Mid-year scheduling & blogging about my mum (Patreon)

TL;DR: The Patreon and all new chapter releases will be pausing in April and July. No chapters will be released on any platform and there will be no charges to maintain Patreon membership. New patrons will be charged if they join during this period. Book 5 will still come out in April as scheduled, and I don't have a final date on book 6 yet, but July is a possibility.

As many, especially discord members, will be aware, I'm in the process of moving house. I've been dealing with paperwork and brokers and all the nonsense involved in buying a house while also keeping up with the writing. That is mostly done with, and next month I'll finally be moving into my own home.

At this point, I'd just like to stop and thank you all for making that possible. I never thought I would own my own home, given the property situation in Australia. Like many other places around the world, home ownership is becoming increasingly non-viable, but thanks to my amazing readership, I'll be finally getting out of renting next month.

As anyone who has moved knows, it's a huge pain. The idea of trying to do that while also cranking out chapters frankly fills me with terror. I'm already pretty stressed and have been all year, in spite of the break I took in December. So, I decided to take April off entirely. No new chapters at any tier, on any platform outside of book releases on Amazon. No one will be charged to maintain Patreon membership; only new patrons will be charged. This break will give me a chance to settle in, de-stress and probably edit book 7.

As some of you also know - again, primarily discord members - I am also taking July off. I'm taking my mum on holiday and this has been planned out for a couple of years now. This means that April will be off, may and June will be back on, then July will be off.

This is actually approximating a model I'm looking at adopting on going forward, where I take a month off after 3-4 months of writing so I can have a break and do some editing for publication, instead of cramming it all in on Sundays and burning out. Only two months between breaks won't be the norm; it just happened to fall this way with when my house settled and the plans I made two years ago.

I knew from the outset that this year would have some disruptions, for the exact reasons that it now does. I'd just like to thank all my amazing readers again for putting me in a position where I can buy a house and take my mum on holiday.

That's about it for the announcement. This next bit drifts suspiciously close to me blogging about the origins of the holiday I'm taking in July, so feel free to move along. There's no new pertinent information coming.

My dad died in May 2019, a couple of months before I started releasing this story. My parents had a great marriage, and mum was completely devastated. A year later, my story was going amazingly and things were great for me, but with the anniversary of Dad's death, they weren't so great for mum. That's when I started looking into dong something for her, now that I had the means to do so.

Mum and Dad had planned a trip that they never went on because Dad died. What I decided to do was take a trip with mum myself; her dream trip to far north Australia. This was only possible because this story was a success, so I thank you all again. You haven't just changed my life, which you have, but you've also made it possible for me to do something for my mum that means so much to me. Thank you.