Announcement - 12k Likes! (and story update)

Hey everyone. I'm a little late on celebrating the milestone (for reasons I'll go into later) but it does fit my account. I wanted my first celebration to be for 5k likes, but several factors pushed my work on that so far back that I finally got around to celebrating it around 6k likes. I guess that will be a trend for my account, a celebration for every 6k likes 😂. In any case, thank you all for your likes and your posts. I speak with quite a few people on this website and it is so refreshing to hear from people all over the world and to see their perspectives on what I publish. Some here even speak with the aid of an online translator, which still amazes me. I grew up with Web 1.0 and I remember the early days of international communications. You could meet people from all over the world...but there were no language-assisting tools to help you better communicate. Now, there are tools that not only translate between languages, but also help to convey context. Having said all that, I want to thank each and every one of you for coming by my little corner of this website and leaving a like and/or a pleasant comment. The feedback that a good number of you have given me regarding my Outlaw Country story has been invaluable and helps me in my journey of being a better storyteller. The word "Grateful" doesn't begin to describe how I feel. Thank you all, so very, very much. - Ok, now that the pleasantries are taken care of, here's the not-so-pleasantries. I will be the first to admit that my story output has been rather slow. There are reasons for this: -I had a lot of source material ready for the first two chapters, so output appeared quick because a lot of the work was already done. I have less already prepared for chapter three and so on, so I was creating large parts of the story "on the spot" as the saying goes, for chapter 3 and onward. I would like to change this, and for the better. -Work/Life balancing and personal issues (Hey, we all have them, right? C'est la vie) -The insufferable heat hitting my region has sapped a lot of my motivation to do many things. I have an oil change I've been putting off because the heat is so terrible. Winter/Autumn/Spring is definitely my idea living period. The first point is the biggest of them all. Early on, I had a lot of the story planned out. That is not the case for chapter 3 and onward. Also, and I need to be honest here, the quality of my previous writing...I feel like it could be better. A good deal better. A lot of it feels like "first draft plus" quality and I want to do better. I also need to do a better job of editing (as many of you have heard me say). The lack of readily available story material plus wanting to upload better quality writing will mean inevitable delays in story uploads...and I think I've made peace with this. I want to upload more...but, due to various factors, I won't be able to meet this goal...and that's fine. I have been trying to remind myself that this is meant to be a fun exercise and an opportunity to practice writing and see what connects with people, and I can't have fun with it and progress as a storyteller if I have performance anxiety. I think a more realistic schedule is a new story part every 1.5 to 2 weeks (and maybe a little longer, depending on circumstances at the time). This will give me time to work on the writing and hopefully put out a better quality of content. I don't think I'll lose readers by allowing for more time to work on the story uploads. I figure the real followers, the real Outlaw Country heads on PixAI, they'll wait and they'll read/respond at their own pace. No need to rush things, right? Quality over quantity 😁👍 So yeah, the TL;DR of it all is I'm pushing the upload schedule for chapter parts back to 1.5 to 2 weeks a published story part. Quality should improve and I'll feel less pressure to upload new story entries. Before closing out here, I wanted to thank you all again for coming along and stopping by my little spot on this website and leaving a like/post. I'd say I appreciate it, but the word "appreciate" is an understatement. Again, your feedback has been invaluable. Thank you all, so very much. Stay green 😎👉👉