SONG of EMBER

🙞 END OF HIATUS 🙜

TL;DR: I'm (sort of) back, and so is Song of Ember.

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If you're interested in an explanation, I will attempt to make this long story a bit shorter: no promises, lol.

Several months ago I was debating whether or not to take a hiatus, but ultimately decided keeping to the once-monthly "schedule" until we reached the ending was best. This decision became... er, obsolete, let us say, after hitting some wildly underestimated snags in my health journey. Thus, an unintentional hiatus devoured those plans instead. I really wish now that I had managed to post a brief update for you all then, instead of thinking I would be able to start posting again "next week," every week until this very week.

Yes, you heard correctly.

I am, as ever, a hopeless optimist. Rest assured these constant delays over the last year and a half (all for various health reasons) don't represent my ideals or my work ethic, but have sadly been as unavoidable as they are infuriating - and it is infuriating, in a soul-destroying sort of way that is pretty much impossible to describe. While the those delays might indicate otherwise, telling stories here for you is actually my most attainable hobby, being too disabled at present to participate in other recreational pastimes such as hiking, gardening, etc.

So grateful for the opportunity to share my books on this platform; will lean into this opportunity much more in the future with this and other projects!

More recently, finding out that SOE had not only been cross-posted on other platforms (to be expected) but the unfinished draft lifted, reskinned, and sold on amazon was very demoralizing, as much as I prepared myself for that eventuality. It happens when you post your work online! But that doesn't make it easier to accept.

That said...

The last few chapters will be posted one at a time, starting this week, whenever I am up to the task! Certainly it would have been MUCH preferable to return with a set schedule, such as "twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays" until The End - that was the plan for a while - but my ultimate conclusion was that slow and irregular updates are better than the continuation of this story being infinitely postponed. If you have a different opinion, feel free to share in the comments, and I will take it under advisement. For now, I hope their impact is not significantly lessened by the wait.

Fortunately, the recap is still there if you need it!

On a more positive note, after setting aside SOE Book #2 for several months, I have made a return to the sequel featuring Isabel as a point-of-view character, which has become a much larger tome than I anticipated (when does it not?). I've also been slowly drafting a stand-alone high fantasy WIP in my limited free time with a very different sort of protagonist to Ember, and will hopefully be doing something exciting with that toward the end of the year or early next - again, if possible, health depending, etc. [LONGSUFFERING SIGH OF FRUSTRATION]

Working title of my newest project for any who might wish to know: The Changeling.

Thank you all so much for following Ember on this journey.

Happy Summer!

~ Saf

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