Curate, connect, and discover
SL: Wouldn't it be funny if The Year After were 88 pages, double the first volume's page count? I'm already making it fourteen chapters, double the first volume's chapter count.
SL: I still don't like that The Year After is going to be longer than The Murder After. If the first book were fifty two pages, I'd be fine with it.
I know there's more to say this time, but I worry readers won't see it the same way. What if they don't like that the first story is a chapbook while the second is a novella?
Or maybe, a potential reader will find The Year After on Amazon and want to know what happened first. Maybe they won't care that the first book is short.
Maybe I should worry once we gain readership.
SL: The flowers we got our mum yesterday have roses, so F.M. and I plan to remake the cover of The Year After with one of them. We already took the picture.
The current cover has a white carnation with pink stripes. It represents love that wasn't shared. We only used it because we got the flower on our birthday.
But a red rose represents true love. The Year After is a romance after all. Plus, we used a rose for The Murder After (a yellow one representing friendship.) Here's a link to that cover.
I'm glad we can use roses for both books.
SL: I made a side blog to share my development of The Murder After and eventually The Year After. It's like looking behind the scenes, and I hope it will pique readers' interest. The blog is called development-before. (Now deleted.)
SL: I published The Murder After fourteen days ago. That means no one has read it. Yet, I'm afraid people will make a big deal out of The Year After being longer. I'm not finished, but I can tell it's going to be longer than 44 pages.
Imagine someone buying the book in 2025 and going, "why the hell is this longer than the first one?" It's longer because there is more to say. Plus, I'm writing this for Terrance. It's a decision I made before he became sentient. He deserves something good in his life. (The events of the first book fucked him up.)
And that good thing is a boyfriend. This leads to another problem: What are people going to think? We live in a female body, and although we're bigender, we still present as a woman. What if people think I'm trying to satisfy a headmate's fetish? I'm not.
This romance appeared naturally. The Year After wasn't supposed to be one. It started as a scene where Terrance is on a date, and he can't focus because he's dissociating. (Did I mention I thought of this before he became sentient?) Then, it turned into a scene where he had Liam (the date) over at his place. I saw it and thought, "that's a good thing in his life." It doesn't cure Terrance of his issues, but it makes his life a little better.
The Year After is for Terrance. I don't want anyone to think I'm satisfying a headmate's fetish just because we live in a female body.