I am nothing if not an overthinker, so I'm going to share a few thoughts right now before I get into my workday.
First and foremost, thank you! I am incredibly grateful for the support, understanding, and appreciation I have been shown by this community. It means a lot, and I don't take it for granted.
I try to be fairly transparent about what's going on on my side, though I'm not always the best at it. I have always been a pretty poor correspondent, and unsurprisingly, communicating with more people hasn't changed that. 😅
I've talked about some of the reasons that development has been slow with Code Blue, both here and on my blog, and I think the two biggest ones are these:
A LOT has been going on with my life circumstances during the last few years.
Code Blue is a complicated story, partially because it's Gender of Choice and partially because it deals with a lot of topics that require research.
I'm also not a particularly fast writer, though this can vary a lot depending on the subject matter and other factors.
I do want to address two topics in more detail. Below, I'm paraphrasing some concerns I've seen floating around.
Why are there still delays when you say you're doing better? Have you lost interest in the story, or is there something serious going on that we should be concerned about?
I've touched on parts of this, but let me expand a bit. In 2025, I was 100% in survival mode. TLDR: is that in the interest of having a sustainable future telling stories, I left my home country on an accelerated schedule. I lost my brother, I got covid, I ended up very isolated, only interacting with other people in person for a few hours each month. 2025 was not a great year for me. Launching Code Blue was a highlight, and so was taking the first scary steps toward a more sustainable future, but I came into 2026 with a lot more gray hairs.
I sometimes cope with stress by focusing on work and ignoring other things. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it...?) The problem with that is that it's not sustainable for two separate but related reasons: Health Impacts and Creative Burnout.
Let's tackle the Health Impacts side of things first. I've mentioned this before, but in 2024, I learned that I have a genetic mutation on my LMNA gene that affects every cell in my body. This is the same mutation that led to my brother's sudden death despite his seemingly good health last year. So, am I about to drop dead too? Probably not, and I'd like to keep it that way. I need to and have been focusing more on my physical and mental health.
As for Creative Burnout, I had a run in with this a few years ago. It is an extremely unfun place to be, and I noticed some warning signs coming into 2026. As much as I don't like that Code Blue isn't releasing at least 2 chapters every update, please trust me when I say that the slower rate is preferable to the alternative.
I hope this information provides a clearer picture of the situation. If you're anything like me, you're great at imagining the worst possible scenario. Rather than a mystery illness, there's a genetic mutation that I need to proactively manage to reduce the risk of serious health impacts, along with some mental, physical, and emotional struggles brought on by big life stressors and changes. I'm spending this year rebuilding foundations and getting my health back to a better baseline while continuing to write.
And so far as losing interest in the project? That's not something I've ever struggled with. In general, my mind becomes singularly focused on whatever project I'm working on. That said, I do struggle sometimes with splitting my focus between establishing myself in a new country and the project. In my home country, daily life created a much lower overall mental load.
Won't the slow release schedule hurt the story? Isn't the story losing resources because it's skipping updates?
I know that a lot of players hypothesize about these topics, and internal company processes are not something I talk about, but I can answer this as a writer. I have no reason to believe that the slow release of episodes will have any impact on the work that is put into Code Blue by the rest of the team.
As for rankings, I think I've also said it before, but I don't spend much time thinking about the story's ranking on the chart.
Some readers will lose interest in the story because episodes aren't coming out as quickly as other stories, and that's an unfortunate and understandable reality of a slower release schedule. It's also something that I'm not in a position to do anything about at this point. I was incredibly anxious that interest in the story would plummet and it would be forgotten as soon as I started missing updates, but that hasn't been the case. So, thanks for that!
All that said, if you like the story, please keep doing what you're doing. I am genuinely humbled by your continued support, and for my part, I'll keep working towards a more consistent and sustainable release cadence.
Thanks for sticking through both this long post and the long waits 💗
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