This is probably the last post celebrating the downloads of Sunward Sky, but 50,000 plays is about 49,999 more than I ever thought it would get. I started writing it and releasing it more as an exercise than anything else, because I was in the middle of Lockdown.
The first season went out and you can see it went nowhere, as did the first part of the second season. I'm not sure what happened but at some point people started listening to it. Which was a bit of a shock as I'd half abandoned it.
Like, I was thinking "I should finish this, some day" but it didn't seem to matter because, like, nobody was listening to it. It was done, y'know? Who cares.
Then one day I noticed it had been listened to over 2000 times in a week, which for a podcast with no advertising...
I checked my insta, and I had a few messages from people who were asking when the story was going to be finished. One of the reviews on apple podcasts expressed their disappointment that it wasn't completed.
And suddenly I knew I had to finish it. Not at some arbitrary point in the future, but very soon. So I finished my plans for the remaining six episodes and set to work.
In the end, it made it onto the top 100 downloaded sci fi podcasts on apple podcasts one week, and it's continued to have a steady listenership ever since. Not bad for something I recorded with Ableton lite, free downloads and no professional sound treatment gear.
That said, the way it was written basically means the project was released as a first-ish draft. There are definitely things I'd like to do differently, and there is a bigger story that I'd love to tell, and more deliberately.
When this project started it was a bit of a joke. All the characters are named after cricket players, and I just wanted to write something set on a spaceship. But it became a story that, apparently, a lot of people have connected with.
So maybe, one day, maybe soon, I'll go back and polish the story I started, to hone the rough edges and work through it and turn it into a book. I think I'd like that. In the meantime, for anyone who's ever listened, thank you so much for joining me on the journey.
And if you haven't heard of my podcast, why not give it a go? I like it, and hey, it's free. What could go wrong. Keep an eye and an ear out for that updated and revised version in the future. It's Called Sunward Sky, and it's a story about doing the right thing even when the world is against you. And it's set on a spaceship. Available on all podcast platforms.

Thanks for reading, if you did.