My debut novel (at least, the first novel that can be consumed by the public - not literally of course, unless you water it down first) is now 99.9999999999999999999% ready to publish, so I've been focusing on getting my proposal together. Which means I'm not sitting down to color any art right now, so expect the art drought to continue.

I will doodle out some pencil sketches here and there, so if you guys have any suggestions of something you'd like to see, throw it into the comments below and I'll see what I can do!

For those curious, the novel is a fantasy adventure inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's animated films. I started writing it in high school, not exactly sure what year. At first, it was just a blurb in a journal, a grandmother's cautionary tale to respect nature or the dragons would come. I don't know when I decided to take that and flesh it out into a full-length novel, but I did, and it was decent. I didn't have a defined writing style back then, so the novel ended up like most of my private ones: mostly action with a sprinkle of rather one-dimensional characters. Still, I was proud of my work and tried to publish it anyway. A single rejection letter and a lot of silent responses later, I went back and examined my work.

Fast forward to now, multiple revisions later, and I finally have something special. At heart, it's the same story I set out with, but now I feel like it has more dynamic characters and a concise, emotionally entertaining journey from start to finish. Is it perfect? Of course not, but I at least feel like it's the best I can make it at this point in my life.

Here's a prototype "one sentence synopsis" of the novel:

"Quiet farmboy Sato Ollen reluctantly faces difficult choices when his family is dragged into a secret conflict between the magical native creatures of his island home and suspicious soldiers from the mainland."

Even if I can't get it traditionally published, I plan to self-publish it and move on. This novel helped develop my writing style and ideas, but it was actually an experimental piece, a challenge to myself to write something that wasn't as over-to-top and "space opera" in tone. But now I want to take everything I've learned and apply it to a story and world that is much bigger and more fantastic in scope.

That's about all I have to say on the matter for now., but if you have any questions about something, don't be afraid to ask. Thanks for reading!