The plain and simple facts:

• WorldCon was more expensive than I had budgeted for or foreseen, by several hundred dollars when all is said and done. I crowdfunded the budget I did have because our household in general and myself in particular did not have anywhere near the “wiggle room” to add another, even bigger convention to our schedule, so this left me in the hole.
• August was a light month for me, work-wise, because of complications relating to WorldCon, including aggravated fatigue and leg injuries that had me on my back after it. This cost me a couple of hundred dollars at least in direct income.
• One of my older family members is currently in the hospital, which takes time and energy, again affecting my ability to do my immediate paying work. (Tales of MU in particular suffers when my daily routine is not routine, and that’s just over a third of my Patreon income when it’s going according to plan.)

Before all this, I did have some financial padding. My goal with this fundraiser is to recoup those losses and start rebuilding that padding. I’m setting the goal at $1,000, which represents the additional costs plus the lost income plus a little bit extra to jump start savings.

I am currently supporting Ligature Works directly out of my own pocket, and this is not a complaint, mind you, because it was the plan. But as an incentive, I will say that 10% of contributions I get (up to my goal) will go towards expanding our first issue’s table of contents. That’s an additional piece we will purchase for every $250. If we go over $1,000, I’ll put aside a similar amount of the excess for future issues.

As a further incentive: yesterday: the story I wrote on Twitter yesterday about Trump’s infernal dealings backfiring is something I’m currently expanding into a longer, more traditional prose story, probably something of about novelette length. My plan is to release this as an ebook. If I hit my goal inside of a week, I will make that ebook free on Amazon and as a multiformat, DRM-free bundle on my own website for a period of no less than 24 hours.

You can contribute using either PayPal (address alexandra at alexandraerin dot com if PayPal.Me is not available in your country/region) or Square Cash.

And while direct cup-rattling, drum-beating, and general PBS-ing like this is just part of the crowdfunded life, ultimately I would really like to move past the point where it’s necessary. That means I need new blood on Patreon. While I enjoy performing for the crowd, this month already I’ve started releasing more works exclusively on Patreon, and this trend will continue. You can make sure you don’t miss anything and help me secure my present and future circumstances by joining me there.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for your support.