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State of Something Address for 10/22/19
🕑 Added 2019-10-24 13:50:21 +0000 UTCHey everyone! As we're now getting closer to the eve of Hallow, things are going to get a little busy on my end thanks to the string of holidays leading into 2020. So there's a few things I'd like to address.
Slowdown
Due to my full-time job, things are going to get a little crazy, and as a result I won't have the same amount of time I normally would when it comes to working on stories. So you may not see the same speed results that you normally would, but keep in mind that I will still be hard at work at commissions.
December break
I've talked about it here and there, but yes, once December hits I'll be taking a break from writing due to the pace of things at my job. I'll still occasionally be working on some personal projects, but as far as commissions go I won't take anymore after the opening I'll make in November.
Regular commissions will be open in January, though I don't know if I'll have a sale in that time period. The holiday theme of Halloween was a success, much better than the previous franchise based themes I was going for, so it's likely that I'll have something themed around the Christmas season, just so I can get an early enough start compared to the themed stories this month.
The big 500!
As we get closer to the 500 followers milestone on HF, I'm happy to announce that I'll be doing another raffle, but this time it will be for those who followed me on HF up to that point. Anyone else following after that will not be allowed, and yes, I will check.
Thank you all for helping me reach this point! I look forward to seeing what you all have in mind for this occasion!
Plans for November/December?
While I know a lot of people like to participate in Inktober or NaNoWriMo, obviously the former won't be occurring, and given how much I can write in a month, I think I can surpass the usual limits of writing a novel just with how much I do in commissions. That definitely seemed the case last year when it all totaled up to, I think, 50k.
But this year I do want to try and do something for December. I thought that since it's the first month of winter, the month of Christmas and reflection of the past twelve months, maybe I'll do something a little more lighthearted, given the chance; twelve, or twenty five depending on my free time, days of sex-free fluff. Just some short tales of the franchises I love having a relaxing period, being just cute and wholesome. I know, that's usually not within my steez, but it's something I've wanted to do for a while, and depending on how things go I might just be able to pull it off. We'll see, tho.
A now "lost" story
Taking a dive into some more serious matters, I want to discuss something I'm sure someone has noticed by now, since 4000 people have read it before its disappearance. Unfortunately I had to remove the Warhammer story "Sisters of the Foot Fetish" from my story gallery, although it had nothing to do with copyright claims or anything. So I'm not in trouble legally, but I still want to explain why it's gone.
So a while back, the original client of the story contacted me, asking me to take it down. From what he told me it seemed that he didn't want his past catching up to him, due to what I'm guessing was a change of conscience or something similar. Originally, I told him no, citing that it took me a week to write that (it was a different work ethic for me back then) and that I didn't want something to become lost to the ether on the internet like that. Plus, I don't know what he had to worry about, as the story was anonymously credited, so it's not as if there was a screen name attached to it that someone could associate him with.
And I didn't think much after that, he seemed to understand. I never thought I'd hear from him again, but as you can guess, just last month he asked me again, apparently the whole thing still weighing down on his conscience. Now, yes, I could have told him no, but I had a feeling that unless I deleted it, he was never going to stop asking about it. So I agreed to remove the story from the site, so long as he paid a small fee.
I apologize if you were someone that went to that story for frequent reading, but unfortunately I had to remove it, and I don't think I can upload it again, not to HF or any other site. I do have it saved on a Google Doc, just to preserve it, but as for trying to make it available to view for those that want it? I'm not sure what to do, but I do want to think of a way to do so.
Discord, Patreon, and Community
First off, I want to thank those of you who are apart of my Discord, and especially thank those that have joined on as patrons. I appreciate that there are those that want to support me in some fashion.
Even with this in mind, there's something that's been biting at me for a while concerning both communities, namely that there isn't a whole lot of interaction, and I want to change that in some fashion, to make both feel as though they're a community for my fans and others.
I'm used to seeing few comments in regards to my stories, but I had hoped that the Discord would be thriving with talks and discussions. And while a few writers and artists do interact, there doesn't feel like much coming from fans. In the case of the server, I'd like to know what I can do to make it feel more inviting for socialization.
Gaining patrons on Patreon, of course, has been something I've struggled with for as long as I've taken the platform seriously. (And I say this as I see I've had two new patrons join in the last day, hello guys!) As happy as I am that there are people showing their support, I do wish for more growth so I can continue leaning on writing as a full-time job. But I feel as though I'm going the opposite direction of what I need to be doing instead of what I should be doing. So I would love some input in this case as well, just to see what you think I can do to make Patreon a more inviting platform for others to show their support. One of the things I may have to do is move some of the tier rewards down a level, meaning that $1 patrons would get early access, $3 patrons would get any WIPs or other stuff, and $5 patrons would get a suggestion for a prompt as well as the $10 tier. The word count would remain on each level, of course, that's not changing in the slightest.
This may mean the $10 tiers are given more than one option for the prompts, while also re-evaluating how I have that set up currently. Maybe allow the other patrons to vote on the prompts rather than choose for myself? We'll see, but any input from you guys will be welcomed as well.
I think that's everything for the time being. Thank you all for your time, have a great Halloween, and I'll see you guys again soon! Take care until next time.
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