked on my other story called Path of the Dragon. It’s strangely been faster for me to write and just a smoother process overall.
Probably because I was able to learn from my mistakes in the first Alchemist book and not make so many in Path of the Dragon, turning the entire process into something more streamlined.
As such, Path of the Dragon Book 1 is… basically done. It’s massive and clocks in at over 140k words. (For reference, book 1 of the Alchemist series was in the 80k range. So, if you’ve been wondering why books are taking so long… keep in mind that I’ve already finished and am revising book 2 of Path of the Dragon and books 2 and 3 of the Alchemist series are in a similar state. So… it’s a lot of words to revise.)
I’m basically just waiting on hearing back from some of my test readers and then I’ll be starting a Kickstarter for Path of the Dragon. So, this will be something coming out sometime this year. And I’m already decently into polishing up the second book in Path of the Dragon.
Why so long between releases?
As you’ve probably already guessed, a large part of what’s taking so long is and has been just the sheer size of what I’m editing. That, combined with my stress illness has made it pretty slow going. But, I’m on the verge of getting things polished up and ready to go. Thanks for being so patient and I hope you enjoy the books I have coming up in the near future. Make sure you’re on my mailing list so I can let you know all about it.
It also takes me hundreds and hundreds of hours per book. Seriously. I put a lot into them. More so than ever before.
When’s the next book?
I can’t exactly give a definite date, but my goal is for it to release as early access on Kickstarter in the next few months and then a full release a few months after that. So, we’ll see but… soon.
What are the plans for the future?
My current plans are to get Path of the Dragon Book 1 finished because it’s so close and it’s about time I started releasing again. Then I want to finish up Path of the Dragon Book 2 because it’s the next closest to being done.
Following that, I plan to get The Alchemist Series Book 2 finished up and ready to release (aiming for early next year but we’ll see.) And after that, I aim to get Book 3 of The Alchemist Series done that same year (again, we’ll see. It’s… a lot to edit. As it’s currently bigger than Path of the Dragon. And Path of the Dragon is sitting at 280k words for books 1 and 2.
Following that, I have a one-shot science fiction book that I plan to release since the first draft of it is also already done.
Then, I’ll be working on getting Path of the Dragon 3 out.
So, as you’ve no doubt guessed, my plan is basically: RELEASE STUFF AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. So, I’ll be working on projects according to which books are closest to being complete. Hence the order.
What’s Path of the Dragon about?
It’s about a young girl who gets asked by an alien dragon to save the universe. It’s a type of Chinese cultivation fantasy known as ‘wuxia’. Essentially, people cultivate energy from the world and this energy allows them to use special abilities.
Imagine if you cast spells by punching people in the face, essentially.
And as you can probably expect given Adelia in Book 1 of The Alchemist series, Path of the Dragon will have a female MC that is rather… ferocious and strong-willed. She’ll have to be.
Though the story features a young girl, this is very much a story for adult and young adult readers. It gets dark in places and we’ll be following Jie as she journeys through a world filled with danger and meets it head-on with fists and fury.
The Dragon Advances after all…
I hope you enjoy everything I have in store, and thanks again for your patience. It’s been a tough series of years health-wise but it’s been such a joy to work on these books and I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.
Take care and have an excellent day.
- Daren
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