Wander West, in Shadow

Hello everyone. Last week I made an announcement that after losing my job, I was going to plan to come back to writing eventually, and opened up a patreon. I wanted to thank everyone who donated, and thank everyone who even simply offered some words of support. It was heartening to see that even after 3 years of being gone that there were still people around who were interested in my work. I'm sorry for making an announcement chapter once more (I won't do it again), but I felt I owed it to you guys to let you know what my immediate plans are. (And RR doesn't have any more convenient or appropriate ways to address your audience).

First, things remain chaotic and uncertain for me, and likely will until I find a new job and a new place to live. However, over the past week I have established a schedule of job searching and packing that allows me some time to write, and I have come to some decisions. I mentioned last time that I was torn between three choices: editing Wander West, writing a separate story, or immediately diving into writing the next Wander West, In Shadow book.

Well, the very first thing I've decided to do is to write a separate book. I know some of you may not like this (I assume most people reading this would like me to immediately return to writing WWIS), but I had some good reasons for this. First, I am rusty at writing, and second, I actually need to re-read WWIS myself to get back into the mindset for writing it.

But more practically: Wander West, in Shadow is intended to be very long and very sprawling. Not every reader, or potential publisher or business partner, would want to commit to that. I would like to have at least one story where I can say, "This is self contained, this is the whole story, you don't need to commit to multiple thousand-page books to get the whole story."

And so that's why I'm writing City of the Lost: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/91483/city-of-the-lost

I can't promise you'll like it. It's much more high fantasy than dark fantasy, and it blends in some sci-fi elements. But it is meant to be self-contained. During this uncertain time in my life, I'm committing to doing one chapter update a week. (Though my chapters tend to be fairly substantial). If I find the time to write more, I will post more. I do hope at least some of you will like it.

The next thing I've decided is: After this standalone book, I will dive directly into writing the next Wander West, in Shadow book. I stand by my opinion that editing needs to be done. But after some thinking, none of the edits I'm planning on would impact the general plot of the second book. I do think that after the second book is done, I will definitely need to stop and do some edits. But I miss writing in that world, and it's my most popular work, so I want to get back to it.

Now, aside from those decisions: Right now, my patreon is essentially a tip jar. However, I am interested, at some point in the future, into making it into a proper patreon, with rewards for donating and maybe some tiers. So my question to you is: What sort of "extra content" would you be interested in? Some things I've seen authors offering is Discord access, or early access to future chapters, or exclusive short stories. One thing I was considering myself is that higher tiers could have access to a poll to vote on which story I write next from a list of potential candidates. What would you be interested in, as far as potential extra content goes?

Once again, I'm sorry for using this space for an announcement - I really wish RR had a better way to talk to your audience. But after the support last time, I really felt like I owed it to people to let them know my plans and I couldn't think of a better way to reach (mostly) everyone. And I want to thank again everyone who donated, responded, or did anything at all, really. I'm in a very uncertain time right now, and while money helps, so do positive messages. Even if you just do something like recommend my work to a friend, it helps. I'm very thankful that you guys are still interested after three years of silence. I hope to be in a space where I can write more for you soon.