You know what I love? My life being annoying and making me have to apologize for stuff. So, in no particular order, I’m sorry that there was no blog post last week, I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to release anything lately, and I’m sorry this week’s topic will possibly run a little short. I’m going to give a little state-of-affairs update at the end to help better keep you all in the loop.

The amount of times I’ve written things in an overtly Canadian way and had to be corrected by Americans via email has been staggering. Sometimes it was small things, like ‘exams’ being called ‘finals’ in the US, and sometimes they were huge things I should have realized way sooner, like my dumbass mistake of having an officer assigned to a high school being referred to as a ‘constable.’ Either way, I kind of wish I had just embraced a Canadian setting way earlier.

I don’t know if it’s ever overtly said, but it’s alluded to that both Hazelwood High and Peterson University are American. If not now, it’ll become more apparent later. Canonically, they’re both located in Massachusetts. Again, I should have made them Canadian and made less work for myself, but I’ve already leaned into it and want to commit to it. Sometimes I find workarounds – for example, it’s also canon that Nicole from BMS was born in Canada so some of her more Canadian phrases can be excused with an explanation that she’s Canadian-American. Plus apparently Americans find Canadian girls hotter for whatever reason. As a Canadian I can tell you we’re basically no different except we say a few more British-inspired things (like ‘uni’ for university, adding a ‘u’ to certain words, etc), and that the stereotype of us saying ‘sorry’ in response to everything is very real.

In retrospect I have no clue why I chose to make more work for myself and base the school in The United States. Perhaps because of the universality – I’ve mentioned Obama once or twice in at least one story, everyone knows him. If I name-dropped Stephen Harper instead, I would have gotten a lot of blank stares from my readers. In fact, you’re maybe googling Stephen Harper right now. Either way, I’ve committed to my stories being based in the States and truth be told, I might be moving to the United States soon, so we’ll see what comes of my decision. It’s a very inconsequential angle of my work but every angle adds up.

Okay, I’m done talking about Canada. The last two months have been exhausting for me, not the least of which because I had to move three times. I own way too much stuff – I discovered that the hard way this month. Either way, real life took over, as it always does. That’s absolutely why I charge per creation on Patreon and not per month. I’ve been considering switching my Patreon to monthly if I ever got a backlog of more than one finished chapter or short story, but unfortunately in life I’m not quite there yet. That said, I’m constantly working on Only If You Want in small bursts, so hey, even I don’t know how soon it can be released. It can be sooner than we think, but hey, you know me, maybe not. I’m going to try as hard as I can but with my life going the way it is, that’s all I can promise right now. I’ll talk to you all next week.