The Glorious Becoming - UPDATE

1 year, 4 months, 20 days.

That's how long its been since Epic 3: Hero was officially published. That's almost how long its taken for me to feel like writing again.

I've gotten a couple questions about the progress of book four, and without doing what most companies do by sugarcoating everything, I'll be completely honest in confessing that TGB's writing process has not gone well up until this point. It's not that the story isn't good - it is. It's not that I'm at a plot crossroads - the direction of Epic is still for the most part on course. The simple truth is that Hero was the single most draining piece of literature that I've ever written. It was the kind of "draining" that left me wanting to call it a career. The book was necessary. I feel it was done well. It just cost me my love for writing. Call it the effects of a lot of life changes, call it the result of pumping out three books in three years, call it what you will. I just know that when Hero was done, I didn't want to do this anymore.

Over the past 1 year and 4 months, I've officially "pumped out" 40,000 words of book four, which is slightly less than half of Outlaw Trigger (the smallest book in the series). You'll notice I left out the 20 days, there. And that's the good part.

In the past 20 days, I've written over 20,000 words.

I cannot remember being this excited to write. I can't remember loving to write this much. What was only recently a frustrating obligation has reignited itself as a passion. Maybe time worked its healing magic; maybe life started to settle down. But for whatever reason, I've recaptured what I've been missing for so long.

So enough about that, right? What about book four? Well, I've already explained that I'm not the sugarcoating type of guy. So I won't sugarcoat this next part, either:

Epic 4: The Glorious Becoming is going to be the most thrilling, shocking, revealing, and captivating book you have ever read.

Teasers for book four will be few and far between, as much like Outlaw Trigger, to know anything in advance is to deprive you of something that needs to be experienced firsthand. But this one's going to be fun. So get ready, Epic Universe. This is what you've been waiting for.

In closing, I leave you with a quote - a pace-setter for the rest of this series. In the words of Tauthinilaas, captive of Novosibirsk:

"We were but the thunder."


-Lee Stephen