Chapter Lengths and Schedule

When I first started writing fiction, I read a piece of advice that the optimal chapter length is around 2000 words, so I outlined the first book with the goal of keeping chapters to that length. As a result, the first book ended up being 48 chapters long, meaning the final chapter of book one will be posted on September 29th, 2020. I hope to begin posting the second book on the next Thursday, October 1st. I believe this should be achievable. The second book needs only some minor story revisions before another editing pass.

From my experience writing the first book, I found that rigidly adhering to the 2000 word rule was too limiting. There were cases where an extra thousand words would allow me to explore a situation or character with the depth they deserved. I allowed myself some extra flexibility in the second book, but I didn't let the chapters get too long. The second book as 42 chapters, and its final chapter should be posted on February 1st, 2021.

The first draft of the third book has been complete for almost a year now, but needs some major story revisions. Some chapters need to be cut and a couple chapters need to be added to fill in missing story details. My hope is to complete this work and another editing pass in time to begin posting chapters from the third book on February 25th, 2021. The chapters in the third book tend to be longer. There will be somewhere between 31 and 40 chapters, so the last chapter should go up sometime in June or July of 2021.