Weekly Status Update (Patreon)

Friendly neighborhood writer type person, doing his usual weekly check in, letting you know what's coming down the pipeline and how things are moving along.

So, "Brewster's Brood" is the story to get an update this week, and I just threw up a poll that the T2-4 level subscribers can see and voice their opinion in. My original line of thinking was this - each month, I would do a Brewster's Brood update, but it would be a very large one, since I was only doing them once a month. I'm about half way, give or take, through the update for this week, and it's already approaching 8k words, so the plan was to give those of the upper patron levels, in essence, a single Chapter 20 level sized update once a month. But, the way BB is being written, I can just as easily split those large updates into a two-a-month release schedule instead of one-a-month. They would just be smaller updates. It's the same amount of raw story either way - it's just mostly a question in how you want it delivered. Do you want a 12-16k chunk once a month, or do you want 6-8k chunks twice a month? I'll leave that poll up for a while, since there are a good number of people in the T2 tier, and I want everyone to have a chance for their voice to be heard.

If I went to the two-a-month release schedule, what would probably happen is that once a month, there would be a week with only a smaller BB update, and then during a different week in the month, there would likely be two new story updates in a week of the month, one from either QT or another project and one that is the other half of the BB update. Being completely transparent about it, I'd probably do all the writing for the BB chapter in one week and just sit on half of it until later in the month, because I tend to silo my work. It might feel, however, like you were getting more value for your money each month, and like I said, it doesn't bother me either way.

Regardless of how the vote turns out, this particular BB update will hit likely on Friday, and will be the big chunk. We will let the poll determine how I do things for next month. As always, we adapt and adjust and carry ever onward.

Speaking of things you decide upon, there are four hours left in the poll, but it looks like the T3-4s have decided that the week of Nov. 5th will be Chapter 31 of Quaranteam, one week early, which is entirely fine. I suspected the cliffhanger might inspire people to want to see it sooner rather than later, and I'm here for it, so barring some last minute upset, that's the plan for 11/5. It might, however, change what I'm doing for 11/12. I haven't officially penciled anything into the calendar for that week yet. I'd originally planned to do a QT update that week, but doing two QT updates back to back, especially with knowing how challenging C32 is going to be, might be a little much. 

I've done some of the worldbuilding for my originally intended to be a standalone story, "The Trick Of The Treat," the Halloween-themed story I'll be putting out next week (10/29) and... goddamnit, I may have, in fact, generated another long-form story start. The story itself is being written as a standalone piece, but! But but but. It could, very easily, turn into a thing that I write a lot more into over the future. So for those of you who will be deciding what I'm writing for the first week in December (i.e. the t3-4s), if you want me to actually do more with this story, know that's an option I'm pretty well prepped for, and could spin out fairly easily. 

I'm also thinking it's going to be, shocker (to me, anyway), the first period piece I think I've written in a long time, set in the early to mid 1990s, which will be a fun trip down nostalgia lane, and also crazy fun to write about how much the world has changed since then, at least tangentially. Were I to do a larger formed story from it, I would likely use it as a chance to jump all around in time, telling a variety of stories around that protagonist that build into a larger narrative. I'm getting ahead of myself. It'll make a lot more sense when you read it next week, and I'm genuinely very excited about it.

Also, QT 28 will go up at EMCSA this week, the first new update of my content to that site in a while, and that may drive some more traffic to here again, as per the schedule. If so, please be welcoming to them and let them put their feet up on the couches or whatnot. There's beer in the fridge, so be sure to offer them a cold one when they get here. Simon's support of my writing has made all of this possible.

One final thing - I'm pleased to announce we have our first Commissioner level Patron, Anino, and for the month of November, I will be starting the first spinoff of Quaranteam, Phil's Tale. At some point in the month of November, there will be one extra story post made here, based around the character of Phil Marcos, Andy's friend who's been working at Boeing with the Air Force, and who has a very different perspective on the events of the story. As much as I love QT as a story, the decision to make Andy the only viewpoint character for that story has certainly given me a number of challenges to work with, and I'm eager to tell another story in the same universe from a very different viewpoint.

Phil's Tale will, eventually, cross paths with the events of Quaranteam, but starts months before it. There isn't a set release date schedule for QT:PT, but the first chapter will definitely be out at some point in November (likely towards the latter half of the month, but it's too early to tell) and that story will get an update a month for as long as its being commissioned. (If Anino decides they want something else for a later month, that's entirely their purview, and if that happens, Phil's Tale will go into the collection of on-going stories I may choose to add to in  any given month.) I'll also send that story over to EMCSA at some point, although I'm likely to wait for a few months, and let the patrons enjoy Anino's generosity first privately for 2-3 months (rather than the standard 1 month) before we let anyone else in on the fun.

Commissioned level stories are guaranteed at least 5k words a month in their story, but I write what I write, so sometimes that may be just over 5k and sometimes that may be quite the larger chapter. The first couple of sections of Phil's Tale will be a little light on the sex and heavy on the plot, so they may be a bit larger, but who knows. I haven't started writing them yet, merely doing some outlining. Not having a set weekly release schedule for them also lets me have a bit more freedom to tinker with them as I see fit.

That's where we stand for this week. For T2s and above, I'm eager to hear your thoughts on how you feel like BB is working, given a much better insight into how the story's going to be told based on this week's upcoming post, so feel free to chime in with thoughts either on the comments of that post (when it drops) or on the Discord. As was hinted at with the first BB post, there will be a number of perspective characters for BB, which gives me a lot of freedom in story telling options. I think it's a great story, and maybe at some point, five or six month down the line, I'll make the first BB chapter available to all patrons, just so those of you T1s can see what it's all about and decide with that information if you want to bump up to a T2, but other than that, BB isn't going to be made publicly available, so enjoy it! 

See most of you on Friday or Saturday for the story post, and the rest of you, I'll be back next Tuesday with another Old Times section, and next Wednesday, when I'm sure I'll be impatient to release our Halloween themed story. Thanks again everyone!