August 2024 Update (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

Long time no chat! I thought I’d give you all an update on my health and what’s been going on in my life.

As you might have noticed, I haven’t been able to put out a story since June, which is two months—much longer than any period of inactivity I’ve ever had. I’ve been depressed, sick, injured, you name it. It’s been a rough couple of months, to say the least.

In June, I started to feel burned out from my full-time job at an advertising agency. The toxic culture, overwork, and underpayment had me constantly trying to impress and outshine others with similar roles just to avoid being on the chopping block during layoffs. Working late, with minimal overtime pay that wasn’t worth it, really took a toll on my mental health. I began tying my self-worth to how much work I could produce, which impacted my ability to post here. I usually write after work, but the overwork ate into that time, and I felt like my job never ended. On top of that, someone close to me went to the ER for anxiety-related issues, which added even more mental strain to my already overwhelmed mind.

In July, I caught a nasty case of influenza (welcome to flu season!) for the first time in my life. It left me sick and weak for two full weeks, unable to do any writing or work. My brain sometimes equates productivity with worth, so being unable to contribute to my full-time job or my passion project on Patreon pushed me further into depression. Despite this, I still tried to write a bit here and there. After two weeks off work due to the flu, I returned to a mountain of work with ridiculously short deadlines. One would expect a proper company to function without one employee or to have others handle a sick colleague’s workload, but that’s not the company I work for. Functional corporate structure? What’s that? This wasn’t the first time this happened; when I had COVID and was out for a similar amount of time, I returned to work that had been left exactly where I had left it—untouched, overdue, and nearly impossible for one person to finish in just a few days.

Now it’s August. I burned my hand pretty badly on hot congee, sprained my ankle during my weekly bathroom cleaning, and have only just barely caught up with the work I left when I was sick with the flu. I’m feeling much better mentally, but I’m still not where I was before all of this happened. I want to get back to posting my work for you all to enjoy, but I want to stress that it might take some time for me to fully get back on my feet. I sincerely apologize to anyone I’ve disappointed over the past few months. You’ve been giving me your hard-earned money with little to nothing in return.

I currently have a story that I’ve been working on since June. It’s grown in scale and length far beyond what I initially planned. It’s taken me more than two months to write, so at least it’ll be long, right? I’m looking to post it soon, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it (despite the times in between when I wasn’t immersed in my fantasy land and was, instead, miserable—haha). But hey, they say good art comes from pain and struggle.

I know this long wall of text might sound like excuse after excuse, and in many ways, it is. But I believe there are valid excuses, and I hope these are among them.

Lastly, I want to thank all of you who are still here despite the lackluster posts and content over the past few months. It truly warms my heart to have your continued support. I’ve lost a few supporters here and there, and I fully expected to lose more, if not all of you. So, thank you for keeping your subscription; you helped pay for my flu medicine! I really appreciate your support, and believe me when I say that writing this made me tear up a little (but not too much because my keyboard isn’t waterproof—haha).

I hope you all are having a wonderful start to your week, wherever you are.

Sincerely,

Alex