January 2023 Update (Patreon)

Well, it has been a bit, but boy howdy has it been crazy.  What else is new, right?  I got home from the hospital today, and I finally feel halfway decent enough to get some work done.  I had to have an operation to fix an issue with the scar tissue in both my esophagus and small intestines.  They had become so inflamed that eating and drinking were a serious concern.  The biggest issue was the esophagus, which was closing up enough that sometimes it was hard to breathe.

Back in 2017, when the Army doctors cut my throat open to fix my broken neck, they accidentally punctured my esophagus.  The scar tissue that formed continued to grow until it blocked seventy percent of my throat.  They went in and trimmed it, as well as stretching the tissue to open it up.  It kind of feels like the worst case of strep throat ever.  While they had me on the table, they went ahead and did basically the same thing with some scar tissue in my small intestines that I picked up in Morocco from a very exotic form of the noro-virus.  That feels similar to getting kicked in the guts by a mule, but it's actually easier to ignore as long as I don't move very much.  

I'm now so far behind that Mountaindale took me off the publishing schedule for the first quarter of the year.  It was a very painful conversation to have with them, but I understand that they have a business to run, and they can't wait on me and all my health issues.  Thankfully, with Dakota also being a veteran, he is taking things in stride.  The assistant I hired, Mary, did not share that sense of comradery and left right after I checked into the hospital.  I am once again going to have to go through everything she did and didn't get done to figure out what needs to happen.  At this point, I'm beginning to think the universe doesn't want me to have an assistant.  Doing it all myself is a time sink, but I don't have any choice at this point.

Moving forward, I am seriously considering just setting aside every Friday as my 'catch-up' day for everything.  Facebook, Patreon, and Mountaindale updates will all just have to happen in tandem if I'm ever going to get on a good schedule again.  I managed to write Winter Trials in just 21 days with a solid and uninterrupted schedule, and I want to repeat that success so I can start knocking out books like I know I am capable of doing.

Once again, thank you all for supporting me directly.  It means more than you know.  Just having people like you behind me helps keep the doubts away.  That, and writing is a lot like existing in an echo chamber of your own making.  I may think something is good, but without any feedback, I never know if what I'm writing is coming across like I intend.  You are the solution.  Like I said, thank you.

Michael