Arc IV of Greysons of Grimoire is almost over! On Friday you’ll see the final chapter of the Arc. And with the knowledge that this week would only need two more chapters to complete the Arc, this seemed like the perfect time to do something I’ve been needing to do for a while.
Instead of posting three chapters a week — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — I’ll be scaling back to just two chapters per week, posted on Mondays and Fridays.
This has been needing to happen for a while. Greysons started partially as an experiment, but its core motivation was to fix the problems I saw in myself, which was a slow, erratic writing pace. I know there are plenty of professional authors who write very slowly. But for me, that’s just not acceptable. And that’s for one very simple reason…
I have too many stories to write!
I’m overflowing with ideas and have so many stories I’m excited to bring to life! If I can’t write faster, if I can’t write better while also writing more, then I’ll never get to so many exciting stories, worlds, and characters. Some authors only write one major story in their entire lives. They make a living off of just that, they get famous off of just that.
I can’t do that.
Even if somehow Greysons became outrageously famous and I made billions of dollars off of it alone, I’d still try to write faster. I’d still write so much more. I write because I’m called to it, because I need to do it, that kind of need that I think so many artists understand, and a lot of non-artists don’t. And I have too many stories to write to slow down.
So I’ve been absolutely blown away by what Greysons has done for me. Three chapters a week, without fail, only stopping for planned breaks and only for two weeks at the most, at the end of a story Arc.
I’ve written more in two years than I did for nearly my entire life before this. It’s been absolutely amazing.
But at the same time, I realize a need to slow down with Greysons. Because while it’s been going strong, I’ve been struggling to write other things. I’ve been struggling to edit Greysons and work on a project that I’ll be announcing very soon, one that I’m extremely excited about and I wish I’d been able to announce months ago, but it’s taken much longer…
Because of three chapters a week.
I’ve been working on several other stories that I love to bits, but I’ve struggled to move them forward consistently, and that’s very frustrating.
Because of three chapters a week.
In Arc III, but especially in Arc IV, there are numerous pairs of chapters that were planned as a single, dense, exciting chapter, but were split in two because I ran out of time, writing right up to the deadline, or because I just exhausted my brain, I was totally burnt out and it was all I could manage to get that much done.
There are several chapters — not many, thank goodness — but several that have not lived up to my own personal standard of quality. I think there’s maybe only one that I’d say is bordering on “bad,” but there are several that I look at and think “the content is there, but the heart isn’t.”
Three chapters a week has become untenable, but that’s a good thing, because of why three chapters a week just can’t work anymore.
Cutting back to two chapters allows me to write denser, more fulfilling and exciting chapters packed with content and the quality I strive for and you deserve. Cutting back to two chapters allows me to more effectively work on other projects and stories at the same time, without losing my mind or burning out. Cutting back to two chapters helps me to more efficiently complete the more exciting, more meaningful projects, the first of which I’ll be announcing very soon, and is Greysons-related.
Some people might ask…
“Why would you even think of writing multiple stories at once? Isn’t that distracting? Can’t you do more by focusing on one story at a time?”
I mean, I guess for some people that’s true. I guess I can sort of see your perspective.
But for me, focusing on one thing, and one thing only, is absolutely torturous. Not because I hate the thing I’m focusing on — I adore Greysons, it went from this silly experiment to my favorite story I’m currently writing, something I’m so passionate about and invested in. No, it would be torturous because my mind can’t do that. It can’t lock into one thing and only work on that at the expense of all else. As weird as it sounds, taking a break from writing to… well, write… is so helpful to me. I can burn out on Greysons but have tons of mental and emotional energy for a different story in that same day, then come back to Greysons the next day totally rejuvenated. My mind is always in numerous stories at once, no matter how deep I am in writing the current Greysons chapter, there’s always background noise about this story or that story.
It doesn’t stop. So I can’t stop. I’ve learned to make sure I get every idea down in writing as soon as possible, because as good as my memory is with fiction (it’s, uh… less reliable in real-life things. I should work on that), I can still forget things, still have ideas and scenes slip through my fingers. And I constantly have scenes and concepts fly through my mind, scenes and concepts I can’t apply to Greysons, but are just so dang good for this other story!
