Last week’s post was a bit heavy for me, but talking about my imposter syndrome is important. Unfortunately that doesn’t solve it, but I like to think that it helps. This week I would like something a bit lighter, a bit more aspirational, but just as personal. That’s right, I’m here to talk about the Future.

As always, the Future is a muddling miasmic muck of vague hopes and ideals tempered by the crushing reality of doubt and fear. Despite the odds stacked against us, we all hope for a brighter future. Though I dare say that things have been very difficult for me on that front. This post aims to change that. Or at the very least, lay out a crude road map.

The launch of Pallas Lost is right around the corner, and that is both exciting and terrifying. Even though I’ve had great response so far from friends and family, that imposter syndrome is making it hard to hope the success will continue beyond that. But because humans are mercurial creatures capable of living with dichotomy, at the same time I have plans to continue the series.

The second book, Pallas Found, is 90-95% written. As I am a plantser by nature, during NaNoWriMo this year I took a turn I didn’t see coming. I completely invalidated my original ending, and I’m currently working out what the new one will look like. I’ve given myself a pretty good deadline, however. I intend to release Pallas Found in 2023, ideally one year to the day after Pallas Lost.

That is an ambitious goal, however. It took almost a decade to bring Pallas Lost to this point, and I’m determined not to let another decade go by without a follow-up. Plus, my wife will literally kill me if I renege on finishing the sequel. I hope to finish writing the first draft in the next month or so, and then pushing it to Alpha readers.

Hell, maybe a year is too optimistic. But I’m going to do my best to stick with it. Once I push the Alphas out, I’ll start laying the groundwork for the threequel. I always saw the Pallas story as a trilogy, and that plan hasn’t changed. It won’t end where or how I originally planned, however, so I’m excited to see where the story takes us all.

At the same time in the background I’ve been working on a fantasy series. It is based on my homebrew D&D setting, though significantly changed and tweaked to be altogether, well, novel when compared to the world of D&D. Part of my planning has been the creation of  unique races and creatures to populate the realm. The world is Pelynos, and the story takes place in Rhomeria. I don’t want to say too much more at this time because the story is still in its infancy.

After the Rhomeria book comes out, there will be others in that setting. I have ideas for other books in the Fifteen Systems universe to complement the Pallas books. By this point, who knows, maybe I’ll have other ideas that I’ll want to tackle instead. At the end of the day, I would just like my work to be at least somewhat successful. I’ve often said I’ll consider myself a successful author when I get my first fanart or cosplay.

We’ll see.