Hey everyone! I am so sorry that this month's payout went through. I YET AGAIN forgot to pause it even though I was sure I did on July 1st. I am going to unlaunch patreon. Honestly it is a source of stress for me, especially given that my personal life has vastly interfered with my ability to write. I am still working on Speak. Me unlaunching my creator page doesn't mean that's not happening. Also, as always, please message me if you need/want a refund for this month. I am so annoyed with myself for forgetting. That said, I am about halfway done with a new chapter of Speak, and my plan is to kick my butt now that the summer crisis time has wound down a bit to try to get it finished. Maybe before EFNW??
Again, sorry that I keep doing this to y'all, and I think this is the best solution for now for me to stop forgetting to pause billing cycles.
Hahahahaha I finally have had time to write! Here's the start of the draft for 22.25, a bit of a shenanigans filled chapter that will be leading up to me getting all serious in Speak again.
HAHAHAHA GUESS WHO FORGOT TO START GETTING THE DRAFT UP. ME! Sorry it has been a hell of a year, and it's still going. That said, I'm planning on keeping Patreon off billing, so here you all go for those of you who stuck around like HEART LET US THROW MONEY AT YOU and I keep saying no becuase you all need it more than me. Anyways, I brought pain!
So, since I am an amazingly well organized person in real life, I ended up forgetting to pause November's billing cycle. In theory, I SHOULD have been able to refund everyone's stuff, but Patreon decided to pull the payments for the patreons I back instead, meaning it wouldn't let me give everything back. Which would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that it also won't let me somehow add funds to complete this process.
If you haven't gotten a refund from me, please shoot me a message so I can get your money back to you. I feel really dumb about this, and am excessively frustrated at 1am trying to get everything fixed.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but given this year, I am trying to err on the side of caution when it comes to financial stuff for people. I also feel excessively guilty that my job has basically stalled my writing out because it turns out global pandemics are bad for people's mental health! As a consequence, I'm financially settled in a time when others aren't, so I am more than willing to get those pledges back to you. You can message me on patreon, poke me on discord, or message me on Fimfiction if you would like.
And if you aren't worried about it and are like Heart why are you worrying, bless you, but I still feel really badly that my progress on... writing anything has been so stunted this year.
Hey Everyone! I am very, very, very slowly trying to figure out what I am doing with chapter 22 right now, as work has more or less eaten my *life*. With Oregon starting to do a slow reopening in the pandemic, I've been pulling about 4-8 hours of overtime a week since we started because we're super busy. Turns out people don't do well in lockdown or isolation. This has meant that Speak has kinda languished a bit, and I apologize for the slowness. I hope to try to get the chapter done by the end of July so I can actually have a consistent update schedule!
I also fixed all the tax things for the patreon stuff. I think most of what I have is untaxable, and I kept staring at the FAQ categories so hopefully if you're in the states it doesn't tax you now??? Not sure about other countries because the EU is confusing as heck. It also shouldn't tax you because I honestly don't plan to turn the patreon billing until things sorta... calm down globally, so that may be a while. Like possibly next year a while.
To be honest, I... am not super fond of patreon. I like writing Speak, and feel super awkward when people are like 'LET ME THROW MONEY AT YOU!' It usually makes me start hissing at them like a particularly upset opossum, and I can tell since I started the patreon, my stress level about writing has gone up, and my productivity has gone down. Which makes me feel terrible for folks who have taken the OC mention/write in for Tsitra, Wellen, Neth, and OffBeat, whom I am desperately trying to catch up to. My plan is to try to get folks integrated as quickly as possible, but first I need work to not eat my life. My hope is that 10 days of vacation that I have coming up in a week helps with that a bit!
I got about 3 messages from folks going 'uh, why didn't I get a patreon receipt from you?' And the reason is we've got kind of a lot going on in the world right now, and honestly, I want you to use that money for things that **you all** need. So for the next few months, you may be getting your paetron stuff for free! Lucky you! I'm stilling planning on trying to do updates and occasional notes on worldbuilding, etc, even though I've been *INCREDIBLY BAD* at consistently doing those kinds of updates. For those who don't have early access to drafts, which... I don't think is very many of you, I have about 7500 words into chapter 21. I am trying to poke at it when I can, but honestly the stress of right now has been kinda weighing on me too. I don't like owning that, but it has definitely contributed to many times of me opening the googledoc for Speak and staring for about 20 minutes before going 'nope, not today.' But I am working on it when I can, even if that means only adding a few sentences here and there.
I'm also realising that my chapters are getting longer and longer and longer and oh goddesses someone save me I don't want to start writing 30k word chapters!
But I just wanted to let you all know that I appreciate your support, and I am thinking of you all still (even if I am bad at showing it and/or updating to show it!). Thanks so much for being part of what keeps me writing out small, anxious pegasi in Equestria!
So, I am legit the worst cause I have had this document open on my computer for the past three months and AFREAKINGPARENTLY FORGOT TO POST IT! I am so sorry my lovelies! As a new policy, I've been adding the ability for you all to comment! So if there's stuff you like early on (Or you see as an issue), feel free to point it out! ~Heartshine
Oh my gosh, it has been a year since I started patreon! Honestly, I wasn't sure I would be able to keep it up for a year, and a part of me still feels weird about it, but I am so glad that I am still writing things that people enjoy.
I wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past year. It's been a long journey through this year, and while I did not produce as much as I'd like, I am hoping to do better next year!
One of the changes I have made is the removal of the $25 tier. From a writing perspective, writing to integrate OCs has been a very interesting process, and one that I'm not sure works super well with my discovery style writing. I talked it over with my Heartmenders, and as a huge thank you for them from me, I'm going to be commissioning art of their OCs that will eventually make it into Speak.
