Hey - that's not a chapter!

(TL;DR - Chapter delayed due to being really long and my work ramping up.  Schedule notes and patron benefits described in the second half of the post.)

Hi folks!  I hate to do this to you after the end of that last chapter, but it doesn't look like chapter 64 is going to be fully baked by tomorrow and I need to push it a week.  There are several reasons for this, but chief among them is that I'm in the middle of deploying a large project at work and am getting sucked into 6+ hours of testing every day in addition to my normal stuff.  

The other reason is that this chapter is the rest of the story.  Chapter 64 has been the designated end of Inheritors of Eschaton for a month or two now, but that doesn't mean that there's only one chapter's worth of content left - there is no good natural breakpoint after the end of last chapter, so I've decided to just lump it all together into one big epic finale.  The writing work scales accordingly, however, and with my reduced time it just ran away from me.

I'm not sure how many of you were readers of my previous novel, Grand Design, but one of the things that happened near the end of that book was that I got delayed by real-world events and wrote a lot of the finale the night before I posted it online.  I like the ending, but several people have pointed out that it was abrupt, a little shorter than they expected, or otherwise somewhat ineffably less than the story really deserved - and I agree with them.  

So, I promised myself I wouldn't do that this time around.  I'll use the extra week to put some polish on the finale, and hopefully it will be everything we all want for the end of this wild, crazy ride.

Now that we've got that out of the way, you'd be justified in asking what this means for the Patreon, the Discord and me in general.  Here's what I'm looking at for the next couple of months:

• FEBRUARY 3RD: Chapter 64 is done and posted.  Much rejoicing, etc etc.  All y'all start wondering what you're chipping into the Patreon for now that there's no more chapters.  I've given some thought to the matter and I've decided that February's patron bonus will be a signed physical edition of IoE for everyone who stays on from January.  Your support has really meant a lot to me over the past year-plus-a-bit, so I figure it's the least I can do.
• FEBRUARY 10TH will be a skip week while I work on the manuscript and recuperate from getting this damn project deployed.   I may post a regular Wednesday update consisting mostly of profanity and complaints about formatting woes.
• FEBRUARY 17TH: I'll make another post with firmer details about the publishing schedule and instructions for receiving your copy.  Somewhere near this date is my target for having the manuscript ready to go.  I figure this one is going to take some work because it's not only long as hell, I've got 64 full-page images to wrangle and delusions of grandeur about what I want the chapter headings to look like.  
• FEBRUARY 24TH(?): I don't have a solid date on this one since the schedule isn't entirely in my hands, but at some point during the month I hope to receive another piece of wonderful artwork from the talented Harry Rowland, who has been the cover artist for both of my stories thus far.  I've already got things brewing for the next story I plan to write, and around this point is when I'll be able to share a shot of the cover and a little preview with you all.

SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR MARCH? Things get nebulous as we wander into the future, but here's how I see March going - I'm going to be writing a lot.  I had a 60k word buffer for IoE when I started posting it, and although I don't think I need quite that much I'd like to get a bit of a head-start to get to know the story and its characters before I begin posting chapters.  

The next story I'm writing is not a sequel to IoE.  I think there's room for one, but I'll need some time to explore what that looks like before I'm ready to venture there.  I will post a preview and the completed cover on Feb. 24th so that you can decide if you want to stay on the train or hop off here.  

I will likely take all of March for pre-release writing.  Rather than chapter posts, my Wednesday content for March will be writing notes and status updates.  This means that I will post the first chapter of the next story on Wednesday, April 7th for patrons and we'll proceed as normal from there.  

I want to reiterate how much I appreciate your support, comments and patronage, and hope that the coming year exceeds the past one in writing, storytelling, and honestly in almost every conceivable metric because holy fuck 2020 was a shitshow.  Love you all, and I'll see you next week!