breakthebar
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September 2025 Update
🕑 Added 2025-09-15 19:11:08 +0000 UTCWell folks, the year keeps rolling on and I'm starting to feel pretty heavy about it. I've mentioned this before in an update - I really try to stay positive with this sort of thing. Messaging and presenting a positive front to go along with the fun stories is important to me. But after starting this year so strong, I've basically been playing Stressed Out Catch-up for the last 6 month. Or 5.5 right now, I guess.
I'm going to get some of the more regular things out of the way, and then I'm going to take a moment to give an insight into one of the issues I've built for myself and my content.
What's Coming This (or The Rest of This) Month
I am currently working on AMA, it will get another 35k words this month. I'm technically behind 75k in sponsored releases, so I'll do another 50k next month, and we'll be back on track while leaving space for me to work on other stuff.
Red Flags Go Faster (Alpha only) - 25k
Unexpected Affections - 25k
DM and the Dirty 20s - 10k
Le Francais - 5k
I still need to collect the Sponsor Tier votes for this month, so those numbers will go up, and I may end up splitting the larger ones like AMA over this month and next month.
Time Sink Task: I need to do the formatting and prep work for posting a bunch of the content I've written over the past 3 months out to literotica/chyoa/etc. It's a repetitive time sink kind of thing (like editing html codes onto all italics; WHY do I write with so many italics!?) and coming up with chapter names for dozens and dozens of the smaller chapters on CHYOA. This SHOULD only take a couple of days at most, but that's two days where I'm not getting anything else done.
I might have the first part of story to post based on a kind of silly concept. It was one of those ones where I have an idea that won't leave me alone, so I had to just dump it into a document. There was enough there that the initial scene only needed a little editing, and I think it's readable if I finish the second scene.
A Rant About My Content
I preface all of what comes next with two things; first, that I love all of my stories and I'm constantly grateful for the fact that I get to write them as my job thanks to the support of all of you. There is not a single part of me that isn't thinking every single day about getting out more content (sometimes to my detriment). Second, that nothing is dramatically changing, sometimes it just helps to get this sort of thinking out from behind the curtain. Writing it out can help me grapple with it, and it might be interesting to some of you.
The way I've structured all of my major, a most of the 'medium' sized stories, is detrimental to the creative process. Not in the short term, but in the long term.
Sometimes I describe stories, especially AMA and OFG, as my 'Soap Opera medium.' They are super long running, written in short episodes, weaving a bunch of different (sometimes ridiculous) plots. They've also trained me to write in a specific style that, quite honestly, makes writing succinctly kind of hard. I'm great at several parts of writing - I'm not great at pushing a plot forward expeditiously. FoF and QTNW both lean into this a bit more now over the last couple of years, and I honestly think the last time I wrote something short was the CHYOA competition story I wrote a year and a half ago now.
DM and the Dirty 20s was supposed to be short. Oops.
I've mentioned to the Sponsor Tier folks that I really want to get Red Flags Go Faster to the finish line, both because it's a 'marketable story' (I can develop a good pitch, and it's plotted to be a regular novel length) and because it's something I feel like I can actually finish. I don't put enough The Ends out there. Hell, half the time I write 'The End' I'm writing 'For Now' right after it. See: Porcelain, Pal-entine's for Single Parents, Masseur and the MILF. I couldn't even let AMA end when it reached it's naturally conclusion! Do I regret that? Hell no. But it's a problem creatively.
I have a lot of ideas - good ideas - for stories. Some that could be big, ongoing series, but most that would make for a decent novel-sized project, and many that could fit that nice novella size of those not-quite-one-offs I mentioned. And those ideas keep stacking up. I think I'm up to five different short QT spinoffs of my own ideas, plus someone asking to sponsor an idea of their own (yes, I saw your message, I just can't think about it right now :( ).
Long series are what my career here on patreon and as an author is based on. There is no way I would ever consider NOT writing long series.
But I'm juggling balls and spinning plates at the same time, and there's some shiny new balls I want to juggle and some pretty new plates I want to spin. Stuff that'll spice things up in new ways. I just don't have any more hands to juggle and spin with. And right now, the hands that ARE doing all of that stuff are a little tired, a little sluggish, and need to be reminded of what they were doing.
Needing to sit down and reread 25-50k words of AMA before I can start writing again is rough. A lot of that is because of the delay going on - it's been 2-3 months since I last wrote it - but that whole process and then sketching out what I want to do next takes a day or two. Then I need to get back into the flow of the main character, and as I'm writing I need to try and remind myself what was making those other characters, and especially the romantic interests, so interesting and different from each other.
Often times you might see the main characters marvelling at their lives and how they have several partners - that's often also me cursing myself for writing multi-partner romances!
I love my long series. They're my favourite things to write. It's just difficult to get things rolling and keep them rolling at a pace that I want, and feel I should be able, to write at.
Personal Stuff
I'm tired, cranky, and all of my favourite baristas at the local Starbucks have quit in the past two months.
The exercise front has been lacking - my dieting continues, but I've had to give myself some slack on strict portion sizes because I gotta give somewhere, so I'd rather give on portion size of something healthier than ordering a pizza.
My sister continues to be in a poor state with her mental health struggle. There are good days and bad days, and unfortunately the bad days for her are much worse than the good days are good. Our family is continuing to rally around her, but I'm still her primary emotional support person, so I'm carrying that around with me.
My trip later this year got cancelled due to the conference having issues with the venue or something, so I'm considering taking another writing retreat to use the airline credit I got for needing to cancel the flights I'd booked. Can't go to the same place I got in the summer, so maybe a little adventure somewhere quiet would be good to get some heavy writing done again.
I think that's all I've got - I've raved enough about stuff and it's time for me to turn my attention back to AMA again.
Cheers all, and as always, I appreciate you all very much,
~Break.
Comments
Erotic Poetic
I can only wish or hope that some of my other favorite writers are as prolific as you. Keep it up Break. I dont know how you do it, but you’ve got a long-term fan here. You make me wish I’d pursued my writing passions more. I went technical instead of creative as a career, but I’m glad this medium makes it possible for us to enjoy your gifts… Godspeed my friend.
Poppyseed
I'm glad to hear it's going at least medium, hopefully the flow of life continues to get back together bit by bit for you, and you have a few emotional support people of your own to spend time with. If you are still trying to figure out where to fly to and take a writing retreat, maybe see if you can find a cabin/Airbnb etc. close to one of your main stories inspirations, and spend a day or two poking around the places you imagine your characters going alongside a couple of more relaxing days writing? Perhaps Vegas, even if you've been there before, or whatever city that the collage that the next part of OFGirl will take place at; I'd just recommend the less traveled parts of Oregon, but it's probably going to be grey and drizzling from November until May if it sticks to schedule at all. Best of luck, and may the winds favor your travels!
M
Having been self employed in a creative business myself I know what you are talking about. If you keep stretching yourself thin, a few years down the road, you will burn out or lose the joy in writing. Fans will always ask for more more more. Find a pace you can keep for 20 years and ignore those feelings of pressure to deliver. Your well being is more important than money or happy fans. On a practical side, check out Fiverr to offload some of that admin and editing work. I used to pay 10 USD for transcribing interviews that would have taken me 4-6 hours of work to make them publish ready. I moved my photo editing to India and saved 10-15 hours of work for each project, then added my own touch on top of all of this to make sure the quality was good. Focus on the writing and offload everything else if you can. It is better to make a bit less each month and have a sustainable work pace.
