December 8, 2023: Update (Patreon)

Hey everyone.

This part of development has been an extreme challenge for me to get completed. It's been a slog. Real life work and struggles with health have been nearly constant, and it has sapped a lot of my creativity. Every day I sit and write, the words come out so slowly and painfully. Have you ever had the strong desire to do something, but every time you pushed yourself to it, something either inside or outside just pushed the other direction?

I could go through a list of real life bullshit going on with "the office job," or how I've been struggling with something dealing with an illness -- the tests for Covid came back negative twice, but goddamn if it hasn't felt like I had it... everything hurts and aches from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. The brain fog from exhaustion, illness, and medicine has made me a near zombie. Hours and days have seemed to pass without me even realizing it. I can't believe it's already over a week into December.

With the time that has passed, some may be worried I'm not going to finish ECA. It's not true. It's right there, and I know what happens. I just have to find the energy to write it. The outlines are done. Some of the scenes are written, though they will likely need some rewrites. Something I know about my writing style is that if it's not flowing like water out of a tap, it's not my best work. It's forced when it should be smooth.

I'm finally getting over feeling the all-day ache and brain fog. Last week, I actually woke up and felt no pain, no aching joints or throbbing head. It felt wonderful, and I was able to focus on writing again. Things were going smooth this week. I took today off from work on the idea I was going to focus this entire weekend on writing because I knew I was going to get in the groove.

It's been a while since I've been doing this well with writing, and I appreciate everyone's patience with me to get back into a development state of mind. There's still issues at "the office job," even on days I take off. The lingering effects of whatever I had are still there and I am still not 100% yet. Things are returning to normal.

In the meantime, I'm going to be pausing Patreon payments for a bit. It seems like the right thing to do. Even if you all don't mind, I'm not the type to be paid for no productivity. I'll make another announcement when it gets turned back on -- likely much closer to when 0.8 is ready. Before then though, expect a longer update regarding 0.8 and where the state of it is and what you can expect from it.

Again, thanks for the support. I love you all.