A change to publishing schedules! (Patreon)

Hello all! I’m going to be making a few changes to the publishing schedule for both Katalepsis and Necroepilogos.

This post will be a little complicated, and quite long, so I’ll do a short version first, and then a longer version for anybody interested in the details. Don't feel like you have to read the long version, nobody is in any way obligated!

The short version first.

Both Katalepsis and Necroepilogos are going to move to a schedule of three weeks on, one week off. i.e. both stories will get published three times a month, rather than the current four times a month. Three chapters in a row, then one week without a chapter, then three more, and so on. This situation may be temporary, especially for Katalepsis. I’m going to be keeping each story’s Table of Contents (Kata here, Necro here) updated more diligently in future, in order to avoid any confusion about when those breaks will happen. Patron chapters will be on the same three-one schedule; however, Patrons are likely going to get a couple more chapters ahead quite soon.

Because of this, there will be no Necroepilogos chapter this week, on the 15th of August. Necroepilogos will resume on the 22nd of August, like normal.

Okay then! Now for the long version!

I’ve been trying to hold off on doing this for a long time; I wanted to reach the end of Katalepsis Book One, and then give myself a little breathing room to recalibrate before Book Two, but circumstances are forcing my hand.

Readers of both stories may have noticed a pattern starting to emerge — I took a week off Katalepsis in June due to illness, and then a week off Necroepilogos in July because I’d tripped over the tangled mess of my own planning. Now, in August, some unexpected interruptions have disrupted my usual writing schedule at the start of the week, and I find myself having to choose which story to place on another 1-week break, which one to triage, etc. I’ve rapidly discovered over the last 3 months that even a small interruption or a day’s worth of extra work can set my writing schedule back far enough to disrupt the publishing of a chapter. And that’s a serious problem!

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but since the start of 2024 I’ve been working mostly six days a week, but sometimes seven. I’m not saying this to brag! It’s not good to do that, it’s really not healthy. I love writing, I love what I do, it is my reason for existing, and I’m incredibly lucky that I get to do this. But I may have gotten a little foolish. I’ve tried a bunch of things to make this sustainable, and it was working for a while. However, recently? I’ve begun to buckle. Not in a way that’s effected the stories though; I would never let that happen, it would be counter-productive to sacrifice quality for speed. But yeah, my schedule has become untenable.

Katalepsis Book One is deep in the final climax, and incredibly thematically complex right now. Necroepilogos started with shorter chapters, but it’s ended up much more successful than I ever thought it would be, so the complexity — and the necessary length — of each chapter has increased as the narrative has moved into the next phases. All of this has required much more planning and editing per chapter. I’m pretty sure that I’m still as efficient as I always was, perhaps even more so now that I’m a bit more experienced, but I’m running up against the limits of my abilities, the limits of what I can achieve in a single week.

So! I figure it’s better to build these breaks into my publishing structure, at least temporarily, rather than have these pop up as unhappy surprises and leave readers disappointed at random. And, above all, I want to avoid burnout. Better to pump the brakes than crash.

I’m not actually going to be working any less!

…

Okay, well, no, maybe a little bit less. I’m going to use this to avoid working seven days a week. I’m going to use this to avoid burnout. I’m not really taking a step back — I don’t think I could ‘take a step back’ from writing, it’s not in my nature — I’m just trying to gain some breathing room, and bank some work to avoid unplanned interruptions, and so on.

I’m going to start by putting Necroepilogos on a 1-week break, exactly 3 chapters after the previous one. This is partly because the next Katalepsis chapter is partially written already, and I’m about to spend another portion of this week dealing with the unexpected issue I mentioned at the start of this post, when I would usually be writing Necroepilogos.

…

So, this plan isn’t permanent. I’m going to use this extra time — this breathing room — to keep writing like normal, even if I’m publishing 1/4 less (in theory, more on that in a sec). This should enable me to rebuild a backlog/buffer, for both stories. I haven’t had a buffer for Necroepilogos since arc 2, and not for Katalepsis since 2020. Once I have a backlog again, I can potentially return to publishing every week, or simply ignore the planned ‘skipped’ weeks now and again in order to publish at a faster rate without committing to burning through the entire buffer. I’ll have to see how that goes.

This also means I’m going to try to put out a few more advance chapters for patrons, probably with Necroepilogos first; if I have a chapter ready to publish for patrons on a break week, I may as well do so!

This is made more complex by the fact that Katalepsis is almost at the end of Book One. I’m very reluctant to take any kind of break from Katalepsis right now. So, after everything I’ve just said, I’m going to slip in a little note here — Katalepsis may not even go on this schedule, not for long, maybe only once or twice. I’m going to keep those break weeks penciled in, but don’t be surprised if Katalepsis just keeps on chugging until the end of Book One, when I’ll be taking a planned break, in order to step back and go over my outline for Book Two before starting it.

In the background, there’s a bunch of high-level admin tasks I’ve been putting off all year, wich some readers have noticed, (new website, cover art, ebooks). I know those don’t seem very exciting as a reader, but I know I can’t put them off forever. The writing will come first, but this breathing room will hopefully allow me to address some of those, too.

Phew, um.

Seriously? I didn’t want to do this, and it does make me nervous.

I am keenly aware that my regularity and consistency is a big part of why my two stories have the audience they do. So, this is kind of scary for me! I’m not going to pretend I’m not worried about losing readers, or disappointing others with occasional breaks, even if this plan isn’t permanent.

But I did promise you all multiple times that I would do my best to avoid burnout. That’s what this is; I’m not there yet, but I would be if I kept going.

I feel like I’m asking too much here — especially for public readers; patrons are likely to get new chapters ahead and possibly return to a 4/month structure on an ad hoc basis (especially for Katalepsis, as I mentioned), but I’m still going to be potentially publishing 1/4 less, and I know that’s a lot! But I feel like I have a choice between burnout, or accepting that with two stories, at this level of complexity, I have to give myself that tiny bit of breathing room, even if it’s just a couple of days every four weeks.

I dearly hope that I have earned your trust as a writer, and that you’ll trust me to continue doing justice to the stories I’m writing, and more in the future.

Thank you so much for your understanding and patience; I know I say this every time I make a non-story patreon post, but I really mean it. None of this would be remotely possible without all of you and your support. I am endlessly grateful that I’ve been given the opportunity to write these stories for all you. And I will keep doing my absolute best. I have so much more to write!

Thank you all!