So I’ve got to write them down.
I think it goes to a lot of other things in my life. I may not be great at active multi-tasking, but I can be watching numerous shows concurrently, playing numerous video games concurrently, reading numerous books concurrently, and not get lost between them. They don’t get jumbled in my mind, and it’s just so much fun to read a chapter in The Silmarillion, pop in the bookmark, then read a chapter in Log Horizon! To play an hour or two in Baten Kaitos and then jump over to Tales of Symphonia for the next dungeon or boss fight. It doesn’t get mixed up in my brain. Fiction just makes sense to me, and maybe me trying to explain my mind just makes me sound like a total mess.
To be fair, I probably am a total mess.
So, let’s simplify. I’ll reference one of my favorite manga and anime, Bakuman. It’s about aspiring mangaka trying to make it in the shonen manga industry, and it’s wonderfully inspiring and oh so hilarious. It features a character who I rather find I identify with at times — Niizuma Eiji. He’s a genius, and I’m not, and he’s a crazy person, which… well, I don’t let the crazy show, at least. But regardless! There’s a wonderful line late in the series where he’s working on two serialized manga simultaneously, which is insane to everyone else in the industry… but he’s having the time of his life. And when he’s asked why he would do such a thing to himself, he simply replies:
“It’s fun to work on multiple things at once!”
The lovable mad genius, Niizuma Eiji
And that’s really all there is to it, I suppose. It really is fun, so unbelievably exciting and enjoyable, to work on multiple things at once. And if I’m ever going to write even half of the stories in my brain, I need to be working on multiple things at once.
I’ll continue to hold myself to a high standard of quality in storytelling, and continue to work on raising that bar higher as I get better. Two chapters a week means the story goes a bit slower, but that’s not so bad. It means you get better chapters. It means you get more thoughtful storytelling.
And it means you’ll get to see a lot more of what I’ve been working on behind the scenes a whole lot sooner. There are some really wild and exciting stories on the way.
It also frees me up to blog more often! I went to Animazement again this year, and had so much to say, I even wrote up all my notes on it! It was a wonderful time, even better than last year, and I was so excited to write a blog post about it again…
Notice how it didn’t happen? I may still write it, we’ll see. But there will be more blogging and talking about things, not just Greysons, in the future now.
Oh, and two chapters a week is also great for the future in terms of web novels. Because I’ve had a few ideas in mind for future web novels when Greysons is done — I’m not stopping the web novel thing, it’s been way too good for my productivity and excellent exercise for my storytelling ability — and I finally settled on what follows Greysons.
And I settled on two web novels.
I couldn’t choose between them! So with two chapters a week, after Greysons you’ll get a proper even dose of each story each week. But that’s not until next year, we’ll talk more about that when we get close.
Like the mad genius said, it’s fun to work on multiple things at once.
Please keep enjoying Greysons, and look forward to what’s to come. There isn’t just the next Arc, there’s an exciting announcement coming very soon, and possibly more in the future after that.
Oh, and by the way, the next Arc will be the last. Five Arcs! The finale of Greysons of Grimoire is coming!
…Soon. A little bit slower than it would have originally, but it’ll be all the better for it.
Stay tuned. Keep reading. And I hope you’re loving Greysons as much as I am. The fourth Arc ends this week! That’s wild! I’ve known the ending of this Arc for a long time, and I know it’s taken a lot of chapters… I didn’t realize it would take this long to get to the final chapter. But the good thing is, this final chapter is one I’ve had planned for a long time. So… it should be a great one. Fingers crossed.
So there are the announcements for today. Greysons Arc IV ends this Friday! We’re cutting back to two chapters a week, starting this week, so no more Wednesday chapters! And Arc V, the final Arc of Greysons, begins after a brief break on Monday, August 12th!
And another exciting announcement, getting its own blog post, coming very soon.
Stay tuned! Keep reading! And thank you so much for reading. It means the world to me that you even moderately enjoy my stories. If I’ve made you smile, or laugh, or cry (good tears!), then I’m happier than I can express.
…I’m struggling with an ending to this blog post. Just like I often struggle with ending chapters.
It’s getting late here, so I’ll just say:
Good night!
