Yet another update, placeholder until I say otherwise
Hi, everybody.
I am very well aware of the sad hilarity in promising to not be Limetown and almost immediately becoming Limetown. I know. I’m really annoyed about it. For the moment it is what it is, and I wanted to pop back up and let you know that a) I am still not dead, and b) what’s actually been going on and where I’m at currently (I’ll probably do an audio update as well soon for those who are following the podcast on other platforms).
Yes, season two is officially in Preproduction Hell. I am saying it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, it just means I’ve stopped hoping and vaguely promising that something will change and I’m putting it on indefinite hiatus until I’m sure I have the wherewithal to work on it. I can’t promise when that’ll be.
One of the biggest roadblocks, as it turns out, has been completing my doctoral dissertation and graduating with a PhD this past fall, and trying to figure out what’s next. Among other things I’m buckling down on my actual writing career, which means I’m having to put a lot of my work spoons into stuff I can actually be semi-reliably paid for, which among other things means writing a lot of books as fast as I can. I love this project, but it’s not really content I’m being paid to produce, which means it isn’t high priority. It can’t be. I got a household to contribute to. I gotta make rent.
But also, as it turns out, a weird thing that happens when you finish a huge project like a dissertation is that your brain kinda breaks and suddenly working on certain things is harder than it was before even if you technically have more free time. The podcast has turned out to be a casualty of this odd mental reorganization. I’ve mentioned that it’s been very hard to work on it; I did not expect it to become hard in this new fashion. I did think once I had the PhD I’d be able to focus on it again. That’s not how it’s gone.
Part of what’s made it a casualty is that somewhat perversely, my relationship with it has become similar to what my relationship with my dissertation was for a long time, which is to say the longer I don’t work on it the scarier it becomes. The only way to push through that is to actually *work* on it but see above regarding why that’s a problem for external reasons.
A further roadblock has turned out to be that season two is just a lot more ambitious. Season one was very much a “I have a mic and some software and Creative Commons sound effects, let’s see if I can make a podcast” kind of process. There were no stakes. I was just screwing around, and honestly I was mostly pantsing it (that probably shows).
In the beginning, as far as I can recall, I never really intended there to *be* a second season. I decided to do one because I was having fun and people seemed to want one, and I thought there was more story to tell. And season two is shaping up to be pretty different: The entire thing needs to be plotted out beforehand, which season one was not (I’ve already scrapped one plot and started pulling together another), a huge amount of it will be scripted, and I also need to cast a couple of other people. I’ve never made a podcast that way before, and I’m still doing it all myself. And now something terrifying has happened: you all are actually listening to it.
Please don’t stop, I’m just saying it’s scary. It’s even scarier when you feel like people have Expectations, and you start thinking about shit like Duke Nukem Forever and letting those expectations down.
I could cut back the ambition, but a) I don’t think that would help much, and b) it really does need to be like this if I’m going to continue the story the way I have to.
There *is* a further development which I can’t talk about yet, because it’s still in the talks stage. But it has Big Implications for season two, and for the moment that’s actually a concrete reason for it to remain on hold until I get that stuff sorted out.
So yes, very long story short: I am alive, I do intend to deliver season two, but I’m making it explicit and official that you should assume it’s on hiatus until you hear that it’s not. I know that was pretty obvious already but like I said, I’m making it official.
The vast majority of you have been so kind and understanding and patient, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. Making this thing has been one of the strangest and least expected and most rewarding projects I’ve ever done, even if in many ways it hasn’t gone how I would have preferred. I really hope I can speak to you in a more concrete “here is when it’s happening” manner soon.
And I mean, hey, we did eventually get more Limetown. So there’s that.
<3
-S
