Announcement: schedule tweaks - what and why + I have surgery scheduled (Patreon)

Hi everyone,

As you've probably noticed, after Mom's bout of covid, and other life interruptions, I've been struggling to get back on schedule, and have had pretty limited success with actually getting back on schedule.

Essentially, ever since I announced The Great Experiment (just about a year ago, I now realize!), I've been working with not a whole lot of buffer, in order to accommodate the higher volume of work that I took on, in a bid to stay more current with drama airing schedules.

And, once life interruptions happened in a slighter bigger way, I suddenly found myself unable to make up for the lost time, and I'm, uh, floundering, basically. 😅

After several announcements on trying to get back on schedule, I have to admit that (and this is something Jennifer told me) it's just not possible for me to catch up and make up for the lost time.

I also have to admit that (and this is something Elaine told me) I haven't been working at a very sustainable pace. The fact that a week or so of life interruptions can throw me off schedule this much, is quite indicative that I haven't built enough buffer into my regular routine.

And so, I'm thinking about what I can do, to make adjustments that will help me manage better, and in a more sustainable manner.

I don't have it all figured out yet, but here are some things that I will be doing / trying out.

Interim measures

In order to give me a little immediate breathing room, I'm pushing all of this month's reviews by a week each.

Here are the new dates that I hope to post the various reviews:

Dr. Romantic 3: 14 August

King The Land: 21 August

Hidden Love: 28 August

New things I'd like to try out

In the interest of making my schedule more realistic and sustainable, there are a couple of things that I'd like to try out.

1. More of a gap between the penultimate notes and the final review.

I currently take a gap week, in order to prepare the final review, but I also try, at the same time, to nail down a replacement show, and have the initial episode notes out at the same time as the final review of the previous show.

My thinking around that, was so that people would have a seamless experience, of finishing one show, and knowing right away, what new show would be taking its place on Patreon, and the initial notes would be right there, to check out, if they're interested.

As Elaine's pointed out to me, that's very ambitious of me, because it's a lot of work just to do the review alone.

So, what I'm thinking is, I'll take 2 weeks between the penultimate notes and the final review, but try to nail down the new show and put up notes for the initial episodes, before the final review comes out.

That way, when the final review goes up, I do have an announcement that I can include, about what show is taking the place of the previous show, and a link I can share, to the new show's initial episode notes.

I hope that makes sense. 😅

2. More grouping of episode notes

So far, I've been trying to split up episode notes, so that I talk about one episode at a time, for kdramas. Meaning, if I'm writing about episodes 1 & 2, I tend to write about episode 1, and then write about episode 2.

I'm thinking that it might be faster and more efficient, if I talk about both episodes at the same time, kinda like how I talk about 2 episodes at a time, when it comes to c-dramas.

I might try to group the c-drama notes such that I talk about all 4 episodes at a time, instead of breaking them up into 2 groups of 2 episodes. I'll have to experiment and see how this works.

I'm also going to try to be more concise, so that my episode notes aren't too long and wordy, but still get my points across. I'm not sure how well I'll do this, but I'd like to get better at this, so that I don't have to reduce the number of shows I cover here on Patreon, in order to reach a more breathable and sustainable work pace.

I might experiment with bullet points, I'm not sure. I've occasionally done lists in the past, when certain episodes annoyed me, heh, and I'm thinking that I might benefit from employing that technique a little more. 😁

ETA: Replacement shows and days of the week

Sorry, I totally forgot to include this:

I wanted to let you know that I'm picking My Lovely Liar as the replacement show for 19th Life. I've watched the first 2 eps, and like it a lot!

I'm still undecided on the replacement show for Dr. Romantic 3. I checked out the first 2 eps of My Dearest, but it's not really grabbing me, unfortunately. 

I'm thinking of taking a second look at Heartbeat, but also, I'm possibly going to consider Agency, since MeriJ's saying such good things about it, and it's now available on Netflix, so more folks can watch it easily.

I will probably swap My Lovely Liar to have its notes come out on Thursday, because it's a Mon-Tue show, so it's not possible for me to have the notes out on Tue, which was 19th Life's day.

I'll probably have Dr. Romantic 3's replacement show on Tuesday instead.

I have surgery scheduled for September

As you may remember, I mentioned around the time of my break earlier this year, when my sister came to visit, that I'd likely need to take another break later in the year, because of on-going medical issues that I need to have taken care of.

Well, that's coming up, and I have surgery scheduled for 15 September.

It's a surgery that will require 3-5 days' hospitalization, after which I'm entitled to 4 weeks of hospitalization leave.

Of course, I don't actually need hospitalization leave, because I don't work in an office, but that does give me an idea of how much recovery time I'll need.

I expect that I will need to take about 2 weeks off, after which I'm thinking that I might be able to ease back into doing stuff for the blog, depending on how I feel.

I'll keep you guys updated, of course, and when I do start to ease back into writing for the blog, it'll likely have to be at an adjusted sort of rate, until I'm fully back on my feet.

I wish this wasn't the case, and I also wish I didn't have to have surgery (I'm slightly anxious about it, not gonna lie), but unless my condition changes in a big way, this is what I'm looking at, right now.

I'm sorry for all the disruptions and adjustments, you guys.. And I'm sincerely grateful for all the understanding and grace that you've shown me.

Hugs to you all.

KFG ❤️