Author Journey (November 1, 2021)

Well, it looks like I am going to do NaNoWriMo again this year. I never imagined I would be finishing off the story I started last November, but then nobody could have predicted this year… Not even Nostradamus!
November 1, 2021
#Blogging
I experienced my first moment of concern from the seasonal anime, and if I’m honest, it’s been building for a couple of weeks. At the moment, Takt Op. Destiny is slowly losing my interest. It’s not terrible, but I’ve enjoyed each episode less than the previous one. I will, of course, finish it as I don’t think it’s fair to drop a show mid-season. It’s got another eight weeks in which to win me back if the rumours of a twelve-episode season are true.
Seasonal Anime
- Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation
- Takt Op. Destiny
- The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat
Luckily, however, Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation and The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat are excellent and I look forward to them each week, watching the newest episode as soon as it airs. To get two shows that have gripped me like that is great and more than makes up for Takt Op. Destiny‘s underwhelming performance so far. I am definitely glad that I decided to jump back into season anime.
Historic Anime
There was some story development in Heaven’s Lost Property thanks to Sugata and a teaser for the first movie. However, it wasn’t the best episode thanks to a silly second half. My review of the penultimate episode of How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω came out too and while it had some good moments, it also highlighted some of the poor storytelling decisions this season has made. I never thought I would be counting down the days until I’m done with this season! Jujutsu Kaisen has started the inter-school tournament and it is a fantastic arc. This episode, however, is a bit slow as it’s all preparation! It’s about to get so good though, so I’ll allow it!
#AmWriting
It’s been a very slow week for writing as I got caught up in a couple of other projects that demanded more of my time. However, with those done, I now have twenty weeks worth of blog posts scheduled. Going forward, I can write up one blog post a day to maintain my enormous buffer and keep up with my seasonal shows.
One thing that has been on my mind lately has been how to plan to launch my book once it’s ready. A lot of the advice with independent publishing is to write three books in a series and then publish them close together. It helps give you credibility and stops the whale readers from forgetting all about you while you write the next book. With that in mind, I have been thinking a lot about the next two books for the series.
I had always planned on it being a series but had originally planned on taking a lot longer between releases. It’s a tough one because you want to balance reader expectations. If I release three books over a twelve-week period, I need to be careful that they won’t expect the next one a month later. It definitely makes sense that I take my time to get everything ready before I begin so, I shall begin work on book two as soon as I’ve finished the first draft of book one. That way, I’ll have fresh eyes when I give it good editing.
#NaNoWriMo
I know I said last week that I wasn’t going to wait for NaNoWriMo to finish my book, but the universe had other ideas and who am I to argue with the universe? Since NaNoWriMo started today, I have one-thousand six-hundred and sixty-seven words to get done today, which should be about a chapter. I’m expecting there to be about sixteen more chapters in this book and then I’ll dive straight into the second one. That’s going to mean I have a little more plotting to do, but that’s not a bad thing.
The more I can develop my routine so that I can switch between projects and roles within any given day, the more productive I can become. I’ve been working hard to build up an impressive buffer for my blog posts and it’s now at the point where maintaining it should be fairly straightforward, especially after the amount of work I’ve put in of late.
Another thing that has been jumping around in my mind has been what to do with my part of the Black Death story. My coauthor has now released his part as a standalone novel and I hope it does well. I’ve already bought a copy as I’m curious how he’s decided to end it now that it’s not three stories coming together.
My part of the story comes to about sixty-thousand words so it would work as a novel on its own. Of course, the idea of developing it into a trilogy does make much more sense, especially after you consider what I mentioned earlier. I’ve already had some ideas on how to change things up so that the villain I used in what would have been book one can be the main villain all the way through. There’s a lot of work to turn it into three full books, but I think it’ll be worth it and it’ll be a lot easier than trying to pull three timelines together.
I’ve noticed some similarities with Otherside Picnic and my drafts of Black Death. So, I think I’m going to embrace that and make this a Shoujo Ai series. It will be an interesting experiment and I’m looking forward to getting back to that at some point in the near future. Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for reading and stay safe.

Best of luck with NaNoWriMo! ☺️
Thanks. I’ll do my best!