Announcement - Return to form (?)

Hello folks.

Here's the promised announcement/talk about the near future and recent past. First of all, let's talk about my writing. That's what you are here for, after all.

The big plan I have is to return to a regular schedule of Owl with three chapters per week. Those days will be Monday - Wednesday - Friday. Since I know can have issues with keeping to schedule (more about this in the personal details further down) I will allow myself to skip one Owl day per week at most, and only if I do something other productive that day. Mostly, that will be putting more work into the next chapter or working on other stories, but it might also include studying or my part-time job, for example.

This means, we are back to a promised 2 chapters of Owl per week with a third one for most of them. This will end up with about 40 chapters until the end of the year, which means if I stay on schedule I likely won't finish Owl this year. Another 60 to 80 chapters is what I expect. Maybe once I get to that final bit I'll get them out really quickly but I probably wont. I know myself.

For other projects, I have Pokémon (which is on RR only), Thirteen Pillars and Suit Up (the Worm fanfics), and the Owl rewrite as my pleasure/work. I have made some progress with the rewrite, mostly in planning, and I want to start getting it on paper a little more. I'll be working with my friends from CritRPG for that, mostly, but you'll be kept in the loop and get access to the gdocs I share with them as well. Or maybe I'll do PDF/EPUBs for you guys. That way you won't have to read the notes from other random authors picking my writing apart :D

I hope this is something you can look forward to and feel is worth your money. After all, I'm not the most reliable person. Which brings me to the next big topic: my personal situation and reasons. Before I get into it, this is not meant to be an apology. I have issues and I want to tell you about them so you know where your money 'disappeared' to. Because you support me and you deserve to know.

Okay. So. In short: I'm lazy. That doesn't really do it justice. It's more of a mixture of a lack of motivation and issues with keeping to discipline. Those are confounded by my health (Crohn's disease with regular stomach aches) and temporary bouts of depressive thoughts. All of that combined to an August that I'm very much disappointed in. This is merely to give you an understanding of the situation:

I was supposed to study. I didn't want to procrastinate from studying with another productive thing so I didn't write. But I still procrastinated a ton. I ended up only taking one of the planned three exams and passed it just barely. That was with about three days of actual studying so I'm clearly not stupid, I'm just not good at working in the university environment. 

Now, after talking it over with my family, I decided to get some professional assistance. I'm not quite at the point where I need therapy but I've thought about it. Instead, I went to student counselling and got some advice. I ended up with the following decision: I'm using the next semester to reorient myself. The university offers study coaching, which I will make use of, and my faculty can help me with choosing subjects that won't overwhelm me but still let me make good progress. If I decide university isn't my thing, there's a more school-like version of technological college which might be a better studying environment for me. I sincerely hope that the methods I learn for studying will also help me with writing discipline. There is still the hope of being a full-time writer, I just need to put in the work. Which, again, motivation.

Now, that was a lot so here's a little tl;dr: I'm back to writing with a focus on Owl. I have discipline issues and I'm getting help. I hope said help will aid both my studies and my writing.

That's basically it. I'm not exactly proud of myself but I'm trying to improve and tentatively positive. If you have any ideas that might help me, feel free to share them. If not, don't worry, I'm getting professional help. I don't even have to pay for it!

Next Owl chapter is gonna be up in a bit after one last editing pass. Then I want to write some Pokémon :)

Have a good one, and stay safe in these troubling times.

Cheers!