***PLEASE NOTE*** If you aren't someone who cares about character POVs or story flows, you are absolutely free to skip this update. It's only here to prevent confusion as the story progresses. The only thing of note that you may be interested in is a spotify playlist that will be linked below ^~^ Thank you for reading!!!

Hey, hello, hiya! How are we all doing on this fine day?

Good?

GOOD!

I just wanted to drop in with a few, quick announcements going forward with this novel. Nothing major, I'm not going on hiatus or anything like that, I promise ^~^

So, first off, if you like my writing and would like to support me and my future projects (like this one) you can buy my first ever published novel Colony 782 on Amazon! I'll link it below. You can read its sequel book, Behind Violet Irises right here on Tapas until its publication date in October of this year, 2022! (Though, fair warning, I upload only the first draft so the finished product will likely be VERY different)

Now, why exactly am I pushing a book that y'all aren't reading? Well, the answer is actually pretty simple. The Fourth Verse Trilogy (more on that in a second) will be the next series I tackle in getting published. However, getting books done with very strict timelines is tremendously hard when you work over forty hours a week. Now, this isn't a "buy my book so I can quit my fulltime job" type of advertisement. It's more along the lines of being able to request part time so that I have just a little more time to meet those deadlines. Annnnnnd I'd love for y'all to visit my first published novel just for a reference as to how much I'm growing as a writer :)

If I feel like the publishing process (which sucks, btw) is worth the effort, TFV will be my next project to tackle. The Colony trilogy probably won't be finished until either late 2023 or early 2024. Really depends on what these next few years throw at me. Considering that Rekindled is a SECOND draft, however, means that it'll probably either release alongside either book 2: Behind Violet Irises or book 3: The Old World. Can't promise anything, but that IS what I'm shooting for.

With that being said, unlike the first draft of TFV that had only two, short books, this second draft will be expanding on the world, characters, and history revolving around the story. It'll be another trilogy. The Fourth Verse: Hymn of the Dead is what you're reading right now. Then we'll have Mending Melodies as book 2 and Trumpets of the Damned as book 3. Acknowledging that this is only draft two of a usually 6-7 draft process, I wanted to give y'all a heads up regarding the POV flow of these three books.

In Hymn of the Dead (what you're reading at the moment) we switched POVs in the beginning of the book before I decided to keep it to Aden's POV with intermissions from other characters (stuff like Henry's Intermissions, Da Capos, Logan's Bridges, etc.). The final draft of this book will entirely omit Logan's POV chapters with potential bridges using those chapters, leaving Aden as the primary POV character.

In Mending Melodies, this POV will change to Logan. We will have an entire book with the roles switched. Bridges will be told from Aden's POV while Logan will rotate into the primary character in book 2. Da Capos and Henry's Intermissions will stay the same, but our two main boys will flip flop.

Aaaaaand in Trumpets of the Damned, it'll return to Aden and Logan both being the primary POV characters like it was in the first chapters of this one.

Now, why? Why format everything like this?

Well, the best way to grow as a writer is to consume. Read as much as you can and allow the writings of others to influence your own craft. I recently read a series that told the story from a single POV character. There's a lot of mystery surrounding the second primary character that we as the readers don't get because, well, the POV character has yet to learn about what surrounds that second primary. However, later on, the author introduces special episodes that dig into the lives of various other supporting characters. Most of them, though, revolve around that second primary.

I really liked this method of story telling and found myself engaged throughout the entire book. I felt that Hymn of the Dead would be best told from Aden's POV because Logan has always, ALWAYS, been the character whose past we know very little about. Slowly revealing it in Logan's Bridges would be far better for the first book as Aden actively seeks to understand that period of time they were apart all while trying to repair their broken relationship.

For Mending Melodies, I wanted it to be from Logan's POV because, as the title suggests, Logan will be learning to trust again. Breaking out of this fearful mold he's been stuck in for almost a decade. We will watch Logan work on himself and opening up to those helping him heal.

The reason for the switching POV in Trumpets of the Damned is not only complicated but RIDDLED with spoilers, so I'm gonna skip that talk XD

Now, that's all the explanations that HOPEFULLY help with any confusion. I do have a hard time putting to words explanations that seem clear in my head so, if you have further questions, please feel free to comment them below <3 But, I have one more announcement!

With each of the three books, I'll be putting together spotify playlists that go with them!!! WHOOOO!!! The first one to release will be for Hymn of the Dead, and these songs either carry the vibe that I'm trying to achieve with the writing of book 1 or songs that relate to how the characters are feeling throughout it. I'll link it below :)

And with that, I conclude this long ass ramble of a madwoman T^T Thank you for sticking around and remember to stay safe, stay kind, and we'll see you for the next Lyric!!! <3 <3 <3