I made the promise in my last blog post, and now I’m here to deliver: As the title implies, I’ve finally finished writing the rough draft for Restart Again: Volume 5! If you’ve been keeping up with the blog posts over the past…too long a period of time, you’ll know that this book is a long one, and I can now officially say it is the longest of the series! The final count came in at 223,720 words. Yikes! That number is likely to wiggle around a bit in either direction over the course of editing, but I doubt it’ll trim down enough to fall behind Volume 4.
Luckily for my release schedule, editing is already well underway! I found some particularly annoying issues with editing in Google Docs on Volume 4’s rough draft (mostly the sheet lagging out due to a massive number of words and an incredible amount of line edits/comments from my editor), so I decided to be proactive this time around and get editing done in vivo. Line edits are already completed up through Chapter 19 (of 26), and more are coming in every day!
This announcement is a bit delayed from the actual date that I finished writing. The final words went down on the 30th of January, and I’ve been enjoying a few days of freedom from my eternal obligation to the series since then (apart from some casual review of line edits, of course – progress never stops!). Decompressing after that final sprint of writing has been rather enlightening; I didn’t realize how much weight that unfinished draft was putting on me! I feel like I’ve talked about this in a previous blog post (or maybe it’s just been in the back of my mind for a while), but the ending of Volume 5 has been, at least in its rough form, planned out since early on in the writing of Volume 2. Actually reaching this point in the narrative is such a landmark moment for me; I can’t wait for you all to read it, and I can’t wait to finally start writing what happens next!
With all of that being said, I don’t have a definitive update for the final release date. My dream of releasing Volume 5 on Leap Day 2024 is pretty much out the window at this point (unless I want to completely forego pre-orders, and even then I probably won’t make it), but I have very high hopes that it COULD release in March. I’ve been out of the publishing game for almost 2 years now, so I’m curious as to what’s changed since Volume 4 came out. I suppose we’ll see soon enough!
Unless something entirely unexpected happens, my next blog post will be an official cover reveal and a release date announcement! It’s still a bit hard to believe that I get to write those words again, but after nearly two years of work, the end is finally in sight. If you’ve stuck with me this long, you have my undying thanks, and I hope you find that the wait was ultimately worth it. Until then, stay safe out there, and as always, thanks for reading!
~Adam
Can’t wait for Volume 5! Don’t give up on your dream though, maybe 2028 will be the year for a leap day publication. You should probably hold off on volume 6 and skip straight to writing volume 8 – that way it’ll be sure to be ready in time.