Announcement: Major changes coming to the story

As the title says, significant changes are coming to the story. TL;DR: I'm taking December and January off and then the release schedule will change to three chapters per week. There will be the usual slate of five chapters this week, two chapters next week and then I'm going on hiatus.

The burnout is real. I've been releasing this story for more than three years and I've been writing it for closer to five. The schedule of five chapters a week has been critical to bringing more success than I realised was even possible, let alone, hoped for. But as the years plug on, burnout keeps coming back, faster and worse every time.

Especially in the last year, the number and length of breaks has been far beyond anything that came before. A lot of that was about the changes in my life unrelated to writing. I bought a house, which is always way more work than you expect. I have long intended to keep the five-per-week release schedule until the end of the series, but it has become clear that it's not a sustainable approach. There is little point releasing five chapters per week written at the point of exhaustion if I can only do so for four month of the year before I have a mental breakdown.

The answer is to make a change. The goal is to have fewer breaks and for the writing to improve as I get less stress and more sleep. We'll have to see how that works out. I am taking December off to rest, aside from my trip to Los Angeles where I'll be having a big board game event with some of my patrons. Then I will be taking January to write without releasing anything so I can build a backlog of chapters before releases resume in February. At that point, the release schedule will change to three chapters per week.

I'd like to take the chance to thank you all for reading and supporting my work over the years, and I hope you enjoy what's ahead as much or more than what is behind us. The goal of these changes are to put myself in a position where I can not just keep writing but write better, through the end of He Who Fights With Monsters and into future projects. My life is completely different to what it was just a few years ago. You, my amazing readers, have transformed my life through your love of my story. I can never sufficiently express my gratitude, which is probably not something I should admit when my job is literally to express concepts through the written word. It's not a good look. Anyway, thanks.

-Travis Deverell (Shirtaloon)