December 22 Update (Patreon)

We previously celebrated the tenth anniversary of the TLS prologue, but I didn't start a Patreon account right away. So we've now passed the tenth anniversary of that as well. As another little artifact of the past, here's my blog post for launching the Patreon:

https://thelastfucklord.blogspot.com/2014/12/patreon.html

It is not an exaggeration to say that Patreon gave me my career as a writer. I'd been creating things my entire life up to that point, but with no success in traditional writing establishments. Still haven't had any luck with those, actually: the powers that be in books and video games have consistently rejected me. I've never had a viral hit, either, the sort of explosive success that catapults people to the big time.

Instead, I've built a career one step at a time, person by person and update by update. I feel extremely fortunate to be in this position and I'm determined not to waste it, so I've taken steps to diversify. If Patreon had disappeared or banned me in the early years, I would have needed to go back to conventional work, but now I could take the loss and keep going. I hope that won't happen, because the community here on Patreon has meant a lot to me. ^-^

I find myself kind of contemplative in this moment, though. While I might have taken a different path in an alternate life, I definitely couldn't have taken this one without Patreon existing. I wonder if I could make it today, in an environment where Patreon is saturated and people have been burned by a lot of campaigns that don't deliver on their promises.

Some people believe that hard work or talent win out in the end, but I absolutely don't. Whatever skill or determination I have were components of my success, but timing and sheer luck are also critical. I wonder if a Sierra who was starting ten years later could ever get established and worry it might not be possible. In addition to Patreon being saturated, the forums I used to promote the game years ago are almost all dead, consumed by social media that favors lowest common denominator algorithms.

As another little time capsule, check out the earliest surviving thread on which I posted about TLS:

https://legendofkrystal.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=4691

I posted on many, but I think the others are all gone, or at least the forums were reset at some point. This is kind of a funny relic, actually. The main page of the site, the ostensible reason for the whole community, is I believe completely unchanged from the first time I saw it years ago. Whatever else you can say about me, at least my projects have progressed in the past ten years!

As is tradition, the last post of the year during the holidays will be a quiet one. I look forward to the new year and everything that's yet to come! I owe it to all of you. ^-^