However, this means that I am trying to give you a bit more for less, I suppose? I really enjoy doing the Heartmender talks on discord, and so I am going to be moving that reward down to the Followers role. I really like talking to everyone, and having a few more of you join us in the calls will be awesome!
One thing that I've also pointed out more on my discord server than here is that if someone sponsors me, even if it's just for a month, I've been making sure to keep them at the same level. I know how much of a financial investment $10 can be, and so even if someone does it once, I'd like to be able to give a bit back. That may be me downplaying the value of my work, but... honestly? I started out writing for me, so the idea of getting paid for doing something I like is kind of a weird thing for me.
But, anyways, I want to say thank you all so much for supporting me! I am so blessed to have all of you in my life, and I'm so happy that you put up with my crazy slow update schedule and propensity for writing unnervingly deep and random blogs at times.
Have a happy Hearth's Warming, or whatever holidays you celebrate, and I'll see you all in the new year!
I was asked recently by a group of readers that do a Fimfiction book club to write a few notes about the early chapters of speak. Well, apparently a few notes turned into a little over three pages, and I decided that these made really good little rewards for patrons, not just talking points for the people who were running the book club. So if you want some DEEP LORE of Speak, here you go!
Hey all, I want to thank you all for your support throughout this year! I didn't think that I'd ever be here, and I'm surprised I actually stuck it out throughout a year. So far, Patreon has let me do things like help out friends (and in some cases, fans in need!) when they were in financial need, helped get a member of the Russian Translation Team to Russia's bronycon, as well as it let me sponsor a pair of bats through Bat Conservation International, and helped pay for new art of the lovely cast of Speak!
I wanted to let you all know that I am pausing the payments for December, and I'm doing this for two reasons: One, I am wanting to try to do some changes to tiers soon, and for two, the holidays are coming up, and honestly I want you all to do some nice things for yourselves here. I work as a mobile crisis clinician, and while most of you follow my blogs on fimfiction, I want to reiterate that the Holidays can be a hard time for people. So take some time to do some good things for yourselves, and if you can't spend time with family (or have to spend time with family that makes you feel alone!), do some good things for you.
I'll be posting the updated patreon support levels (slight spoiler, I am trying to see if I can give you more for less!), and again, I want to thank you all for your support so far!
Hey all! I just finished up a... we'll call it a bonus chapter for now for Speak. I say that because it's an actual chapter, and a bit of insanity that came to my roommate, Bubblegum (who inspires the character in Speak), and I came up with at 4am one morning. I just sent that over to RoMS and Bro, and I'd like to have that out by the end of September.
Another update is that I was asked to be interviewed by the Royal Canterlot Library! They're a group of folks who sort of curate a... I'm not sure how to describe it, but a group of stories on Fimfiction that they feel deserve some acclaim. I'm still working on the interview bit because this is something I will obsess over and nitpick before I'll give it to them, but I'm very excited. And I couldn't do this without your continued support. So thank you all for giving me the motivation to keep writing!
I want to try to get chapter 20 of Speak out in October. And I may have an update for Synchronicity. Maybe. I've been trying very hard to give that little story some love, and I feel bad that I've kind of been a bit of a chaotic evil author with it.
Anyways, that's all from me for now. Again, as always, thank you all for your support.
Hey all, I am presently working on chapter 19 of Speak, working with the Russian Translation team on re-translating chapter 1 (and editing it in the process because Sweet Baby Luna on the Moon even after RoMS' help, chapter 1 needed some... polish. With... coarse grit sandpaper.) I am *hoping* to have 19 out by either the end of the month, or at the very least before Bronycon.
That said, I will be attending Bcon this year! I know, it's the last one, I'm a socially anxious, neurotic mess, but! I was informed that there's a place called quills and sofas and that sounds like a cool place to hang (and prevents me from spending way too much money on swag at the con.) As always, I'd love to meet some of you in person, and it was awesome to meet some of you, like Kaipony, at Everfree in May. May definitely slowed down my writing because I had about a 14 day period where I was working straight, then trying to do a con thing, then my vacation got cut short because of work and it was very busy.
I am also working on a few side projects, I would *love* to be able to try to get some chapters out for Sychronicity, and I still have this very silly idea about writing an Equestria Girls crossover with Battletech because who doesn't love giant robots? (I really need someone to sit on me and tell me no.)
But as always, thank you so much for supporting me! I am really glad that you all feel I'm good enough to support, but I always feel like I need to say thank you all the time because of how really grateful I am. Patreon has been forcing me to confront my own imposter syndrome in a very real way. So thank you all for doing that. Y'all are making me a better person!
Ever feel like something in your life was missing? Maybe that you were holding on to someone else's hopes and dreams? Fluttershy wonders why that might be.
The lovely Anticular Pony was finally able to complete my commission! It's been well worth the wait to see Bubbles, Threnody, BJ, and Glitter all together!
Hey all! We finally finished up with chapter 18! I'm super excited about it! Hopefully you all are, too! As always, this'll be exclusive on patreon for a few days before I finally post it. Enjoy!
Hey everyone! Chapter 18 is with the editors. I realised that I was stressing myself out trying to cram everything into one massive chapter, and the more that I was looking at it, the more stressed out I got. Which, in turn, made me struggle with my writing. So... I'm trying a new approach: ending things where it seems to fit. This may mean shorter chapters, but I am hoping that it means I can get them out faster. If Synchronicity has been any indicator, it's been working so far. But hopefully we'll have a new chapter out soon!
