On 20th December last year, I shared a post explaining that I had decided to split the ‘final’ book in The Paul Robertson Saga into two parts, and that I considered Book 5: A Loving Light to be a complete first draft—ready for editing and refinement before publication.
And that was the last time you heard from me. It’s been nearly three months.
If you’ve been wondering what happened to the updates, the short answer is: I’ve been busy writing.
At around 145,000 words, A Loving Light brings to a close the journey that began with Paul in A Good Man. By the end of that story, he has found peace within himself, we discover who his life partner will be, and he becomes ‘Version 1.0’ of the man he will ultimately grow into—the man we glimpse in the various prologues set in 2048.
But while writing it, I realised something important.
The story wasn’t finished.
During A Loving Light, I had created several plot threads that clearly needed to be followed through to their conclusion. My original plan had been to resolve them within the same book, but eventually it became obvious that these threads were not really part of the journey Paul began in A Good Man.
They are a different story.
And, in many ways, they are not really Paul’s story.
Paul himself acknowledges this in the prologue to the next book, We Hear You. He says:
“What follows from here isn’t my story. Not really.
It’s theirs. The people whose lives we affected.
I provided the stage, Lana was the ethical and moral spine, Carly held the microphone, and Marcus amplified her voice beyond what we ever dreamed was possible. But the story—the movement—belongs to the young people around the world who embraced it.
But I was there. I witnessed it from the wings. And it’s a story that deserves to be shared.
So I’ll do my best to do it justice.”
So over the past three months, instead of editing A Loving Light, I’ve been doing something else entirely.
I’ve been writing the first draft of We Hear You.
And as of today… I think that first draft is now complete as well.
Or at least, complete enough.
The chapter I finished earlier today feels like a natural pause in the story—a place to stop for a moment, reflect, and take a breath before continuing. There is still a lot more story to tell, but after roughly 160,000 words, it felt like the right place to stop.
Which means that I now have two first drafts to edit and refine.
And, of course, I still need to write what was originally intended to be Book 7.
Although I’m starting to wonder if We Hear You is really the sixth book in The Paul Robertson Saga… or if it’s actually the first book in a new saga that Paul simply continues to narrate.
One thing I can say for certain is that I’ve genuinely enjoyed writing We Hear You. It has involved a lot of research—and I’ve learned a great deal along the way. Hopefully, that learning and the depth of the research will come through in the story.
But I suppose I’ll have to wait and find that out.
So what happens now?
Well, it’s definitely time to get on with the editing of A Loving Light. But I’ll also continue working on what comes next—whether that turns out to be Book 7… or Book 2 of something new.
I’ll try to be a little more regular with these updates going forward.
But I’m sure you know how it is.
When the words are flowing, and the plot ideas keep coming, you don’t really want to stop and spend half an hour writing a blog post.
You just want to get on with writing the damn book.