Hi everybody! I hope you’re all nice and cozy. You haven’t heard from me in a while, but here’s a quick update of what I’ve been up to lately.
As you all know, I’m currently writing and publishing chapters of the second volume of my series on Patreon.
So, for those of you who are interested and are patient enough for this, please head over to Patreon if you’d like to show your support — > https://www.patreon.com/alexward
Needless to say, you get to enjoy all the angst in the world before everyone else, because as we all know by now, I love torturing my characters and my readers alike.
So, the work on the second volume is going steady, but I can say rather confidently that I’ve probably reached the middle of the book at this point.
Obviously, things can shift since the final length of the book will be determined by what happens from this point onwards, but I’m not about to bore you with that. Mystery and all that crap. Someone bring the smoke machines, please.
At the moment the book stands at 101K words and I’m clearly not done with it. Let the shock seep in and pass. That’s what I did since I’ve just triple checked to make sure I’m not seeing double again. We really don’t want that.
So, if you guys remember, Dead Inside had 121K words, so saying that I’ve surpassed any and all expectations I held for this is not an exaggeration.
I can also say that Shadows of The Past has a different vibe compared to Dead Inside. Obviously, both I and my characters have grown in the past two years, so it was just the natural course of things. Those of you who have already read the chapters on Patreon have noticed that I’m writing two POVs in a very different manner, which is quite the experience, to be honest. The book has a different pace than Dead Inside. Where the events in the first volume took place over the span of a couple of months, the many events happening in SotP span over a handful of days.
It sounds intense, and it is, but I feel that this was the right decision right now. I’d say that one big difference between SotP and DI is that the scenes are longer, more detailed, and built more carefully around the characters so that they can truly shine and grow.
Now, in other news, I have focused some of my attention on re-editing Dead Inside as well and, let me tell you, I had several moments when I just wanted to burn the damn thing and start all over again, however, I won’t be doing that.
Granted, looking back at my first book after almost two years since it was published, I got a different perspective on everything. Some of the plot holes are niggling at me, begging to be fixed, the chapters feel rushed at times because in some cases they might have been, but I won’t be doing any major edits. I’ve been retouching some of the wording here and there, rethinking descriptions and some details, but the book as a whole is still the same and it will remain like that for the foreseeable future.
I will let you guys know when the re-edit for Dead Inside will be uploaded on Amazon, so that you can all update your existing book and, hopefully, be able to enjoy a better version of the story. Most likely that won’t be the last edit of that book, and I still hope that at some point I will be able to get a professional to have a look at it, but it will have to do for the time being.
In the meantime, if you have read Dead Inside already, it would do me a world of good if you guys could just head over to Goodreads and leave a review or a rating for it. The more, the merrier, since I have plenty of faith that Shadows of The Past is at least ten times better than anything I wrote so far. I don’t want you guys to miss out on the second volume, because I know for a fact that both the story and my writing have improved over the years. And I’m confident my characters are going through twice the turmoil and anguish they’ve been through so far.
Maybe just ignore that last part, we can all pretend it never happened.
So, please, any review, feedback, or comment is much appreciated. Here’s a link to Dead Inside — > https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42015480-dead-inside
You can also find it on Kindle Unlimited — > https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Inside-Temporary-Bliss-1-ebook/dp/B07HLSW31P
And you can also find on GR the blurb and cover for the upcoming Shadows of the Past, which hopefully won’t be too long now — > https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50491026-shadows-of-the-past-i
Stay tuned and don’t forget that sharing is caring!
Thank you so much, everyone! 
#TemporaryBliss#shadowsofthepast#deadinisde
Alexander Ward Author 