Part of being a writer is making decisions on the fly.
Part of being me, evidently, is feeling a compulsion to keep everyone who cares to read in on the loop.
To dispense with the suspense: Our Own Way 7 will be the final installment, and it’ll be longer than the others.
I was having the same trouble I did before, my soft-lock problem, only it was a little different this time. Every day that passes is another day I’m not working on Raw III and at this point I’ve kind of had my fill of both Our Own Way and A Warm Place. I know, not exactly something you want to hear from an author of a series you like, but this happens with basically everything I’ve ever written, so it’s nothing new.
And, I’d like to emphasize this: I REALLY want to work on Raw III. But I need to do it right, with a clear head, which means finishing up these other two series.
The thing I kept coming back to, as I worked on both AWP9 and OOW7, was that I STILL had to write OOW8 even after I finished these two current projects, and it just…it was causing problems in my brain.
Have you ever run into this situation?: You are trying to do something a very specific way, you are just stubbornly dead-set on doing it this one specific way, even though it’s killing you. And then, finally, you, for even just five seconds, entertain the notion of ‘but what if I did it this other way?’, and it’s like a lightbulb with a heavenly chorus going off.
For me, that was insisting on writing two more Our Own Ways instead of one. It was blocking the whole creative pipeline, not just for Our Own Way but for EVERYTHING. But the second I thought ‘what if I wrapped it up on part seven?’, it was like a firework bursting in my head screaming YES. Abruptly, no more clogging. It just felt right.
So, if you were looking forward to two more parts, then I’m sorry. The story itself won’t change, but this way, I won’t have to stretch out scenes to reach an arbitrary wordcount like I might have had to otherwise had I kept forcing myself to do it the other way.
Anyway, I’m progressing nicely with Our Own Way 7, basically just working on it as fast as I can. I want to get it, and The Complete Series, written and out very soon. There is going to be art (nude & clothed) of Sadie, as well as a new, hot side character that makes an appearance in the final installment.
Ideally, I will see you all again soon (within the next seven days) with this.
In the meantime, don’t forget that if you want to read the story in early access, you can do so on my Patreon for 3$/month.