[Frustrated Thundamoo Noises] (Patreon)

Writing Vigor Mortis is really difficult. I've been working on this one chapter since Thursday, both before and after the Bioshifter chapter that came out the other day, and it's still a slog to get through. 

I'm still probably going to need more time. 

I could blame a lot of things for this. The surgery, my constantly fluxuating mental state, and yeah, they're definitely all reasons this is happening. But honestly, the biggest one is that the recent set of chapters have been really hard, because they are about facing and recovering from trauma, bad habits, and grudges. And gosh golly, I am so much better at inflicting trauma than I am at healing it. This is why you're seeing a lot of Bioshifter chapters come out on time while Vigor Mortis chapters are getting constant delays; the Bioshifter chapters are dealing with things in my element, while the Vigor Mortis chapters are a constant struggle. 

But it needs to be done. Vigor Mortis is on book four—of four. The story isn't ending any time soon, per se, but we're well over the halfway mark and plot threads are starting to get wrapped up as much as dangled (which is also a much less fun part of writing, let me tell you). One of my biggest regrets about Hive Minds Give Good Hugs is that I think the ending is abrupt and kind of shitty (although that story has POPPED OFF in ebook sales for some reason, thanks to everyone who contributed to that). I don't want Vigor Mortis to share the same fate. I want it to be something I'm proud of from start to finish. Suffice to say, that means I'm going to have to take extra time with it occasionally. 

Now, I'd love to say "so we're getting one chapter a week instead of two, thanks for understanding" and leave it at that, but I know my dumb stupid brain doesn't work that way. If I give myself more time to work on each chapter, my brain will just procrastinate more to make up for it. So the goal is still the current goal: two VM chapters a week, one Bioshifter chapter a week. But things are going to get weird. Basically, I think I need to keep the goal but allow myself to cheat. 

I might swap the Wednesday chapter around between the two stories from time to time, just because it's in a stage where it's much more fun to write. I might randomly miss one of the two releases in a given week, just to spend the time giving more love to a single chapter. Unless I'm missing both chapters in a week, I likely won't post a specific update telling everyone what's happening. 

Do I realize that this is an imposition on you, the people actually paying me to write? Do I realize that it's annoying to not have a consistent schedule by which you can judge if your dollar is being valued? Yeah, of course I get that. But also wee hee I'm a funny little author girl and I'm calling in my artist's right to be eccentric. At the end of the day, I am just a mess that is trying her best. 

So yeah. I'm going to keep writing the chapter that I owe you today. But... it probably won't actually be finished today. Apologies. Thanks for reading, though, and wish me luck.