Not a whole lot to say this week—Ardor Online 2 is winding down. Not done, not yet, but winding down. Realistically, I'll have the draft done in a week or so, and then realistically it'll take another few days to edit, because this one's already a whopping 23k words and it still has more to give. Very proud of it so far, and very excited to show you all what I've spent almost the entire month of May writing.

It is, dare I say, that good shit.

Thank you always for supporting me, for reading my work, and for taking care of yourself!

I remembered before bed edition!

Nothing too much to report. One of those weeks where I've been writing and nothing else, which I should always be grateful for. Ardor Online 2 is . . . most of the way done, I think. But a very slight "most of the way." If Ardor Online 1 was "two scenes," AO2 will be "three scenes." Hardly an objective metric but that's internally how I think of these things. Anyway, I'll keep writing, and serve up that Good Good when the time comes.

Thank you all for all that you do!

Stella Starr's tier 3 subs showed up in force—Bodyslyde is the next story to get an update!

A bit preemptive, but having the poll felt good for me. I love writing what I want to write, but I also love writing what people want me to write—so setting up a poll of things I want to write so that you all can vote on what I want to write about I should write about feels like a best of both worlds scenario.

Now I can't always guarantee I'll run a poll for the between-commission work—there may be more works like Hex Mania in the future, where I'll be gripped by inspiration or a compulsion to contribute to a shared cultural moment, or I may succumb to some individualized brainrot (Hex Mania was both). But as long as I'm not gripped by an all-consuming desire to write one thing only, I'd like to keep polling. I may indirectly rig the polls by only including works of similar popularity (or unpopularity), and when my number of ongoing works dwindles (I swear I can finish a story) I'd also love to run concept/theme polls, like voting for writing prompts.

Progress on Ardor Online 2 is tearing along—10k words at time of writing, and I'll probably still write more today. My day job has been a stressor—there's a big important project that has a really vague action plan and due date hanging over my head, and it makes me restless and unhappy. Thankfully, I have writing to retreat to—as much a means to work out that stress as visiting the gym (and even better to do both 💪).

Overall I'm happy, healthy, and writing a lot, so the mild uptick in workplace stress is something I can handle. Thank you all so much for reading my work and for supporting me, and take good care of yourselves.

Nothing to report that you don't already know—Hex Mania 3 is done, and now we're onto Ardor Online 2, which I'll start work on within the next few days.

Broadcasting this way ahead of time and you won't have to keep this in mind, but I'll be going on vacation for a little more than two weeks at the end of October. An actual vacation instead of my usual staycations, so I'll almost certainly not be writing, and if I do it'll likely be SFW, and even then probably just some tourist's poems.

I'll have a great time, and I'll pause substar payments for October, so I don't feel obligated to overproduce before or after my trip, and so you all don't feel cheated while I'm gone. Again, this is all still several months out, and nothing you need to remember—just communicating it all ahead of time so there's no surprise!

Bleugh! Been working through a depressive episode the past two days—nothing to worry about, just something that hits me from time to time and wipes out my energy. I took yesterday as my 1/week day off writing, and was able to write today without issue, so we're back on the upswing.

Hex Mania 3 is close to being done (real). After that, Ardor Online 2. When I start working on AO2, I'll throw up a poll for the next Pandion Original™ to get an update, and work on that once AO2 ships.

In which I post a day early for once, instead of several days late!

Progress on Hex Mania 3 is good—6k words as of time of writing, with WIPs going up in the Discord as per usual. I'd like to take some time to talk about commissions.

Commissions are complicated. They're where I make almost all of my writing money, and I really do enjoy writing to specific specifications, to an audience of (primarily) one person, and earning positive feedback from them (as well as the paycheck). It's fun to throw myself into satisfying someone's very specific wants, because as a long-time hypno art enthusiast, I know how good it feels when you see art that gets it. I think every fetishist has a similar experience—encountering a piece of art that resonated so uniquely to their wants, and usually by accident. You may have heard me say before that the reason I write, more than anything else, is because there aren't enough people out there writing exactly what I want to read. I have a great many incredible peers (like the excellent Kallie) who make works of incredible quality featuring kinks I adore—but even then, they don't quite satisfy, and I'm left wanting more.

Ergo, I must write.

And one day, I would love to be able to support myself just by writing—but that day is yet far, far away. And that's fine. I write because I have to. Making money off it is a privilege, one that I try to recognize and appreciate for what it is.

But it comes at a consequence—namely, I spend so much time writing commissions that my personal stories, Bodyslyde and OEI first among them, with Heroine Will Not Lose also lurking in the background, go long lengths of time without updates.

Hex Mania also doesn't help but you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

This dilemma—the balance between commissions, which make me very comfortable amounts of money and personal stories, which are probably the reason you're reading this blog in the first place, has bothered me for a while. Even within a commission-heavy paradigm, I've had pain points: Right now, commissioners go months between new chapters for their comms (with the patience of saints, if you're a commissioner reading this, I love you for it) and that has increasingly felt unfair to me. Waiting is one thing—waiting in the middle of the story is another.

So! With all those thoughts in mind, I've been trying to think of a better, fairer, more transparent, more agile framework to write within, and here's where I've landed:

Starting from now onward, my current "rotation" of works is locked down. New commissions, should I receive them, will not enter the writing rotation, until I have finished all but one current commission. At that point, a queued comm will enter the rotation, where it will remain until finished.

The workflow I envision will move thusly:
Chapter of Commission A > Personal Work > Chapter of Commission B > Personal Work > Chapter of Commission A > ...
until Commission A is complete, at which point it will be replaced by Commission C, and Commission B with Commission D, etc. Two ongoing commissions, with personal works (OEI, Bodyslyde, Hex Mania, HWNL) interspersed between, resulting in a clearer understanding of when you can expect your commission to be completed.

Additionally, after this chapter of Hex Mania, I think I'll have worked through the brainrot sufficiently that I can start polling my subscribers for which personal work gets the next update. So if you really miss Stelle or Marie Mukao, you'll be able to say it.

I've updated the Trello to reflect the new workflow—it doesn't look very different right now, because it won't until I finish the current crop of comms.

Please let me know how this new system sounds to you—either in the replies here, or on Discord, or in DMs. I have the privilege to get paid to write—so it's my responsibility to make sure I'm taking care of all of you as best I can. Thank you so much for supporting me, reading my works, and surviving this blog post.