Dear readers,

At the beginning of the year, I began work on the second book of The Redemption of Erâth, Exile. My intention was to follow the pattern I set last year of writing a new chapter each week – thus completing the book in about 25 weeks.

It’s now the 9th week of the year, and I’ve written 5 chapters. There are several things that have gotten in the way of this goal. For one, the chapters have become inherently longer (some as much as 150%), which takes more time to write. There have been a number of events in the past couple of months that have taken time away from my writing as well.

However, the most important reason I need to slow down is for my own health. Since I started looking into sleep disorders and had a polysomnography done, I’ve realized that my perpetual exhaustion may be more than just “the way I am.” My UP band (which has been simply wonderful) has helped me to realize that I am sometimes getting as little as 5 hours of sleep a night, which for me is not nearly enough. I am now consistently dozing off whilst driving to and from work, and I am going to have a serious accident if I’m not able to keep my focus on the road.

So in all of this, something has to give. My typical day starts at 6:00 AM, and I don’t have a chance to sit down and write until about 9:30 PM at the earliest. In the past, I would spend until midnight writing before going to bed, under the assumption that I’d be getting my minimum of 6 hours of sleep.

I was talking about this with a colleague at work, and I mentioned that if I went to bed earlier, I wouldn’t be able to get as much writing done. In her infinite wisdom, she pointed out that I wouldn’t get much writing done from a coffin either. It’s a fair point.

So for the immediate future, I will be slowing the progress on Exile so that I can focus on my health, and hopefully get an extra hour of sleep or so each night. I will still write on my days off, and if I happen to have an early evening, I’ll be working then, too. I want to apologize, because I feel equally anxious to find out what’s going to happen to Brandyé next. For now, though, the next part of his story will have to come more slowly.

I appreciate your readership, your support, your kindness and your patience. We will get there – and find out exactly what’s going to happen to the world of Erâth!

With the deepest affection,

Satis