Ending in progress. Editing planned.

Hello everyone,

While the team is working hard on Chapter 8 for Light My Way, I am putting effort into Graven. I'm almost done with the first draft of the story. I can confidently say that this entire thing is totally unexpected how it developed. I look at the word count and am like "Whoa...That's actually a lot". When I started in November, I thought I would write 50k words but, obviously, I had no idea what I was talking about. I tried doing more than what my bandwidth currently allows. The combination with the 1 year anniversary of my mom's passing didn't do me any favors and I ended up not writing for about a month due to my mental health taking a huge hit. I had a bit of a breakdown in November and ups and downs during December, especially during the holidays, but I bounced back at the beginning of January. Work has gotten in the way and it's now getting more stressful, but also...good stress I'd say, so I am optimistic about the future for once. 

I've written almost all of the novel during a 2 month period I'd say. I am surprised by my own resilience in getting to this point. But now, seeing so many words in front of me, I'm overwhelmed with the amount I have to edit to make this novel something great. I honestly feel like it could be really amazing if I don't rush it and put in patience and hard work. There are parts that I will either change or delete entirely. And that's because of my next point.

And now, the bad part in terms of how long it might take. I have done research, watched videos, read articles, books, etc., and based on all of my findings, my story lacks key elements that are absolutely necessary to make it shine. On one hand, I'm happy that I identified most of my weaknesses, but now I have to face the facts themselves and start the grueling process of fixing everything. The first two parts were written at the beginning of November when my goal was to rush through the story to get to 50k words. Re-reading it has shown me many, too many, problems. I have failed to explain a lot because I didn't consider those details necessary at that point. Once I got to Part 3, where I took my sweet time in properly developing the narrative, the difference was night and day. The story there is rich with details, and there are plenty of hints as to what is what, where, and why. 

I plan to use the month of February entirely for editing. Even Part 3 has some unresolved issues that I need to fix, but overall, the story reads really well. I gave it enough emotional depth to let the reader sink in low enough to feel it properly. The response to it remains to be seen, but I am very happy with the way everything played out. 

A note to anyone expecting NSFW from Bat Studios. It won't happen. Not in Graven, not in Light My Way, not in any of my future stories. In my opinion, NSFW material takes away from the story which in my case is meant to challenge my readers. Throwing in porn feels like I'm betraying the characters that I created. To me, they're kinda real...I wouldn't do something like this to my real friends, exposing them online, so why would I do it to my characters? It sounds strange, sure, but it's how I feel.

I'm giving it my all for Graven. Although it was meant to be a simple visual novel for the Novembear project, I'm currently trapped in my own web. This is real footage of me right now:

I've lost myself in Graven. I'm wandering the streets of rainy Kazuul searching for a cute cafe where I can sit down, drink green tea, and continue writing my stories. 

I've found myself again through Graven and I hope I will give you all something worthwhile once it's done. 

Thank you so much for your continued support via Ko-fi and Patreon! It's great to know that after so long, people still believe in what I do.

See you in Kazuul!
- Hadrian Maximus