Early Bird: Dance With a Moth, Ch. 01 (Patreon)

In which a lonely Ranger guarding a desolate antarctic lodge finds herself thrust into the role of savior when she encounters a mysterious—and beautiful—stranger lost in the blizzard.

Honestly, I wrote this story for me. I'd been having a lot of trouble writing, and I got this idea, and I just wanted to write it. I'd sort of forgotten what it felt like to write purely for the joy of writing something high-quality—I've been so mired in missed deadlines, it's been hard to focus on enjoying the process.

The truth is, I think I'd been motivating myself through guilt more than excitement for a while now, and it is my personal opinion and also an objective fact that guilt is a very bad motivator for productivity. In the long run, it just makes you feel bad about yourself, and you end up looking for an escape (like, um, Minecraft) so you don't have to feel that hurt anymore. 

I needed to write for a different motivator, so I started writing this.

Don't create things out of guilt. Create things because you're excited to have them created. This story really helped me. I don't know if I'll continue it—maybe if there's interest!—but just writing something I wasn't obligated to write helped me recover from the nearly eight-month burnout spiral I was trapped in.

That said, I really hope you enjoy it! Burnout and guilt aside, it was fun writing some cute corny romance-type content for a change.