It had taken me a month to write Penance—Volume 1. Absolution—Volume 2—took me five and a half. Truth be told, Penance is an anomaly for me; ~70k words in a month’s time is exceedingly record-breaking. Even Absolution’s rate of 97k words in 5.5 months is well beyond my earlier rates, though there are some reasons for that. For one, as a self-published author, my earlier works required substantially more time being edited and revised. Secondly, I have simply had more practice in the craft as of late, every day improving my skills and literary capability.

The slowdown in pace from Penance to Absolution is pretty reasonable, too; when I began Absolution, I had just accepted a new job from a state of unemployment, and began to prepare for my new work. A month later, I had just begun that new job and was spending my days in the office. The span of time I could devote to writing had diminished greatly. But while the quantity of my writing—from a rate point of view—had decreased, the quality only continued to grow, and I do not mean in the grammatical or structural sense, but as measured in the contents of my writing. Every new experience in life translates to one’s writing. It is the vulnerability of authors, then, that we must spend so long before a keyboard to physically put words onto a page, when the nature of those words is decided by our experiences elsewhere. To neglect change in life is to invite stagnation. And stagnation is the enemy of artistic creativity.

I am, therefore, happy to have started my new job, even if it comes at a cost of writing quantity. Alas, that may not translate into long-term viewer retention. Ha!

The author’s curse, as I have dubbed it myself (though some note that it is in fact the artist’s curse) is to look back upon their earlier works with disdain, knowing that they could do better now. And I do. I have two novels out on Amazon and I cannot bring myself to recommend them to people because I know they are vastly inferior to my current writing, nonrepresentative of my current storycraft. I was proud of them both when I had written them; I had been writing for nearly two decades but had not, until then, been proud enough to share anything with the world. But the drafts—and, later, their revisions—were good enough to make me willing to release them with a price tag attached.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I have since questioned that judgment.

When I look back upon Crown of Thorns, my first self-published novel, I do so with disdain for a handful of chapters in its beginning. When I look back upon Throne of Souls, its sequel, the disdain is held for some chapters toward the end. When I look back upon Penance, I have come to dislike a multitude of chapters prior to Blackgar’s abduction. And now, reflecting upon Absolution, the pain points are sporadic and isolated, but still very present all the same.

In Ford v Ferrari (2019), racer Ken Miles (portrayed by Christian Bale) notes his pursuit of the Perfect Lap, a lap with every turn and bend and straightaway taken with maximized efficiency and exquisite perfection. It is a lifelong goal of his. I find myself, now, in pursuit of my own Perfect Lap, though mine is measured in pages and not in RPMs. I seek to craft a tale of personal perfection, without the possibility of regret. This does not mean I aim for some literary work of art, as I do not imagine the stories I tell will ever be regarded as such—far be it for a 40k story to be considered so! Rather, I seek merely to tell a tale from beginning to end without flaw, without extraneous scenes yet with seamless flow between those scenes still present. I have not, in my decades of writing, managed such a task.

I may not ever. And that is the author’s curse.

I look ahead, now, to the third volume of this tale; it is titled Apocrypha. Two chapters have been written as of the time of this writing, though more have likely been put together between now and this Afterword’s publication (I write these well in advance of their arrival on RR). I see possible pitfalls the tale of Apocrypha may run into, but I also see what I believe to be a good story, full of hope, tragedy, love, and loss. And action, of course—40k as a setting is rather demanding of that.

Time permitting, I look forward to sharing it with you, perfect or otherwise, for curses aside, that is the author’s duty. Alas, we fast approach the end of my backlog, even accounting for what slow forward progress I have managed in the meantime. Releases are soon to slow, I expect.

-Ceno