4. Dark Sides: Rise of the Anacondrai

Author's Note

It's dooooone!!! Whoooo! I just want to take a moment to celebrate, because this is super exciting! Thank you all so much for reading, this story has been a lot of fun to write, but it's even more fun when I get to post the chapters and let other people join the fun with me. You all have been so awesome for supporting me, and I'm really happy to have met so many other Ninjago fans through this.

Okay, now let's get serious. I know a lot of you are probably wondering what my plans are for the next book, but right now I'm kind of stuck. I already have a ton of plans for the series, it's just that this next book is proving more difficult to write than expected. 

You may or may not know that I normally write these stories in advance so that I have plenty of time to edit them. Well I finished writing the first draft of Book 4 last fall and started writing Book 5 immediately after. I got maybe a third of the way through before getting stuck. I thought I might still have enough time to write it while I edited and published Book 4. However, it's been about a year now, and I'm still stuck. So sadly, at this moment I don't have more to give y'all.

This does not mean that I'm done with the story. I've put way too much effort into it, and we are literally on the cusp of getting so much of the payoff we've been building up to. I've got big plans and I really really hate to do this to you guys. I know exactly what it feels like to see a fanfic I enjoy end up postponing, or even worse, being abandoned. The good news is, like I said, I already have some of the chapters written, and if worse comes to worse, I'd at least publish what I have and give y'all an outline of my future plans. But that'll only happen if I literally cannot write anything else.

I'm just praying that doesn't happen because I love this story too much to let it go. I know it probably sounds really lame to say, but this story is such a miracle to me because I normally have so much difficulty writing full-length stories, let alone a series. I couldn't have gotten this far without inspiration and motivation from the Lord, and it's been kind of cool to see how much he cares about me and my little story that I've been writing just for fun. Whatever His reason for putting this series on pause, I know it's good, and I've heard He's a God who finishes what he starts. I can't say for sure what will happen in the future, but my hope is that He'll help me finish this when the time is right.

I don't know how long it will be before I start writing this story again, but I'll try to keep you all updated. I plan to have a little section on my profile that will be updated monthly as to whether or not I'm working on the story yet. But since it could be a while, I'll go ahead and tell you a little bit of what I do have planned. It's gonna be about the Mega Weapon, however we will not be doing Child's Play, or hardly any of the other episodes from the first half of Season 2. When I started writing this series I wanted it to be visibly different from the show, almost as if you could look at a snapshot of a scene or something and tell that it was not the same story at all. Part of that includes having Lloyd remain his proper age. I also don't think Wu and Garmadon would have all the same ideas of how to use the Mega Weapon, so I'm making up my own scenarios. Plus, I just like having some things in this series that are nicer than canon, and some things that are worse. That way it's difficult to definitively say that one is "better" – as in less tragic – than the other. After Book 5 we'll jump back to Season 1, and then wrap up the series with the Final Battle.

In the meantime, I still have a little surprise for you all – I recently wrote another little story for Halloween/Day of the Departed. It's not related to this series, but it's about Morro going through the Rift with Cole. That in itself might turn into a series, but let's not get ahead of ourselves (Dark Sides will always be my top priority). It'll start publishing next week with daily updates until Halloween, so keep your eyes out!

I know I may lose some readers in the hiatus, so I want to thank you all right now for enjoying my stories with me. I've really appreciated everyone's support, and your comments especially mean so much to me. But whether you commented, voted, favorite, shared, or even if you simply made this story a part of your week, I really appreciate every one of you. I hope that you'll be able to come back and finish the story with me when the time comes, but I won't blame anyone who ends up moving on. You're all seriously the best, thank you for giving me a chance, and I hope to see you again soon! :)