I’m back, and once again, I’m changing things up a little with these quarterly quest updates!

Battling burnout for almost a full year now has been a bit of a nightmare, but it’s also forced me to learn some things I needed to and cut some things from my life that I no longer needed. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but it’s nice to know that there’s at least a silver lining here.

One of those positive outcomes is that I’m working on having a healthier relationship with my goals and my progress as a writer (and a human being). I’m working on being more aware of what I’ve accomplished (and celebrating accordingly!) and setting goals that are realistic and inspiring, and finding a better balance between what I share and what I keep to myself.

To that end—I’m shifting the focus of these updates to the actual progress I’ve been making and what’s been going on with each project in the works, rather than treating them like some hellish combination of a contract and a report card.

With that in mind, let’s dive right in, shall we?

Overall Quest Progress

Spring 2024 was… complicated. Burnout sucks, y’all. So does depression. So do existential crises. But here we are, on the other side, and I’m still moving forward one step at a time.

Here’s a brief overview of where I’m at with my main quests:

• Shadow of the Curse-Eater: 7/10 chapters drafted. Still reworking earlier chapters, but finally picking up the pace.
• The Dragon’s Last Flight: In alpha testing mode; still on hiatus while I get back into the rhythm of writing.

I’ve worked on little scraps of things here and there, but not often, and not for long. Mostly my slow progress has been part of my healing process, rather than due to too many spinning plates. (Although I’m always in danger of picking up one too many; I’m blessed/cursed with too many ideas and never enough time.)

I do plan to try and carve out a little more time regularly for these side projects, however; I’m pretty sure my forced tunnel vision regarding SotCE was an important contributing factor to my burning out in the first place. With any luck, some of these fun little detours will lead to interesting places—places I’ll eventually be able to share with you, too.

Shadow of the Curse-Eater

Progress on SotCE ground almost to a halt for most of this past quarter. I was struggling again, and all the more frustrated by it because I had been feeling better. So I took some time last week to do a little creative retreat at home for myself, where I focused not only on writing, but on reconnecting to my “why.”

It helped a lot—more than I ever expected. It reduced the writing resistance I’d been bashing my head against for months, and by more than a few degrees. So while I don’t have too much progress to report right now, I’m looking forward to sharing a (hopefully) more robust update in the fall.

If you’d like more frequent progress updates for this particular project, be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter and/or keep tabs on the official SotCE dev diary over on the Choice of Games website.

The Dragon’s Last Flight

As noted above, I haven’t been able to work on TDLF at all this quarter. The full, unpolished game is just sitting on my desktop and staring at me balefully, waiting to complete the alpha testing phase so we can finally, finally, move on to beta testing.

I don’t have a concrete timeline here yet, but as always, I promise this project hasn’t been canceled. I’d love to have something to share by the end of this year, but we’ll have to see how this next quarter plays out first.

Side Quests

Some other things I’ve been working on:

• Website Stuff: I’m currently working to remove some unauthorized ads that suddenly manifested on the homepage. I’m hoping this will be fixed within the next few days, or few weeks at most. In the meantime, the rest of the site seems to be working just fine.
• Social Media Stuff: I’ve not been very active on social media lately. It’s been… nice. I have no plans to return to posting regularly at this time.
• Blog Stuff: I still haven’t posted much to the blog lately outside of these QQUs. I don’t currently have a set posting schedule; I’m still working out what I’d like to do with that space from here on out.

Looking Ahead

The focus I chose for this year was “light,” and I couldn’t have chosen more appropriately. I’m learning not only to recognize and follow light in my life, but also remembering and relearning how to create my own. I came across a powerful quote related to this recently when I was playing Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II last week:

“She has to find the light within and hang it in the sky to guide the others.”

That’s it, folks—that’s why I write. To find my light for my own sake, but also so that I may share it with others who are struggling to find their own.

To that end, I’m hoping to continue forging ahead with SotCE revisions and hopefully get back to drafting new chapters in the near future—while maintaining a healthy pace. TDLF will have to remain on the back burner for now, but if inspiration strikes (and I have enough time and energy to do so), who knows? Maybe there’s a surprise update lurking just around the corner…

In the meantime, thanks, as always, for reading. Good luck with your own quests, whatever they may be. See you in the next update!

Kim Berkley is a fantasy author and video game writer who hoards books and games like dragons purportedly hoard gold. To be the first in line for beta testing opportunities, new releases, and other major announcements, be sure to sign up for her free newsletter!

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