Salutations everyone! I apologize for the delay in this announcement, for this was something that I was initially planning to do a week ago but ended up terribly preoccupied. But as some of you might have already seen (if you have been keeping up) in my OSM 01 chapter, I stated in the note that I will be transitioning to the production of Volume 3 once I have finalized the remaining Prologue rewritten chapters.

  I am thrilled to announce that as of yesterday, I have updated the last of my current Prologue rewritten chapters, and I am now in the formal process of beginning Volume 3's development and writing. The Prologue rewrite remains unfinished, of course, but I believe that I have now reached the point where I can comfortably place it in the backseat, having completely rewritten Prologue Act 1 and Partes 20-21 of Act 2. It will still be something that I will continue working on overtime, but it is no longer the priority focus.

  First, a little reflection

  I will admit that the rewrite has taken me a lot longer than I anticipated, and the endeavor was not as easy as I was initially hoping it would be. I honestly do not know if I have really changed anything with regards to the attractiveness of this project to prospecting new readers; the Prologue rewrite was not meant to fundamentally change or alter the structure, pacing, and plot. But I do believe that the rewritten chapters are a considerable improvement in the writing's quality, and I do like what I have done with it. One of the reasons it was difficult for me to withdraw from the rewrite sooner was simply because every time I looked at a Prologue chapter, I saw everything I did not like about it and felt compelled to rewrite it.

  One of the regrettable things, however, was that I did not preserve the original chapters that I replaced. So, I cannot properly compare the rewritten versions with their originals. Likewise, some of the rewritten chapters remain partially tentative; they were something that I rewrote and posted just to keep the flow moving forward between chapters, and I may go back and tweak these chapters in the future. There are also likely to be hiccups in my rewritten chapters, although the rewrite process has shown me that the original Prologue also was riddled with tiny errors.

  As a general principle, it is likely that throughout the life of this series, I will be periodically going back and doing rewrites & adjustments for the earlier volumes (such as Volume 1), just to update their writing, improve their quality, and potentially improve the structure by addressing issues in their plot and removing redundancies that did not go anywhere; although, anything beyond the Prologue is not currently in my planning right now.

  Anyway, I am aware that the majority of you, my dearest readers, have probably not been keeping tabs with the rewrite or even my notes regarding thereof. But if anyone has been dabbling with happening a gander at them, I would like to hear your honest and frank opinions, thoughts, and feelings in the comments regarding the Prologue's rewritten chapters, if you have any.

  Now, for the main focus of this announcement: Volume 3

  I have not yet begun the proper writing process; I am still more in the planning phase (yes, I am actually trying to plan ahead), which has been going about as well as one could expect for someone who isn't particularly great at outlining. It has not helped that I have lost track of a few things -- particularly the timeline of events. Being the genius I am, I never bothered to write any of it down and instead had kept good track of things in my head -- but as it turns out, not focusing on something for several months can make one forget (who knew). However, I have been piecing things back to together, so I have good idea as to where I had left things.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But as of right now, I cannot make any finalized guarantees of when Volume 3 will begin releasing. As most of you should recall from my announcement in November, I had decided to only begin publishing a volume when that volume was either completed, near-completion, or in a state where I felt very confident in its direction to release it early, and that during the 'interim' between each volume releases there will be a slow period of side content to satiate reader hunger.

  However, this plan was developed prior to my decision to launch the Prologue rewrite, which has been the primary reason responsible for prolonging this interim longer than intended. The current running 'side-volume', Strawberry Tales, has ended up being much longer than what I was initially planning to do with it, no thanks to both the aforementioned rewrite and my own tendency of continuously underestimating the amount of content I can squeeze into a single chapter before exceeding my word limits; it is soon to be slightly more than half the length of a regular volume.

  Although I do like what I have written for Strawberry Tales, I do not think it is as 'satiating' anymore. It has now been three months, and many of you are no doubt eager to see the main story properly advance forward; to be frank, I am very eager to see that too. The current pacing has been too slow for even me, the author, and I want to see (narrative) explosions now.

  As such, I have decided to make Volume 3 an exception to my intended plan, and I will begin releasing Volume 3 concurrent with its development. Even though I was hoping to not do this again -- writing and releasing a volume at the same time --, I do believe it is necessary; I consider it to be unrealistic to keep you all waiting longer than I already have been. However, for future volumes going forward, my volume release plan will remain in effect, but future interims should not be as long as this one has been.

  Volume 3 Timeline for Release & Schedule Expectations

  Strawberry Tales will run for three more chapters, including the chapter scheduled for release this coming Wednesday (March 12th), with the final chapter expected to be published on Wednesday, March 26th. However, afterwards there will be an additional two-week gap period, and I have set a tentative release date for Volume 3's Pars N for Wednesday, April 9th. The week following this will return to a regular two chapters per week schedule, with Pars 1 and Pars 2 scheduled for Monday (April 14th) and Friday (April 18th) respectively.

  However, to reiterate, this is all tentative. I will have much better clarity regarding the potential release date and schedule for Volume 3 by Strawberry Tale's final chapter. As such, this may change depending on how I see fit and consider necessary; I will keep you all informed regarding any changes.

  In particular, while I did promise to return to a two chapter per week schedule for regular volumes, it is possible I may have to either maintain a one chapter per week schedule a little longer or alternate between the two. This is not only because of circumstances in my personal life and my constant war against burn-out, but also due to the fact that the scheduling pacing has been screwed up by this prolonged interim; Strawberry Tales -- a side-volume -- is set to be neck-and-neck to a full, regular volume in terms of the length of time it has been in release, and I do not want Volume 3 to go by too fast in comparison.

  Nothing has been decided, though, and I will likely have better clarity regarding the weekly release schedule and any changes appertaining thereto come Volume 3's start date, may it be April 9th or another date as I deem fit. To clarify, any deviation from the expected two per week chapter scheduling for regular volumes is likely to only be temporary and/or circumstantial in the long term; two chapters per week remains my intended optimal release schedule for main story content in general.

  Anyway, that's that! I shall see you all again on Wednesday! Take care!