🌙🦇🧿🎃 New Thymeline 🫖

Dear Adventurers,

🍁🎃🦇🧣🍂 Happy October!!! It is my pleasure to welcome you to my favorite North Hemisphere month. I now look forward to 8 months of, hopefully, more mild temperatures, an easier time living in my heat-sensitive POTS body, and the beginning of cozy season (as opposed to hide-from-the-sun season!)

It is coming together. I am capable of holding the cookbook draft in my head again, to flip it around, turn the pages, and wrap my brain around it. I am able to work for more than an hour on the computer each day without headaches and debilitation. It's been a year and a half since the blood patch for my CSF leak (let alone the emergency surgeries, the months of pneumonia, and the autoimmune diagnoses piling up since then), but at last; I am returning.

Even with a break in early September, my pace is picking up. I know you've been dying for a more firm Timeline (I want that too.), and that's been so difficult to provide while my health (and getting used to my disabilities) has made things so uncertain. I really hoped I would finish this summer, print in Fall, fulfill by the holidays-- but a few of you have read between lines of the writing on the wall; that has not happened. Summer was so hard. But it's easing up. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

You know I've been reluctant to make another official Timeline, because it seems each time I do; a new horrific health issue arises. But I am feeling more confident, more capable, and my routines here in England are finally settling in. So I have a new new timeline, of hope, for you below. It's quite similar to the original timeline... just two years late. Really not what any of us wanted.

...but I'll take late over never. I'll take delay over cancellation. I'll take life, as it is, over death. I've done everything I could with the hand I was dealt the last couple years; and I know so many of you are doing the same thing. Thank you for your patience and kindness while bearing with me through this crazy and often upsetting adventure.

the (new new) thymeline

🎃 October & 🦃 November (last stretch)
- estimated 90 hours left of focused work.
     - tasks below are in various states of progress.
- compile indexes, final edits
- signature page and endsheet art
- international measurement conversion
- final ordering of pages, chapters
- final final draft, beta reading
- insert final page number references.
- once page numbers are finalized, finalize Completionist's Checklist
- finalize cover files for new master editions to new printer specifications
- backer survey
- thank you name section
- relaunch preorders on Etsy; last call.

🎄 December (proofing)
- 2 weeks, printer logistics, order.
     - may be time for the metaphorical hat to be passed around.
- 1 week, digital proofing process. (2 weeks for hard copy if necessary. this is an interior proof, not a full bound book)
- 1 week cushion, for hard copy or setbacks.

☃️ January (printing)
- 3 to 4 weeks, printing and binding process.
     - This is their estimate, but it does seem short to me.
- finalize cover files for new standard editions.
- order book plates to sign, and note supplies.
- Concurrent printing of Standard Editions, around 2 to 3 weeks.

🕯️ February (shipping to colorado)
- ~6 weeks(current estimate), begin palleted Ocean Freight to Colorado.
- Concurrent air shipping of Champion Editions Air to Colorado, 2 weeks.
     - Champions <3 your extra special books will be expedited to Colorado, where I plan to have them rebound in leather, gold, and silver, by an indie local book binder.
- During this time, I'll prep for fulfillment.
     - Signing bookplates, notes, and shipping those over to Colorado, where they will unite with your books.

🌱 March  (shipping to you)
- Mid-March, Projected Ocean Freight Arrival
- Lock in Backer Survey; last chance to change addresses (Kickstarter will email you to remind you when I do this).
- 2 weeks, Shipping to You!!
     - Pick and pack; making sure bookplates and notes go to the people they are meant for. I have two local storage/fulfillment companies in Colorado, both with fantastic people who are passionate about Zelda and this project, who are antsy to fulfill this kickstarter!
- Concurrently; finalizing the Digital Editions; a new digital edition for this 2nd cookbook, and a compilation digital edition, including both books. A download link will be sent to you after I can be reasonably certain most people have received their physical edition, so you can open your package unspoiled!

By ☔️ April, I am hoping your long awaited quest reward will arrive. 🤞🪵🧿

Work and Disability

This experience has given me a new perspective on my previous working habits. I think I was a crazy machine before. I look at the 1st cookbook now, and feel like an alien must have written it. 300+ pages. Writing, Recipes, Silly References, Formatting, Design, Cover, so much love, all of it-- just me, a solo project. A book like this is usually the result of teams of people, working for years. That I was able to deliver was, is, insane. Also insane that so many of you signed up and trusted me to do it, when I had never done anything like that before. I couldn't have done it without you. I bet it was easier to trust me this time; because I had proof I could do it! I'm devastated I broke that trust, and was not able to live up to the timeline. But I WILL live up to the taste, the look, the cookbook itself, even though we didn't unlock all the bells and whistles the 1st cookbook did. I am trying to make it worth the wait (which is its own spiral). I hope you know how much I appreciate each of you. I think of you every time I open up the laptop to get back to the grind each day. Thank you for the messages, the encouragement; please don't give up on me. It's coming.

Anyway; how about that Zelda direct?!? Until Breath of the Wild came out; Ocarina of Time was my favorite. It was the first I ever played, sitting on the carpet as close as I could to the television, at my cousin's house. I think I was seven, and I hope a new generation of kids might now have that same magical first experience with it. We'll see.

Finally-- given everything ramping up, it's about time I increase the frequency of these updates; I hope to update you twice a month (around 1st and 15th, wiggle room if I am sick), as we progress. ✨

thank you. 
aimee

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ps-- I swear to Hylia if this new Ocarina of Time comes out in November and introduces some sort of new food item I am going to lose my mind. This 2nd Cookbook was meant to be a small expansion pack. the new 50 recipes from TotK, and maybe a few more. how in the world am I now looking at a similar page count as my first cookbook? if the packaged 2nd book ends up over 4 pounds again... 🫠 (>4 pounds = more expensive shipping tier; devastating when it's so many books to ship at once. The 1st Kickstarter was about $7k more expensive to ship because of it.) I cannot afford to add any more new recipes!

I know it still might be confusing as to why this is taking so long; to be honest, the original 2nd cookbook Timeline was based on the assumption that I would go into beast-mode. That's how I completed all the bonus recipes in the last Cookbook. In a crazy couple months; I wrote, tested, and finalized 100 extra recipes. Like, the Chu Jelly Preserves chapter, start to finish, took me two (crazy, sugar high) days.

For the 2nd cookbook, I gave myself triple the amount of time I thought I needed; but I've not been able to go into beast-mode at all. After the 1st cookbook, I did burn out and have a long fallow period, so maybe beast-mode is just not sustainable. Maybe my beast-mode has broken. So it's taken me a long time to figure out a new way to work, in conjunction with my disabilities, illnesses, and bodymind limits. Neither tortoise nor hare strategies work for me now; I cannot always be consistently slow and steady, I cannot nap and then run ahead. Each day is different, a new roll of the dice, and I have to face every morning, afternoon, and evening, as a new creature entirely. Would be great to have a catchy name for it. ______-mode. How are you doing? How are your daily doings? Hang in there. <3 (happy birthday!!)