Hey all! Making a note as a chapter itself, because this is important.

There’s no way to sugar coat this, so I’ll just dive right in. I’m not going to see this story to the end.

Why, do you ask? Though I’m sure some of you think it’s because of Nick (and I’d be lying if I didn’t say he does have a small part to play in this), it’s actually because of Rafael. The main reason is because right now, a prominent fantasy author has been accused of sexual assault. Long story short, after reading the abusive things this person has done, I was horrified and left feeling empty. This is not the year I want to be working on this story. It might not even be in the next few years. It should feel nice to have a story where an abuser feels horrible about what they’ve done, but I’m not in the right headspace to write it. It feels wrong, somehow. Victims don’t often get an ending where the assaulter feels guilty and full of shame about what they’ve done.

Writing this story has now become a chore, and that always burns me out fast. Since writing is still a hobby and not a job, I’ve got to know when to stop a series and move on to another project.

So what happens from here? I’m going to do my best to tie up some loose ends in a shorter volume five. Yes, all of volume four is written, and yes, Nick still suffers. A lot. I’m also not in the right headspace to go back and rewrite that to make it lighter in any way. I’ll do my best in volume five to give these characters some much needed healing before I end this story prematurely (meaning before the apocalypse. I don’t want to write that right now, either). I’m going to drop my already finished chapters here as fast as possible so I can just be done. Instead of posting a chapter tonight, I’m getting three chapters ready for tomorrow to post throughout the day. I’ll still hit my three chapters a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I will be posting more. How much more depends on what writing I get done, but it will be more than 3x a week. I’m not sure when I’ll be done writing volume five. We still have a huge chunk of volume four to get through before we even reach volume five. Once I finish writing that last volume, though, I’m dumping all the chapters here.

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It sucks. I know. I’m mentally prepared for the mass exodus of followers from my story after this post. But I can’t push through this empty feeling and write this story. I’ve already tried that, and it hasn’t been working.

So thank you for following along for as long as you have. I hope the healing in volume five helps ease the pain of a premature ending. For those that want to leave now, I just want to say thank you for your support. It’s been an interesting journey, full of ups and downs.

I’m off to write some healing now and prepare those chapters for tomorrow.