Crucial Announcement For Star Trek: Phoenix AND SDR2: OHS · 10:39pm May 31st, 2023
Hello my lovely readers. First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for being incredible, amazing people who've been supporting me and my stories for a long time, for some of you since I first started posting IHW back in October of 2020. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Note: If you just want the skinny, skip to the TLDR.
Secondly, I have a pair of crucial announcements concerning both of my main stories currently publishing, but first a smaller one: there will be no Phoenix this week. Due to obligations on both my end and my editor's end as well as a few things related to the larger announcements, it will be delayed, hopefully not more than a week. We're working on it.
Unfortunately, it is precisely this sort of thing that has precipitated the decision I've been forced to make, one that all parties I'm working with on both stories agree with. In truth, when I first embarked on publishing two stories at once, I had a massive buffer for one of them--everything up to the investigation for Chapter 2 of OHS had been written, giving me months of content at the publication pace. Phoenix had no real buffer but I was hoping I could redevelop a buffer of a few, then I could bounce between the two stories.
This... never properly worked out. I barely managed to get the rest of Chapter 2 finished in time for it to be able to be published alongside the rest of it, I've constantly been playing catchup for Phoenix, and there've been other delays as well. It comes down to a few principal factors:
1. My health, both mental and physical, is simply not where it should be, even with the free time I currently have, and that makes it more difficult to write.
2. Wallflower Blush of OHS and Twilight Sparkle/Sunset Shimmer of Phoenix are characters with entirely different mindsets, in different circumstances, and to boot OHS comes with a number of personalities that are at best more difficult to handle well and at worst are hard to get back into the mindset of when swapping around, especially since both stories are told from first person perspectives.
3. Related to point 2, these stories have woefully different tones. OHS is a Danganronpa story: at the best of times it's a bit of light moments trapped between trauma, darkness, and despair, while Phoenix is typically pretty hopeful, even if it's had its share of drama and bleaker moments. Both stories always go back to their main theme, and those themes are diametrically opposed.
This unfortunately makes it extremely difficult for me to go between writing them both, far more so than I expected or could have possibly anticipated. In particular, my flavorful combination of mental health issues coupled with circumstances and the ever-stressful negativity of current world events makes it so that shifting the mindset needed to properly keep both stories in theme practically requires a couple of days of shifting back around, only to try and do so again to keep up with publication times.
In short, it doesn't work. At least, not like this, not trying to write them both at once.
Thus my decision.. As of the end of Chapter 2, SDR2: OHS will be officially going on hiatus until the end of Phoenix season three. Once I have finished writing season three of Phoenix, I will pivot and write Chapter 3 of OHS, and Phoenix will go on hiatus. Once that is finished, OHS will once again go on hiatus while I finish Phoenix's fourth and final season. Only then will I return to OHS and focus on it till completion.
TLDR: When Chapter 2 is done publishing, OHS and Phoenix will trade off hiatuses until Phoenix is complete, then OHS will be finished.
I want to stress that neither story will be cancelled. That's not happening, nor will I let it happen. I care about both of these stories. But I'm afraid I must do this if I am to finish them, because at the pace I've been going, I'm risking burnout on both of them, and in a way worse than what placed Phoenix on hiatus back when it was first publishing. But it was always my intention to come back to Phoenix to finish it, and I will be keeping to that intention. That's why it's getting first priority for focus: it was here first.
It is also my hope that by placing each story on temporary hiatus at appropriate end points, I will preserve as much reader interest as possible.
I know many of you only read one of the two stories, and in fact many of you following me for Phoenix have no idea what Danganronpa is; this is pretty clear from the massive difference in reader interest, statistics, and like to dislike ratios. But without writing the first story, Phoenix wouldn't even be here. That's why I originally decided to start publishing them concurrently: I love both stories and I thought I could keep up with them.
I just hadn't quite understood at the time just how drastic the difference in tone, themes, and characterization would make this almost impossible. If I had, I would've left OHS's publication till I was either finished with Phoenix or finished writing OHS behind the scenes, whichever came first.
I am hoping that whatever longform stories I embark upon after both of these are complete, I'll be able to avoid this pitfall in the future. I know now to only take on one at a time, as I would far rather each one take longer and be better quality as a result than for them to fall by the wayside.
Thank you for your consideration, your patience, and your time, and keep on being the awesome readers you are. I appreciate you all more than you know, even if I sometimes don't show it.
I am happy your prioritizing your health! Burnout sucks eggs hard.
your health is always #1
take the time you need for your self and your health.
Dude, write at the pace of fun!
If you don't have fun doing what you do - then what's the point?
Enjoy life!
The readings will continue until morale improves.
Best of fortunes and good health to ye.
Having tried to do this myself, it's a nightmare. I even wrote one character into the wrong story once, and only caught it when a friend pointed it out. Can't blame you in the slightest for wanting to avoid that.
I'm a bit late on reading this, but it seems reasonable to me. Go for it. Do what you gotta do.