I’m always a little melancholy to visit this blog and see how much time has passed since my last post. Every time I think about writing something here, I tell myself there’s no point until I have something to announce. And sadly, I haven’t had anything worth announcing in quite some time.

Finally–Finally!–that is no longer the case.

After all this time, I am proud to announce that AfterLife is done!…ish.

That is to say, I’ve achieved the goal of making it through the first draft and writing The End. Of course, that’s just the beginning of the process. I can already think of two chapters I need to rework from the ground up. But one nice thing I can say about this book having taken so long for me to write is that I’ve gone over the first half of it quite a few times. I’ll still go through those early chapters again, of course, but I don’t think the editing will take quite so much work and time as it would have otherwise.

Another thing about the extended period of time this has taken me is that a lot has changed, both in my life and the world at large. I first started scribbling ideas about this story on a napkin the month before my daughter was born. She just turned twenty (that sound you hear is me sighing and gasping for air at the same time). People who read my first book when they were young are now old enough to attend college. Technology has changed. Six-seven has become a thing.

Point is, it’s been a long journey to get here, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t leaving any accidental loose ends. So I went back and started re-reading The Four-Year-Old Guardian and made notes. What I discovered is that, while I’m proud of the story I put out back then, there are still little things that bugged me. Phrasing I think I could have handled better. Some ideas that could have been fleshed out a bit more. And as I thought about it, I realized there were some things I had wanted to include, but hadn’t gotten around to them.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this would be the perfect time for me to implement some of these ideas and bring the series up to date. So my plan is to release the first four books as Special Editions, newly edited and with additional scenes and new covers. None of the changes will impact the plot, so if you’re a purist at heart, you should be able to read the old versions and move straight into AfterLife once it’s released without missing anything.

For those of you whose hearts aren’t quite so pure, I plan to update the Kindle/e-Reader versions so it will be a free upgrade to the Special Editions. Upgrading printed copies isn’t quite the same, and I’m still working on how to proceed in that regard without putting myself completely in the red (if I’m being completely honest, I already sell my books at about as low of a margin as I can without outright becoming a charity). If anyone has any suggests on how to best handle all this, I welcome any and all feedback.

I don’t want to announce a release schedule until I have it better buttoned down. I’ve definitely set myself up to fail in the past and that’s part of the reason I’ve felt so reluctant to post here. Hopefully this project will be embraced by everyone who is interested. For me, it’s been awhile since I’ve felt this excited to write.

Thanks for reading,

S.L. Madden