Sorry friends, fans, readers and hate-followers… this is another bloggy update post instead of an actual chapter. tl;dr we’re looking at 2025 for the story, but I still plan to get chapter one up “soon” (time is fake).

Hello to new subscribers. Wow. I’m very excited. Sorry this isn’t a story chapter yet. This is your “regular” (time is fake) update to prove that this project is not a cupboard ghost, and has not been ADHDed in favour of a shiny new hobby. (I do have a shiny new hobby of knitting socks, it has only taken over the parts of my life which are incompatible with sitting in front of a keyboard, so there is no hobby conflict at this time).

When re-writing Tamika Wood’s Birthday Party I made the decision early on that it would be the “CD-R mix” and I titled the chapters after era-appropriate songs, keeping the chapter count under the 79 minutes, 59 seconds of an audio CD…

I absolutely love this idea. I spent so much time listening to 90s/00s music and finding the perfect song for each chapter! I found out that you can’t reproduce song-lyrics because they’re copyright… but you can mention song-titles! Sweet as!

But, uh… I’m realising the story as a podcast as well as a web-novel. Audio files. I can’t have audio files named after songs. Haha. I should have realised that immediately, but was so enamoured with the idea that I didn’t.

So, I’m not doing that. And when I let go of that constraint I realised that I actually have a bunch more chapters that need to go in. When I removed most of the monologue-type chapters I actually lost a lot of Michelle’s journey since she wasn’t actually in a lot of scenes… So I’m adding in like four more Michelle chapters and at least two other chapters… Welp. It’s no longer “just needs a bit more polishing”. Sorry. I am determined that this won’t turn into “just one more thing and then I’m done” forever. But there’s still more work to be done before it goes out to the general public.

Some people have asked about supporting me, but because I don’t have content to put up regularly, or even a timeline for doing so, I haven’t set up ko-fi or patreon. I certainly will be putting my hat out at some point, but it’s still on my head right now.

If people are really eager to throw stuff at me, I will admit that it will not take much to convince me to accept money. But just wait, I will be trying to make that as easy to possible “in the future” (time is fake).

Okay, that’s the thing.