Sage Mullins: Blog

Just a quick update on the progress of LIAB. Chapter 36 will be posted on Monday, 1/28. Chapter 37 is finished, and will probably go up about a week later. At the moment, I'm writing Chapter 38.

My goal is to maintain that schedule of putting up one new chapter a week, but I won't make any promises. I'll do the best I can. It depends on how well I can juggle writing with real life.

The recently posted Chapter 33 seemed to generate extreme reactions from those readers who were kind enough to offer feedback. They either loved it or hated it. The comments were nowhere near as overwhelmingly negative as the ones I got in response to Pat's dark period after his big blowup. But the negative remarks were every bit as vehement.

Many felt that Julia's dumping of Pat was unrealistically abrupt and out of character. I guess I can understand that, to a degree. There was one extenuating factor, though, that you don't yet know about. You'll find it out in the next chapter. Hint: I foreshadowed it when I first introduced Julia, way back in chapter 25. :)

Reading between the lines a little, I think there may be a worry out there that another dark period for Pat lies ahead. But you already have a clue about that. Look at Pat's reaction when Julia dropped the bomb on him. Did he blow up? No. In fact, his response was quite cool and measured. So, maybe there's hope for him yet. You'll have to wait till the next chapter goes up to find out how he reacted in the longer term.

I enjoyed writing that chapter; a lot of cool things happened. Inez's parents survived the accident this time. Pat made up with Evie. And Pat made a decision to tell his time-travel secrets to someone else.

Chapter 34 is in the queue to go up on Monday, 1/14. Chapter 35 is complete and ready to go, too; I have it scheduled to go up on Monday, 1/21. Right now, I'm putting the finishing touches on Chapter 36. You can see that my backlog is down to almost nothing, which explains why I'm taking longer and longer to post each new chapter.

Chapter 30 of LIAB is up. No, I didn't deliberately set out to put this chapter up two days before Christmas, but it just happened to work out that way. You'll see that a large part of this chapter deals with Christmas for Pat and friends.

I have Chapter 31 scheduled to go up on Friday, 12/28.

Happy Holidays to all!

The title says it all. Chapter 27 was just posted. Chapter 28 will go up on Monday 12/17, 29 on 12/20, and 30 on 12/23.

After that, I might have to cut back on the frequency of posting new chapters, because I can't come close to producing a new chapter every three days. So, we've almost reached that point I warned you about way back when.

So, where am I now with regard to writing? Chapter 33 is now finished and in the hands of my editors. I've begun to write chapter 34.

Chapters 23 and 24 are now up. I decided to give you two chapters at once this time; I'll explain why below.

There's a few things I want to cover in this entry. First of all, I've fallen hopelessly behind in replying to my feedback. That's mostly a result of seven days with little or no internet access. I do read all feedback, and value it greatly. I doubt I'll be able to get caught up with past messages, but I'll try to keep up with current ones as best I can.

Next topic: the last few chapters of LIAB, specifically chapters 21 through 24. I knew all along there would be a negative backlash to this part of the story. Let's summarize what's happened so far. Starting at around chapter 11, Pat started stumbling and bumbling his way through life. Then, for a while, he seemed to be getting his act together. All of a sudden, Inez reappears, and it freaks him out. He flips out, does a few things he regrets, and goes into a funk that lasts the better part of a year.

I've known a couple of 19- or 20-year-olds that have gone through similar funks, for equally stupid reasons, who went on to become grounded and successful adults. But there's a difference with Pat, isn't there? He's getting a second chance at this stuff.

I've said before that I doubt whether many of us could handle this situation well; namely, being sent back in time, with pre-knowledge, and living your life over again. I'm not sure that effectively managing pre-knowledge would be especially easy, nor would the proper way to do it be intuitively obvious. Also, if you really think about it, you'd be extremely isolated. You'd have to keep a vital part of yourself hidden from everyone else, unless you opened up fully to another person. And then you'd have to worry about that person questioning your sanity. That's the angle I've been working in the last few chapters.

Has that part of the story been too prolonged and extreme? I don't know. You be the judge of that. But I think that question is best answered in the context of the story as a whole.

From a reader's standpoint, however, I do have to agree that reading a series of downer chapters spread out over a couple of weeks is akin to Chinese water torture. I apologize for that, and this is why I gave you 23 and 24 at the same time. If I had it to do over again, I'd have posted 21 through 24 simultaneously, so that you could deal with the depressing part of the story in one shot.

I hope you caught the hopeful tone to chapter 24. It's pretty much the foundation chapter for the rest of the story. Near the end, Pat himself told you that he looked back upon that day as a turning point in his life. Believe him. I can tell you that he speaks the truth. He did, in fact, just experience a watershed moment. I'm currently writing chapter 33, and though I don't want to reveal any secrets, I can tell you that the Pat I'm writing about now is a far superior person to the one you've been reading about. You'll see a change in the very next chapter I post.

I'm planning to go back to my schedule of one new chapter every third day, so look for Chapter 25 on Saturday.

As always, thanks for reading!