Hey there, this is the author speaking. Just wanted to post a quick update as well as show a bonus image I made.
For the start of this year writing the story has been painfully slow, due to moving and other life-related busyness, and I am probably the one most frustrated by that since I wanted to get this story out at reasonably quick. This past week, just after posting the last part of Polymorph, I got a hard-hitting virus and was laid out for the week, but in that time I planned out the remainder of Act II. Of the sections of the story, this one was the most nebulous in my mind as well as the longest by far, but now that I have all of the remaining plot beats threaded together I am a lot more confident about getting through the rest of the act.
Based on the layout I made, there are 7 more full chapters in Act II (so with the format I've been posting, 14 parts). In Dream's Wake (the first book in The Reverie series) will have 4 acts total, with the last two combined probably being as long as Act II will end up being. My personal goal is to finish this act by early Summer, and the whole story by the end of the year. Once I am done with Act II, I've been thinking of running some ad campaigns here on RoyalRoad; some of the chapters coming up in this section are some of the main reasons why I wanted to write this story to begin with, so I'm hoping those exciting chapters will be a good time to market the story more.
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In the first Bonus I posted art I've made for the story, and while I haven't had much time or energy to draw much more of them, I did just finish a first concept for Spool, the fox-like velour that Rowan uses in the story. I have a couple of other clear Ideas I want to sketch out for the human characters in the story, but the animals were done first since they are a lot less intimidating to work on:
image [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/745bb036-483f-4d4d-883b-dcea7cc20b09/dh4bjwm-f62a7b14-aff6-4a7e-b781-2864befc6caa.png/v1/fill/w_1000,h_757,q_80,strp/spool_by_half_lite_dh4bjwm-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NzU3IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvNzQ1YmIwMzYtNDgzZi00ZDRkLTg4M2ItZGNlYTdjYzIwYjA5XC9kaDRiandtLWY2MmE3YjE0LWFmZjYtNGE3ZS1iNzgxLTI4NjRiZWZjNmNhYS5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTAwMCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.rNcSMEWfbpM_tX3vypO92SqxJpm9fi-0d03X-a5ibwc]
I am truly thankful to everyone who has read and continues to read this story! I've gotten some helpful words of advice and encouragement from fans of the work, and I cannot understate how much those help motivate me to keep working away on this!