Update for Next Year (SERIOUSLY, Read) (Patreon)

Okay, everyone. Let’s be honest. This last year was…a bit rough, all things considered. No series were finished, there were upheavals in how things were done, some rewards didn’t really materialize the way that they were supposed to (and for that, I appreciate your understanding, thank you), and I kind of bounced all over the place, just trying to keep things working rather than doing what I should have done and made it better. 

So. 2021 is coming to a close, which means 2022 is going to be a new year for the patreon. Let’s get into what that means, and what will change. Because there’s going to be some fairly drastic changes in some cases, and I want you guys to know what’s coming so you can decide whether you still want to support, or if you think that you’re not going to be getting enough for your levels any longer before the year is over. 

Let’s get to it. 

The Process (as it stands)

Over the last year, I had a very haphazard at best process that the patreon stories went through. A story would have between one to three chapters written before I did any real brainstorming, because I wanted to have some time to dive in and explore the world, understand what I had in mind by writing it, and then move forward with actual planning. This…has led to some very roundabout stories, particularly in the case of things like The Black-Feathered Monk, The League of Super Heroines, TF-Tube, and Dark Lord Substitute. Things lingered, they flopped, and they didn’t really go anywhere sometimes because I didn’t know what I was doing. 

The process was made worse by allowing a weekly vote, which meant that no series had a guaranteed chance to actually get off the ground. A weak first chapter meant that a series could be completely doomed, and many series would take so long to get started that the above lack of brainstorming meant that they were further hindered and handicapped. 

So, to summarize, the problems were: 

-Difficulty getting started

-Lack of prep work

-Lack of build-up to keep a series going

Now, let’s fix that. 

The (New) Process 

From now on, the first vote of the month dictates which series gets the majority of my focus for that month (more on the remaining later). All but one patreon stream days in the month will be focused on the chosen series, world, and characters. This means that a minimum of three chapters will go into a series every month, which will hopefully push us towards completing a series that much faster. 

If it is a brand new series, the first month will focus on one-offs and exploratory stories, giving me the chance to build up the world and do brainstorming for it. Not all of the stuff explored during this time will be canon, but it will at least allow all patrons to see what it would be like to have stories in this world, and what they could be about, and it will allow me to have a chance to flail around and discover what I want to do with that series without screwing with the continuity. This first month will also be spent brainstorming, writing up characters, and producing codexes of sorts that I meant to be doing before this point, but will be doing in the new year. 

If the series is an existing one, then we will hop right in, and start working on the three or four (if there are five Tuesdays in the month) chapters for that series that month. Every month, the chapters written will be collected into a single PDF and published, rather than me attempting to do that after every stream. 

For the last day, however…

The Mid-Tier Problem

Previously, mid to upper tier patrons had access to the docs of character/world information (which did not get updated the way I meant them to) and were also supposed to get edited anthologies of stories. That…didn’t really work the way that it was supposed to. 

I overestimated my editing speed, and my ability to get things done properly with those. So, rather than moving forward with those stories, I’m going to finish editing the one half-done in my own time, and offer a different reward for the $10 and up tier. Instead of the kink anthology, there’ll be the option of monthly one-shots in the current world we’re working on, or a one-off chosen (by me) from a list of stories I believe have potential for some fun. So, we’re replacing the anthology with stories locked to this level for at least two months, then released to general consumption. 

tl;dr version: Kink anthology is out, one-shots of various sorts are in. 

The Upper Tier Problem

I’m honestly not sure what I’m going to replace the CYOA stuff with. I wanted that to be a thing, but it seems that the time I’m free to run it is the time that almost nobody can show up to do the voting part of it. I mean, we have 16 people as of writing this that are part of that tier. At the very most, I’ve gotten 3 or 4 to actually stay through a CYOA session at once, and never more than one more that drops out during that. 

As for what we can replace it with, I have a few suggestions. 

-Game Streams. I’ve recently gotten really into the idea of streaming games, and I’d like to do it as a sort of thing where I both use it for ideas for stories/rule 34/etc., and break down various story themes and stuff. 

-A weekly erotic blog, like the Dragon News Network I used to do, in which I – as Drac – present various goings-on, connected multi-verse phenomena, as well as going into my takes on various erotic writing techniques, fetish insights, and things like that. 

-General Writing. Me just writing whatever comes into my head based on my characters or a kink I’m interested in or a world idea that’s come to me, and just seeing where the hell it goes, disconnected from all the other stuff going on. 

Those are the main ideas I have at the moment, but I’m up for more suggestions. Let me know if you have any for me. Main thing is that the CYOA needs to go just about as badly as the Kink Anthology does. 

I think that’s about all the detailed shifts here. I’ll be putting down reward updates as well in another post, but I wanted you guys to see what I was thinking of here before mid-month is officially here, so you can tell if this is something you still want to support. Thanks, as ever, for staying with me this long.