The Marshmallow Ranch Gazette (Patreon)

Howdy, patrons!

You may have noticed that it's been pretty quiet around here lately, and trust me, no one's less happy about that than I am. Unfortunately it can't be helped: a persistent family emergency has eaten up most of my free time for the past month and -- unless a fair miracle happens within the next three days -- it'll continue to take up a lot of my time and energy.

I'm not ashamed to say that I fell into a bit of a depression there for a while, too. I was reprimanded (as gently as possible) by my direct manager at the day job and warned that if I didn't start shaping up they would have to put me on the path to being dismissed from my position. It's a tough thing to hear when you're already dealing with more than you feel you can, but it actually helped kick-start me into actually dealing with a lot of the emotional and self-care issues I'd been struggling with this whole time.

So I'm happy to say that I'm on the upswing. I've been trying to take better care of myself with the basics: getting more sleep, getting more exercise, drinking more water, eating better food. I've rededicated myself to my meditation practice, stayed on top of taking my medication (Prozac for depression, Adderall for ADHD), and started reading books that might help me develop new practices or refine the ones I'm already using to make me more emotionally resilient. I'm not out of the woods yet -- the family situation is still dire, and I still have work to do to get myself out of the hole at my day job -- but I'm making progress.

Writing, as you might guess, has stalled for now. I had a realization a few weeks ago that creating wasn't a joy for me any more; I was so focused on making sure the technical aspects of the story were where they needed to be that writing became more an exercise in pushing through anxiety than anything. If I were going to make "Boundaries" and other stories as good as I wanted them to be, I would need to rediscover joy in the act of creation and learn how to be playful with my writing all over again.

I'm finding my way back to that. Not quite firing on all cylinders, but I'm getting there. Captain Tau and his crew don't feel quite like strangers like they once did, and imagining interactions with various crewmembers feels exciting and invigorating instead of daunting. I don't know when new episodes of "Boundaries" will come out -- I know better than to rush anything, or to make commitments I'm not sure I can keep. But I am working on finishing "Verneshot" and hope that the last four episodes will be better than the first four. 

I think I'll make it a point not to begin posting a serial until I've finished it. The stutter-start nature of releasing previous serials really embarrasses me, mostly because I know *I* hate it when other creators do the same thing. I had been hoping that this Patreon would spur me to getting better with working on a deadline, but that just hasn't been the case. Granted, there are extenuating circumstances -- but there will always BE extenuating circumstances. Successful writers figure out how to get the story out anyway, and that's what I'll have to do. I accept that, but I also can't keep pissing away the good will of you folks when you've been so good to me.

I hope I say this often enough that you're sick of it. I really appreciate all of you. Thank you so much for your support and encouragement. It means a whole lot to me. 

That's it for now. I'll try not to be a stranger if you don't. 

Yours,

Jakebe