I’m leaving on vacation next week and will be gone for almost a month, till the last week of October.

We’ll be traveling through Europe*: Switzerland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, France (again), England, and then on to Spain for a couple of weeks.

My original plan for Patreon was to suspend posting chapters for all of October, but I changed my mind. The next chapter (after Best Laid Plans) is a big deal, and I don’t want to make you wait till November to read it. I’m a TERB** but not a complete bastard.

So, I’m going to keep posting regular chapters while I’m gone, starting with Ch21 as soon as we finish with BLP. And don’t worry, I can schedule the posts in advance. You’ll get them at the regular time, but I’ll set them up when it’s convenient.

However, I won’t be posting pre-release chapters for Staff. Sorry. I have a couple of behind-the-scenes posts planned, but Staff won’t be getting new chapters until I return. (I’ll write a longer explanation in a Staff-only post.)

I’ll also try to keep up with the illustrations while I’m gone. Those have always been low-priority (compared to the story itself), but a lot of people enjoy them. I’m going to pick the images myself, though. We’ll return to regular VIP voting in November.

Two last things. I probably won’t reply to comments as quickly. I’ll have internet access and downtime while we’re traveling, but email and comments won’t be my top priority. Also, I won’t be available for the VIP chats. The channel will still be live and you can talk to the regulars, though. So feel free to stop by and say hello.

Anyway, that’s the vacation update. I mentioned some of this already in the VIP chat***, but I’ve been putting off the public announcement. I still have a ton of things to do before we leave, but I can cross this one off my list. Yay!

In the meantime, back to work! And thanks for reading, as always.

– Nick

* I’d love to say hi or have a drink with you if you live in Europe, but… I jealously guard my privacy (not to mention my wife’s), so I don’t meet people in person. It isn’t you; it’s me. But I appreciate the thought. Raise a glass for me and do something nice for a random person. The good karma will come back to you tenfold, and some of it will find its way to me as well.

** Someone always asks, so TERB = The Evil Rat Bastard, yours truly.

*** You really should join us for the VIP chats. I drop hints and explanations all the time. And I give sneak peeks of upcoming chapters. So it’s totally worth it. Just don’t mention US politics unless you want to completely derail the friendly discussion.