Important Notice (Patreon)

Hello everyone! It's been awhile, as many have no doubt noticed. As a side note, thanks to Patron Jeffrey Gassenheimer, and everyone else who's checked in over the past month and change, usually I try respond to those messages directly, but I saw Jeffrey's message just as I was going to write up this post, so I decided to roll in my response here. In brief, thank you one and all for touching base, for being here, and for supporting my writing.

I say this every time, but in my opinion that only makes it more true, the support never ceases to bring a smile to my face.

I have a few things to talk about in this post, which I'll break into two parts, but for everyone who just wants to know what's up here's the TLDR: 

1) I'll be going on a Hiatus to finish off the rest of well traveled.

2) Patreon collections are being paused for at least next month, and we'll just keep it that way until WT is finished and I'm posting again.

3) When I finish the story it will be dumped here all at once.

4) In the meantime, I'll also be trying to finish out my commission backlog.

Now for a more in depth explanation

About Well Traveled

We've reached a point in the story that very difficult for me to write, very complicated to fit all the pieces together outside of that difficulty, and also (being the ending) is also very important to me to get right. For these reasons, as well as some life ones that I'll get into in a bit, I've been struggling with some really annoying writers block, to the point where I have written several different chapters and starts only to delete them entirely, which is something I do my best to avoid to dodge this exact problem.

My deadlines, while usually helpful in keeping me on track, have become actively harmful to the writing process, and even taking breaks to write other stories has only driven home how much effort there is still left to go in Well Traveled, despite being so close to the ending.

So, I'm going to be taking a real "hiatus" not to take a break, but to be able to work on the rest of this story that I care about greatly at a pace that allows me to give it the time and attention this final segment needs without constantly feeling like I'm on a treadmill of updates. I've learned a lot about my writing process, mainly from mistakes in pacing and allocation of time like this one! And while going forward I will take steps to try and keep myself from falling into these same pit falls, for now, all that remains is finding the best way to finish Well Traveled with the solid ending I know I have, and the attention to detail that I know the story deserves. 

And finally, as a side note for those (I've seen more than a few) who are interested, there are already plans for a Well Traveled 2, but let's not put the cart before the horse just yet. There will be a larger break as I get things both in real life and fiction wise sorted out and work on some other stories in the meantime. But for those of you who love this story and these characters as much (or somehow more!) than I do, don't worry, I may be talking about the end of Well Traveled, but Taylor(s), Ritz, and Raven will go on to have more hijinks filled adventurers in the future even after we close out this chapter of their story.

Some notes on Life right now

So yeah, I think I speak for all of us when I say "I had plans, but then 2020 happened" First off, I want to be completely clear that I'm fine, nothing horrible has happened to me or my close friends or immediate family. No need to worry! I'm doing my best to stay safe.

Life does have a way of getting in the way though, doesn't it. By now, I think I'm through most of the complications and settling into my new routine. Though, I've probably said that a few times by now. There are still things to do and many other demands on my time, but the biggest hurdles are behind me, and I'm looking forward to using this opportunity to add some more positive habits and structures to my life, including my writing.

In that process, I will be trying to clear out my backlog, so that there will be some chapters of commissions posted and stuff like that. I'll also be pausing patreon donations for at least the next month. I would have done it for this month, but unfortunately I was moving furniture all of this weekend and didn't quite get to it in time. I'll be trying to use this feature more if I have any hiatus's in the future as well, mainly because personally, I don't like taking money for stuff I'm not doing, and I'm actually kinda sad and embarrassed it took me so long to find that button!

Though, to be fair, whenever I want to update the home page it usually takes me about 15 minutes to figure out where the edit homepage button is (spoiler: its in a banner at the top of the screen)

Live and Learn, they say, Live and Learn.

Some lessons just stick better than others.