The End of the Rose Gallery/Polled Stories

Hello, my lovelies!

The tl;dr:

• -Effective next month, the "Garden Volunteer" tier will be deactivated.

  • Next month will feature the final Rose Gallery poll.

• -Discord server "Flashfic Friday" polls will also be discontinued starting next month.

  • Polled content might continue, but not as a Patreon perk.

• +Early bird access will now be a month in advance rather than a week.

• Modify your pledges accordingly.

This has been one of my hardest decisions to make in my 11 years of writing.

I liked the Bonus Pairings at the start. I liked the Rose Gallery polls, too. The Discord polls weren't even a paid perk at the start--I did them for fun, and then realized I could charge money for them. They started as fun sources of prompts, and then one-by-one, they became burdens.

I just don't like polled stories being an obligation. I like getting to take the temperature here now and then, and I like working from people's ideas. I will certainly continue to take the odd commission. Polled stories, though, have just gotten stale for me. The winners are predictable, and so are the losers. It's not just that they create work--that part I can handle--it's that they often give me very homogeneous work that keeps me tethered to very specific genres and subject matters.

Smut's purpose is to titillate. It's understandable to seek out the same kinds of stories again and again--we know what we like, and that's okay. Speaking as a creator, though, writing the same kinds of stories again and again starts to not feel like writing at all.

It starts to feel like Content.

At that point, my work is no longer creative, but regenerative, a cycle of recreating stories I already wrote and already felt satisfied with.

This isn't anyone's fault! I don't hate repeating a concept or a structure if I have an idea for a new spin on it that really sparks my interest. The trouble is that too often, the spark just isn't there for me that week, and yet it's my job to write it anyways. That's where it becomes a burden.

So, there it is! I encourage those pledged at relevant tiers to change your pledges accordingly. The April Rose Gallery Requests post will still be active, and we'll still do a poll next month. I'll clear the backlog (Librarian vs. Hellhound, the last few February Rose Galleries I've fallen behind on). Then it's over. Going forward, I will be fully focusing on my own ideas, commissions, and finishing the existing series I'm excited about.

This may mean a drop in revenue, so I'll probably be taking on some new commissions soon. Keep an eye on the Discord/my Bluesky account for news on that. If you're already in my queue, I'll be in touch.