As the title of this post might have implied, I have some exciting news! After a few weeks of emailing and e-signing documents, there is now an official Restart Again audiobook in the works! I was contacted by someone at Tantor Media about the potential of acquiring the audio rights to the project via my Royal Road account, which is another great indicator that I made the right choice in posting my work there. I’m excited to work with Tantor, in large part because they’re doing basically all of the work. They have a large cast of narrators they can choose from, and after they pick a few people who they think are right for the book, I’ll get some audio samples and have final decision on who my narrator will be. Once that’s finished, the recording begins, and eventually, I’ll have an audiobook available through all major outlets (including physical media at libraries and stuff, which is crazy to me!). I don’t have a timeline on when each step is estimated to occur, but I’ll definitely make an update on here when any big changes happen.
Now, time for a progress update on Volume 2! If you’ll indulge me, I’m going to go on a slight tangent here, so buckle up. I’m the sort of person who likes to have noise in the background when I sleep, and my noise of choice is Futurama (shout-out to r/futuramasleepers). Recently, as I was laying in bed on my phone when I should have been sleeping, I watched the episode “When Aliens Attack”, where the Omicronians, led by Lrrr (Ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8) threaten to destroy Earth unless they get to see the final episode of an old 2000’s drama, “Single Female Lawyer”. As Fry was the one who accidentally knocked it off air, he decides he can write the script and the Planet Express cast can record the episode. About three minutes into the taping, Leela finds out that Fry only wrote three pages of dialogue for the entire episode, and when questioned why, he answers:
“Well, it took an hour to write, I thought it would take an hour to read.”
What the Hell was the point of that tangent? Well, aside from the fact that I love Futurama, that quote has resonated with me rather strongly in the past few days. My plot outline for the rest of Volume 2 hasn’t changed at all, but it’s very clear to me that I am not, in fact, writing the last chapter at the current moment. I always tend to minimize how long dialogue takes to write (at least for me, in an attempt to make it sound halfway natural), and what I thought would be the last chapter has expanded to the point where I have no hope of concluding things within it. I’ve added another 5,000+ words since my last update, which was what could be considered a long chapter in Volume 1, and I still have a bit to go before I conclude this particular chapter, followed by another full one to wrap up Volume 2.
I was always a bit worried that I would run out of steam somewhere in the middle of this project when I was writing Volume 1, and I’m happy to say that nearing the end of the Volume 2, that is definitely not the case. Even on bad days where I hit some particularly tough writer’s block, or I read some harsh 1* reviews on Amazon, I still feel energized to sit down and add more to the story of Lux and Co. If you’re willing to stick around until the end, whenever that may be, I’ll be right there with you. Until then, stay safe, and as always, thanks for reading.
~Adam
