This is a rather lengthy and personal update, so I will be writing in bold the bits that are most important and needed to know for subscribers at the time of this posting
I'd first of all like to apologize for any disappointment I might have wrought with this decision, but I no longer believe I can keep up with my subscribe star and am planning to give up at the end of the month indefinitely. So I encourage my current subscribers to end their pledges, this months reward should have been DM'd to you at the timing of this post.
I want to say this hasn't been an easy decision for me to make. The idea of setting up a platform like this and writing even semi-professionally at least to supplement my tentative income from my day job has been something I've been considering for several years now. I'd been hesitant to start though because I was unsure if I could keep up or really handle the responsibilities, to produce consistently along with marketing myself and expanding my reach. I told myself I'd keep waiting until I was more sure, I was in a better mental state, I was more put together, I had a bigger audience, a more committed schedule. It had gone on so long that I wasn't sure I'd ever really be ready to take on a responsibility like this to be self-employed, working for tips.
I mentioned a short while ago that I'd been diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year, and it's still something I hesitate to bring up it feels like an excuse, and a weak one. Before I was diagnosed I honestly didn't even think the disorder was a real thing. It's still difficult to admit I have it, but when I started on the medication for it, it was like putting on glasses for the first time. It finally felt like if I was ever going to be ready to take this plunge it was now.
There was still a lot of uncertainty but I figured I'd work out the kinks as I went. I enjoyed writing and a good number of you had told me I was good at it. I was excited and motivated and I had plans on expanding what I did. I enjoy telling stories and my plan was to go beyond just erotica, there's a lot of mediums beyond that with which a story can be told. So instead of always waiting for a vague uncertain “better” time I thought I'd start small, start with what I could do right now and start working from there.
I've quickly realized that my position far more complicated than I had originally believed.
The more I look into my disorder following my diagnosis the more of my life I'm starting to reexamine and it's now abundantly clear that when I was waiting to be “more put together” and “in a better place” I was right. I'd been stuck on that for so long I started to believe there was no “better” I was just holding myself back because I was scared of uncertainty. That was definitely part of it, but I was stuck because I had no idea just why I wasn't moving forward.
My brain doesn't work the way I thought it did and so I wasn't at all ready for this. I'm still figuring out my medication, the best dose or even if the one I'm on is right for me. I also clearly need to learn how to navigate life with a completely new perspective on it. I can't just buckle down and power through the rough patches like I thought I could.
The biggest problem, but hardly the only one, that's brought me to this decision is my growing understanding that “being interested in something” and “being stimulated by it” are two distinctly different things. Despite the similarities and the very obvious overlap, no matter how much I enjoy writing, telling a story, or how much I want to tell a particular story, that doesn't necessarily mean I can. Getting bored and my brain quite literally turning off and putting me nearly to sleep are two separate reactions, although the former can confer the latter, they aren't the same.
There are just so many things in my life I've enjoyed but given up on, called myself lazy or a coward that quits at the slightest hardship, because I was weak. I started to wonder if I ever even liked anything, because I got bored so easily and unpredictably. Things I was good at, things that held my interest and I'd sink entire days into working on I'd just suddenly lose all motivation and simply abandon in the middle for seemingly no reason, and yet I couldn't just move on either, I felt ashamed at my sudden shift but I had no idea why, it should've been as simple as I want to or I don't right? It felt like a moral failing and one that I was “refusing” to fix no matter how much I told myself I needed to.
The point I'm trying to make is that this decision to quit isn't an easy one. It's not the first time either. It's not even one I particularly want to make, but it's one I feel with complete certainty I need to make.
I'd like to come back to this someday, in a better place, with a better plan, and a proper understanding and certainty on how I'll be able to manage it. I'm not sure if I ever will though. I might have to come to terms with the fact I can't do something as consistently as I need to in order to make this path work.
Regardless of what I'd like in the future, to my current $3 supporters I encourage you to end your subscriptions this month. This month's reward should have been delivered to you already and I no longer plan on continuing into the next month.
I'm having difficulties finding anything I can do on my end to halt payments or even close my account. It seems I need to contact subscribestar support directly and even then the best they can do is put an indefinite hold on all future payments while I have a current subscriber, and given the nearly two months it took for my account to get approved I can only worry that two and a half weeks might not be enough early notice for them to stop payments before next month.
Since there's so few of you, if you all were to leave the tier I could quietly remove it and hopefully preserve this account in case I can someday revive it, however unlikely that seems right now. Possibly set up a free tier for the time being and use this page as something like a blog for irregular future works. My plan isn't to simply never create anything again, but I just can't promise any degree of consistency at all.
Also I'm not allowed to withdraw any money from my account until revenue reaches 150 total USD. So I've got about 90 USD just floating in limbo here. lmao.
I plan to shoot support a message early next week after my upcoming long weekend if there are still subscribers so they hopefully, aren't unfairly charged.
I'd like to apologize one last time for this rather sudden decision, I'm incredibly disappointed in myself for not being able to stick with this and not being able to understand my difficulties earlier, but I'm so incredibly thankful for your support for the last couple months and for making me feel like this was even a possible path for me if I were better able to handle the responsibility. If it's of any consolation the stories I've written and updates I've made to them would never have been written if not for your encouragement. I very much want to continue writing and even reach into art in the future and combine the two and I hope you'll still be able to enjoy what I can do, even if I can't promise any sort of consistency. This has been a growing experience for me and a net positive just from knowing what I've done has been worth something to as many people as it has.