September '25 recap, October '25 plans

The September recap:

• The Thaumaturge, Chapter 17 (and poll!)

• The Thaumaturge, Chapter 18 (and poll!)

• Deepfake News (the reader selection from last month)

• Speedrunner 1.05 (and poll!)

• Speedrunner 1.1

• Speedrunner 1.15 (and another poll!)

• The Man of Her Dreams (originally planned for next month, posted this week instead)

~42k words of new writing released, plus some more from the two Speedrunner level-up chapters, which aren't included in that total.

Speaking of which, I want to acknowledge some good feedback that I got on Speedrunner: it's gotten too mechanics-heavy, to the point where it's distracting from the story and action. I agree. As you'll see below, I'm probably not going to write more of it this coming month; I think a little bit of a breather will help me reset and get back to the series' strengths when I turn my attention to 1.2.

At any rate, for October, my plan is as follows, not necessarily in this order:

• The Thaumaturge, Chapter 19

• The Thaumaturge, Chapter 20 (the reader choice)

• TBD

• Dungeon Mistress II, Chapter 2

I'm not sure what the TBD will be -- it depends a little on writing bandwidth. With two Thaumaturge chapters and some important scenes coming up, I need to spend a little extra time there on plotting/story direction, and I want to make sure Dungeon Mistress 2.2 (where we'll return to Chris's perspective!) meets the bar for that series.

One other note: I've been pretty poll-heavy the last few months. I enjoy it; part of what makes writing on Patreon fun is giving folks the opportunity to weigh in on how the story develops!

But it does represent a content shift, and I'd be interested in some feedback on whether the current cadence (which is probably one-poll-per-week-ish) is too much. Expect "a poll about polls" at some point in the next few weeks to get some feedback and ensure it's not feeling too spammy.

Finally: I gained a solid chunk of new subscribers over the last 30 days or so! If you're new, welcome, and thanks for being here. (And if you've been here a while, thank you too -- your support is what has let me reach new readers with my writing.)

--JF