September News/Update/Stuff

Hi all, I wanted to provide an update on what's been happening and also give a heads-up for this weekend.

First off, this weekend is my birthday (yay?), and I'll be spending it with friends and family, so unfortunately, there will be no Syl on Friday (3rd) or Bunny on Saturday (4th).

Which also brings up a broader subject I need to approach... I might need to take breaks on more occasions. I've had Selkie (Mango Media/Beneath the Dragon Eye Moons) and a few others warning me about a potential major burnout.

I don't think I'm there yet, but I can certainly feel some cracks forming, which is why I'm considering taking off the last Friday and Saturday of each month. For example, in November, I'd take off the 28th and 29th; in December, I'd take off the 26th and 27th; in January, I'd take off the 30th and 31st, and so forth.

When I don't have two actively running series, I might change this; who knows? Writing as a job is... weird; some days it comes easily, and others it's a struggle. The worst part is when I randomly decide to hyperfixate on something else, and then it can be torture.

It was definitely a fear I expressed when I first opened my Patreon, that getting money involved would change how I feel about writing, and in some cases, it has.

It's no longer just me writing for fun, which has its ups and downs. In most cases, it's a dream job, but the deadlines and commitments are certainly another side of the story.

I will say, though, that the pressure of deadlines definitely helps keep me in check, and it's what has led me to be so consistent with my output on Syl and Bunny for so long. I'll have days when I quite literally don't want to get out of bed, with my cats sleeping on top of me, and my kindle at the ready for a good reading session.

Then I'll think of you guys, my readers, and not wanting to let you down, so I'll drag my sorry ass out and get to crunching those words. It's a commitment, and while I still have fun, I must admit that it has also become a job, which has slightly altered my perspective on it.

That was one of the reasons I ended up writing Fish Girl Evolution. I wanted a story that allowed me to just have fun writing with absolutely no deadlines. I didn't even edit it, which had mixed results from some readers, but I was having a blast.

That was at least until the brigading happened. Reddit, disgruntled RR readers and writers, and even a dedicated Discord group were harassing us throughout.

We had hate threads, review and rating bombs, accusations of AI, allegations of using bots to inflate our views and numbers, and all sorts of crazy claims were made against us.

To me, the worst part was that they weren't satisfied with just attacking the monster girl stories; they were also targeting our other works. Bookbound Bunny and Syl both got hit repeatedly by the trolls. Some of them were so dedicated to their hate that they even targeted my positive reviews and reported them in an attempt to get them removed.

According to them, we were so desperate for money that we needed to rig Rising Stars and manipulate the Royal Road algorithm. Considering I literally wrote FGE for free and expressly said it wouldn't be on Patreon, my mind was blown. Not to mention... if we really were desperate, why would we pick such a small niche as Monster Girls?

We even asked RR staff, "Hey, we want to do this, is it okay? Does this break ToS?" and we not only got permission but also encouragement to do it, as it sounded like a fun idea.

I've never been the victim of such targeted harassment, and I hoped it would eventually blow over, but it just kept going on and on and on.

I'm a firm believer in "don't feed the trolls," and it really showed. When a few people tried to defend us (which we didn't ask for at all), it just sent more hate our way.

The cherry on top of this shit sundae was seeing the harassers making new topics about us, and then those same people accusing US of making the topics to "draw more publicity".

Honestly, I can say firmly that, from my perspective and that of all the other writers involved, the negative publicity far outweighed any of the "good" it might have done for us.

And the ultimate outcome? It actually shattered a small part of me that was simply enjoying writing. It's why I haven't released a new chapter of FGE in so long; I just can't bring myself to write it, as the joy has dried up.

The others are doing better than I am, at least, and have found some success they might not have had otherwise. However, unlike them, I never wrote FGE for Patreon; it was only for my own enjoyment.

I would have liked to have kept all of this crap buried and never even mentioned it, but I feel like I needed to bring some context of what's happening and why I've not really been myself lately.

I guess you could say I did this to myself. Nobody asked me to write FGE. I just never thought that I'd have so much hate thrown my way for trying to have fun and trying to share that fun.

I hope I'll recover that feeling I lost. I still want to finish Shu's story, but at the moment I just can't. Even if I wasn't writing Syl or Bunny, I don't think I could continue it right now.

Anyway, sorry for the doom and gloom. I felt like I needed to get it off my chest.

In more positive news, I beat Silksong! The game was stupidly difficult, and I'm not sure if it was worth all the frustration, but it was cool nonetheless.

Bookbound Bunny 2 has been going well, and to my horror, we are maybe 20-30 chapters away from finishing the book. In my head, Book 2 would be a full school year, but it's rapidly becoming apparent that I'll probably need to end Book 2 on a half-semester.

As for Syl, Syl 5 is progressing quite nicely, I reckon. I took a chance with some Vee-focused chapters, as several people reached out to me and expressed disappointment that I didn't include more Vee POV chapters in Syl 4. I hope you enjoyed them, and if you did, I'll do my best to include some more solo spider time.

Regarding Syl 4, unfortunately, it's currently experiencing an editing delay, so I have no new updates to report in that regard. There's a considerable queue of books to be edited due to Mango Media's rapid growth, so I just have to wait.

As for Bookbound Bunny 1, it will be coming out on November 17th!

Links: Amazon and Audible

It's actually been ready for a while, but I asked for it to be delayed as much as possible, as I wanted to ensure everyone had a chance to read it before the mandatory STUB. It's still gaining considerable growth on Royal Road.

Once again, I'll share the EPUB with all my paid Patreons a week or two before launch, so be sure to grab it then.

Anyway, that was a long one. Sorry for the ramblings and rantings.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support.

~Lunadea

Lastly, I just have a fun question for all of you! I polled this on RR for Syl and Bunny, but I'm curious if my Patreons have any differing opinions.

Personally, if a story is good, I'll read it regardless; however, I probably have a slight preference for reading in the third person. I even suffered through a second-person present tense because I wanted to read the story, but yeah, I'm curious to hear how you all feel.

Do you prefer 1st person or 3rd person when reading?