General Goings-on Update (Patreon)

Hey folks, I hope you're doing well!

I felt it necessary to write an update post on how things are going regarding my personal situation with regard to this patreon, as well as make a brief announcement about Eastwood, which will come at the end. I feel its good practice to be open about things, but if you're not interested, feel free to skip this post, no hard feelings, especially as it's a little long.

First off, it's always unfortunate to go into a month sick because it not only ends up getting me behind on work,but piles on an equal amount of stress from being behind. Although I'm back in good health and working again, the stress from being behind is still there, especially given that I hadn't fully caught up from when I got sick in May.

In addition to that, a major event happened shortly after my birthday that I'm not currently at liberty to give details about (some people who know me in real life are supporters of my patreon, and the details of what happened have not yet been shared openly, and it's not my information to divulge, though it does affect me significantly). I'm OK, but I may suddenly end up having to move soon from where I've been living the past two years. I will likely be able to say what exactly happened in the future, but I'm sorry for the dissatisfying lack of info for now.

Last, on top of that, this week there were several significant leaks of my patreon work, and I've spent many, many hours writing and sending DMCA emails and searching for various website's hosting information in order to get my work removed. So far, I've had only a little success, I'm still waiting to hear back on the vast majority of my copyright notices, and I hope that will happen soon. It's a truly awful feeling to have your work leaked. Its settled over me like a lingering, anxious dread that I can't shake no matter how much time passes. It's sapped my enthusiasm for working, its sapped my happiness, its taken the joy out of creating the past few days; I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I really, really wish people understood that this is what they're doing to artists when they leak their work.

Together, the combined stress of being behind on work, the event that happened which might result in me having to move, as well as my work being leaked, has been a terrible burden on me mentally and emotionally; I'm not in a good head space right now.

However, the only thing I can do is continue working, continue trying to catch up, and so that's my intention, which brings me to Eastwood-- Although I was hoping to have a Halloween update released this month, getting sick from late September through mid October pushed my estimated release window to November, and now with whats happened recently, I am simply not in the right head space to work on Eastwood for a little while. Eastwood is a light, happy, fun game, and requires a lot more effort and exertion on my part to put together, and I can't even imagine being able to get my mind into that place at the moment.

My current plan is to pause work on Eastwood for two months, resuming work on Eastwood in January 2020. I know that's disappointing for some to hear, but I believe it's going to be best for me. In the meantime, I will continue working at a catching-up pace (slightly more art per month than normal) for my regular, monthly patreon rewards, as well as the support-streak rewards, and hopefully reduce a lot of the stress I'm feeling. Plus, if I do need to move, it's easier for me to work on regular patreon rewards than it would be to work on Eastwood, which generally involves 6-7 days of uninterrupted work in order to complete a scene from start to finish.

That concludes the update, but I wanted to take a moment and specially thank the folks who have kept up their support despite the unfortunate circumstance I'm currently in. That sort of thing demonstrates that you sincerely want to support me, the actual person behind the work. I understand that some people are only interested in receiving the art, and I don't blame them in the slightest, but it really does mean a lot to me when folks show they understand that at the end of the day, I'm a person, genuinely trying his best, so thank you.