Update Link: You’re Not Sorry – Part 65

I did a general status update over on Patreon, but I’m going to paste the contents here because it’s useful and has some notes about where we’re going from here. Patreon has a free tier that has some perks and benefits 🙂 It’s a great way to support me and what I do here on the site and keeps me from needing a second job to make ends meet, especially in the summer.

See you guys tomorrow!

This update is organized into IRL updates, Patreon December Recap, Status Report, and January plans. Skip around to whatever interests you.

Catch Up

Honestly feels like the universe is completely against me. I worked so hard to get everything done at work so I could have a relaxing December and get a ton of writing done.

And then on Dec 5, I started to feel sick, and I ended up with pneumonia. I was pretty much dead from Dec 5 – Dec 14, and then from Dec 15-19, my focus was just getting back to work. That took so much out of me, honestly. I didn’t sleep the first week I was sick, and then the second week, I was in bed by 7 and asleep at 8 almost every night. It’s been a huge struggle to get my balance back.

I got a little bit back into writing this week — focusing mostly on just rebuilding the Flash Fiction stamina. Since last Friday, I’ve managed 5 updates and only missed 3 days. I feel pretty good about that.

I still have a week of winter break left, and my focus is to get life back under control. As you guys know, I live alone with three cats, so you can only imagine the disorganized chaos in the house especially with my kittens, Lizzie and Harper — who turned a year old in December. We don’t know their specific birthday — only their general age when they were rescued from a lot in Philadelphia in January, so I was planning to pick a day and celebrate — then I died, lol.

For this upcoming week — I have three goals: write every day, get the basic chores caught up, and reorganize my course content for January.

Patreon Perks – December Recap

I promised a lot of content and I guess I did okay in getting some of it together. I put together the posts for Malice and Kismet, so that was a lot of extra content made available to lower tiers. Plus Kismet was updated with Chapter 7, which had been mostly unfinished since 2022.

I also managed 15 updates for You’re Not Sorry, making some really good progress for the first time in a while, plus launching a second flash fiction series to give me the occasional break from the complexity.

I posted the first two videos for the Crimson Swift perk — and I do actually have Opalite filmed, but I got too sick to post it.

So while December was not what I’d planned it to be — I think it was okay considering I was dead for three weeks, lol.

Status Report

• Flash Fiction: The original plan was to continue the daily marathon through January 4 when my winter break ends. Right now, the plan is continue the daily marathon through January 18 to make up for the days I missed. At that point, I’m going to reassess the schedule. I need to be smarter about the projects I pick — You’re Not Sorry has turned into a Mad World level project with so many pieces and strands that require a ton of plotting and work beyond what I’d ever planned to give this project.
• Novels: I only published one novel in 2025 — the least since 2019. I struggled with some writing blocks, my schedule, and focusing too much on Flash Fiction, especially the second half of the year. Here are the novels that in progress in various ways.
  • These Small Hours, Book 3 is now more than a year over due. I meant to get back to this story over and over again, and just never managed it.
  • Out of the Woods was meant to be a quick flash fiction series edit but my schedule at work really made it almost impossible to work on it these last four months. I meant to make serious progress in November and December, but I got sick both months.
  • For the Broken Girl, Book 2 is a Patreon Perk where I’m writing the first draft in 25 minute sprints for the Obsessed tier on the weekends. I managed maybe 2 updates since starting the project due to schedule issues.
  • Kismet was meant to be a 25 minute sprint December perk for the Devoted tier, but other than posting the chapters and adding Chapter 7, I never managed a true update.
  • Malice was the 2025 25 First Draft Sprint story for Obsessed. I’d had the first act in my head for years, and I wrote the first 12 chapters to see if it could break through my struggles. I put it on the back burner for Broken Girl because Malice still needs a lot of development.
• Novels – In Conclusion: So as you can see — I’ve got 5 novels on the docket, and I’ve been splitting focus. It’s probably not the best idea, and while I loved the idea of playing with a lot of ideas in December, I’m not sure if it’s been really helpful. I think I need to pick one and just make it the novel focus and then figure out a way to make it a Perk across several tiers with different levels of access. I want to think this over a little bit more and then I’ll make a general post.
• Crimson Swift – Thank God Taylor is engaged and planning her wedding and won’t be releasing anything for a while lol. Since I launched this project, my beloved idol has released more than 50 songs across 2 albums! And my fractured focus and schedule have made it difficult to do anything more than a handful of updates in almost 2 years. I’m extremely proud of everything I’ve written for this project, though, and I still love what it’s pushing me to do!

January & Beyond

• On Patreon

  • Novels: I’ll be focusing on one novel with updates across several tiers – I just need to decide which novel and specifically how I’ll update.
  • Crimson Swift: These will be the weekend 25-minute session plans. Once I know how I’m going to organize the Novel perks, I’m going to make the Swift Sessions available across 2-3 tiers in some format.
  • Free Tier: Crimson Swift videos will return January 1. My plan is to do a few at a time so I can build a library so I can upload every day. These were going to stay on the free tier and be uploaded daily through January 4. I’m going to extend this — posting January & February for the free tier, then moving to the $1 tier in March.

• On Crimson Glass

  • My Flash Fiction marathon will continue through January 18 — two weeks longer than the original ending to make up for the weeks I missed.
  • At that point, I’ll reassess the schedule and see what’s workable moving forward. The Flash Fictions have become the site’s focus and the novels have been backburnered, which is the opposite of how I want to write. I don’t want to update only once a week — that’s obviously not good for any of us, lol. But I don’t think daily is sustainable.