It's been a while since the last update, and I wanted to post a reassurance that I'm not dead and Doing God's Work is still in progress. The story is not going on hiatus and I fully intend to keep posting up chapters until it's finished.

Real talk - I've been suffering burnout between my combined duties and obligations in recent months. I work full time, often overtime for long hours, have an active life outside of work, and have also been spending a fair amount of time attempting to support as many other amazing authors on Royal Road as I can. You may be seeing a few more shoutouts from me in subsequent chapters for fictions I've read and adored.

Of course, the more I've placed on my plate, the less sleep I've been getting and the more exhausted I've become. Everything - all my activities, not just writing - has been suffering as a result. In the past few weeks, I've been alternating between trying to take a little more time off to rest and binging through my backlog of work as fast as possible to clear some room for my crowded headspace to breathe a little. This is why updates have been slow, and they might continue to be slow for the next couple of months until I can clear some of these excess obligations out of my life.

It's been a burden mentally. I feel very privileged to have kind readers like yourselves who have stuck with DGW despite the slow releases. I can't thank you enough for sticking with it and believing in it. It's more than I deserve. I'm being completely honest when I say I wake up every day and feel like it was a complete fluke my little story ever reached an audience as large as it did. I've never earnt a cent off writing, I'm nowhere near as successful as the big names, and I'm so slow compared to most authors that I often feel I'm just not good enough. The more I feel that way, the harder it becomes to write. I've spent much of the last few months struggling with self-loathing and trying to pretend it isn't happening while knowing deep down it is.

So I want you to know your support means a lot, even if I don't respond to every comment. It really does. And I want you to know I'm not giving up, as much as it feels like I should sometimes.

You give me a reason to continue, to push past the crushing self-doubt. I will do my best to honour that and fight the insidious voices telling me it's all for nothing. Right now, my best is not as efficient as it has been in the past. But I'm working to overcome that. Cutting out some things where I can, and taking it easier where I can't.

I've always written for fun - it's right there in my bio. That hasn't changed.

We'll get there. I'll find a way.