Looking for thoughts on changing the way this Patreon works

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since the last time I posted an update. For most of this time I've had my Patreon paused, meaning that you haven't been charged for your membership. (There was a single month in here where I forgot to pause, so there's been a single payment this year for everything I've posted.

The content I've posted so far:

• A Very Girly Sleepover to Which I Was Not Invited (Oneshot, 4,534 words)
• An Itch to Trick a Witch (1 chapter, 2,555 words)
• Shattered Illusion (2 chapters, 2,735 words)
• Reincarnated as a Fox (2 chapters, 4,856 words)
• New Things (Oneshot, 3,102 words)

Totalling to 17,782 words since the start of January.

Motivation & Burnout

For me, the parts of writing I enjoy most are:

• Coming up with a plot.
• Writing something that feels unique/experimental.
• Releasing something to people.

This is great for:

• When I first start long-running stories.
• When I'm making something short.
• When I'm making something really experimental or completely unlike anything I've done before.
• When I'm helping other authors with their plots.

It's not great for my own ability to finish long-running stories.

However, Patreon at the start was great at encouraging me to continue my stories! However, after a lot of time spent on that, especially when trying to do it at a fast rate, that led to burnout and coincidentally made it even harder to find motivation. After about a month of focusing more on programming again this year, I realised that I was enjoying that more than I had been writing. And since previously it had been the exact opposite, I knew there was something wrong with how I'd been doing things.

Patreon changes

Now, 20,000 words is about the number of words I'd been shooting for every month while I'd been charging people. Most months I didn't meet that number, though.

So here's an idea I had — instead of charging monthly, I'll change my Patreon to charge "per creation," and that "creation" will be every time I hit 20k new words. Here's what that would mean:

• I don't have to keep pausing every single month.
• You don't have to wonder when I'm going to unpause one of the months. You'll be able to see the stories I'm writing, and see by that how close I am to 20k words and the next payment. 
• In the time between payments, you won't be charged for any of my writing. Functionally, it's the same as it's been for the past five months. 

As for how votes and chapter requests would work:

• Votes would be collected right at the start of each cycle, and I'd use them to figure out what stories I should try to get chapters done in soon. But I wouldn't have the time pressure to do them. I'm thinking that I wouldn't allow myself to do another 20k post until I released at least one chapter of the top-voted story.
• Chapter requests would also be collected at the start of each cycle. I also wouldn't allow myself to do another 20k post until I took care of all chapter requests.

Do any of you have thoughts on this? I feel like it would be good, removing that time pressure from me and making it more a reward for after I've released enough content to feel justified to get money 😛

Thanks for your input! 🤍

- Chiri