Happy Nude Deer 2022! Reader feedback for the coming year? (Patreon)

Wait. Is that the right saying? Ah well, rolling with it...

Hello fantastic people! Hope you all had a wonderful closing of the year 2021.

Personal ramblings; skip ahead for Patreon related stuff.

I see a lot of people doing reflections on their experiences in 2021, but honestly, I'd rather just forget it happened. Between the stress of being manipulated back into the work force only to find the US housing market is a nightmare for the common man, to a stroke putting me out of service for the last quarter, I've really had to throw all plans for continuing my writing career in a freezer.

Not to say my year hasn't been full of good times either. My friends and family continue to be the most loving wonderful people I know, and your continued support even through my worst is appreciated beyond any words I know. Thank you all so much for your interest in my work. I dunno how I'd have managed without you. >^.^<

Last week was more or less my final monitoring visit with my primary care team. After three months of dieting and medication juggling, I'm cut my blood sugar average from 330 to 160, my cholesterol is back down to normal, and I've lost 25 pounds. They declared me as healthy and stable as they can get me. Thankfully I won't have to rely on insulin to keep it under control and can relax in general. There's still a LOT to do though. My blood pressure is pretty high despite medication and dieting. Plus, my limbs are still weak and suffering muscle spasms. I'm just hoping my insurance covers physical therapy or that's going to get really expensive too.

So, what's the game plan for Patreon?

As I said, there were things I wanted to try implementing in 2021. If anything, this whole ordeal has made me come to appreciate the time we still have on this glorious earth and a desire to enjoy the most out of it.

Getting back on track is the clear first step. Between August and December, the sudden health crisis rendered my ability and motivation to write slim to nonexistent. This year I set myself up for a goal of writing at least 250,000 words. Maybe a bit of a small goal in scale, but not unreasonable as I still have a long way to go before my right limbs are fully recovered. Also, I'm going to try not putting all story updates at the end of the month. That feels like a bad time to be advertising new content with the way patreon charges on the first.

In the meantime, expect this place to get a face lift soon. I hired artists way back to make some new graphics and this is feeling like a good time to finally utilize them. Can't believe I've been managing to keep going for 4 years and 200+ stories.

New commissions will be opening in earnest either late January or early February. My current backlog is one of the big things I need to catch up on to also help pay bills/taxes. I still haven't figured out a system for processing them that really works for me. Right now, I've deliberated on something super streamlined where I leave a submission form open and do as many as I can within a month before wiping the slate clean and starting over on the next month. Also, I'm probably going to start accepting openings from patrons first so you guys can get more opportunities to use those discounts.

I've thought a lot about what to do with my tiers and rewards in general. The current and constant problems in this country and raising costs have made me consider raising the base entry point to $2 or $3. Those currently in the $1 would be held as a 'Founder' type tier with the same access to the majority of released stories, with a new $1 put up as a 'sample' tier for people to read the plethora of archived posts. This isn’t a 'for sure' plan though. Let me know what you guys think.

The $5 tier doesn't have any new ideas planned, though I do intend to have more polls for On the Scene content and any other silly ideas that come to me.

For the $10 tier the character cameo and suggestion box have become too difficult and not that fun to manage last year so they're being retired. I may do random 'casting calls' or something when the need to fill a roll arises (which is surprisingly often) but that'll probably be for the general audience. I do, however, wish to go back to producing an exclusive serial for those that wish to give a bit more. We're in the process of deciding which one in particular to start with and may end up doing another poll on that soon. It’ll be more of a continuous story instead of On the Scene’s episodic ones.

As an extra bonus, though, I've been practicing over the year with a program called Twine for making interactive fiction. Choose Your Own Adventures are the books that started my whole journey into writing and I've been wanting to make my own for the longest time. It's still hard for me to learn all the coding but my first attempt is around 50% complete and should release as a new $10 reward in February, with a new short game on a bi-monthly schedule. So, I hope that'll be something everyone enjoys.

And that's about it for now. If you've read all this text than thank you so much and sorry, I went off on a bit of a lecture there. I would really love to hear some user feedback as well. As far as goals and other kinds of content go, I'm really just stumped. Are there certain themes you'd like to see more off? Do you have ideas for things I can strive for or improve? Did you like the character ask segments? Should I try the vote for what happens next game from a few years back again? I'm open to ideas and suggestions always.

Anyway, there's lots of work to do in the new year and I hope to continue entertaining you guys long into the next. Stay safe and remember; wearing loose clothing only makes the inevitable TF worse. <3