Welcome to your September Progress Update! I have quite a bit to talk about this time around so let's not dilly dally shilly shally and get right into it. (1,000 points if you got that reference. Hey, references, it's A.R. Dragonfly all over again.)
From Ashe Vol. 8
Last month, I hadn't even started editing the book. Now, as of September 1, the book had its complete first editing pass, the commission sheet has been created and sent to Alex, AND I already have the lineart for the characters that will be on the cover! Once the cover is finished, I'll be sure to do a reveal on Discord first, and then social media after a small delay so that my Discord members can get that exclusive first-look!
Going through, I thought I was going to change a lot of things in this book but when I finished reading it through, I was quite satisfied with how it turned out so I didn't end up changing much. Mainly just some of the characters' dialogue to match their normal way of speaking or a few grammar errors here and there. Normally, I'm not this satisfied after a first edit but here we are. I guess taking a break for MyGF to let the story sit and stew did some wonders!
If you're wondering about art, From Ashe volume 8 is going to feature 5 new characters and 2 scenes in addition to the cover.
Yes... FIVE new characters. The cast is continuing to grow exponentially but thanks to the character faction system I've talked about before this series ever started, it's so easy to manage such a huge cast. When Ashe only deals with them when she goes to certain places, they don't always have to be there in the story. The main characters get that honor but going to a bowling alley, to work, to a writing competition, etc. doesn't always happen so those characters don't need to always be written. It's controlled chaos!
Final Hope
I recently announced that Final Hope had hit the 2,500 views mark on Royal Road (actually, as of the time of this writing, it's at 2,803!). Granted, it's not getting thousands of views per day like some of the bigger, long-running series on the site but I'm still happy that it has gotten that much attention! It has garnered me a few followers and a couple of favorites so at least some people out there are enjoying the story and there is proof of that.
I entered Final Hope into the 3rd annual Self-Published Science Fiction Writing Competition. A couple of days ago, I received a letter stating that out of 220 applicants, Final Hope was selected to move on to the second round for proper judging! This will be the longest part of the competition and I may not hear anything for over a year but at least it made it to the next round! We'll see how it goes from here!
Speaking of Final Hope. As many of you are aware, Royal Road is a free-to-read service and I wanted this book to be a free entry into me as an author. Well, I am happy to announce that the week of September 13 is when the final chapter will be posted. Because I had to submit Final Hope to the contest as an EPUB file, I decided to make that EPUB a free download after it finishes its run on Royal Road! So, later this month, you can get a free ebook through my site. The link will be on the Final Hope page under Book Series. I'll make the announcement once it goes live!
My Regularly Scheduled Life
From one contest to the other. Writing has begun for My Regularly Scheduled Life. While I am satisfied with the second chapter, I really want to rework the intro but I'll do that in the editing passes before submission.
Two chapters have been written so far but with a 3-day weekend for Labor Day, I plan to hammer out much more.
The book is going to have 20 chapters in total with each chapter being between 3,000 and 4,000 words which will put that in the 60,000 - 80,000 word range when all is said and done. Just like with MyGF, I plan on doing these micro chapters and since I can sometimes bang out 2 From Ashe-sized chapters on a weekend, that means I can bang out 6 of these chapters if I have enough time to do that.
Another thing I want to work on is the duality of Sebastian's (yes, the main character is named Sebastian... big shock there, right?) personality. When he speaks, he's very polite and respectful but his inner monologues are supposed to paint him as this insufferable asshole and I don't think I've hit that with him. He just sounds whiny and complainy (? is that even a word? Grammarly says no but... meh.) rather than a legit asshole that hates the world around him. Just another thing to fix during editing.
Social Media
X doesn't mark the spot with me anymore. It just doesn't. Ever since Elon's takeover, I'm finding myself using it less and less. That's why I've come to a decision. I am "Quiet Quitting" the former Twitter.
I'm not leaving the platform but Twitter is just going to be used for a random promo post here and there. Now that Threads has an official website, I am going to transition myself over there for extra posts. I'm also on Bluesky as well (and have two invite codes if anyone wants them) so if you are, too, feel free to give me a follow:
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@jjpiedraoeln
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jjpiedra.bsky.social
Scribd
As a quick note... it took a while but Scribd FINALLY published all of A.R. Dragonfly and From Ashe, giving you guys another avenue to find and pick up the ebook versions of those series! All of the links are available on their respective series pages!
Until Next Time
That wraps it up for this month. Look forward to From Ashe Vol. 8's cover reveal as well as the launch of the free Final Hope EPUB! By the way, Discord members already received the EPUB so you should probably sign up so you, too, can get exclusive first-looks at everything!
Stay cool. Hydrate. And I'll catch you next month!
Until then,
Ja ne!
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