Hello faithful Stimmers,

I hope this update finds you well. If you happen to be following me and the project on Twitter, you'll know that last week everything went a little wild.

I've been busy wearing my other hats (dogsbody at 3 of Cups Press and freelance editor) the last couple of weeks. Last Friday, I was busy working on some autism related work that had come in for the weekend and I figured I'd just check the current total. It was a little naughty, as I usually don't let myself login late at night out of fear of the possibility of the endless anxiety scroll, but I found myself at 10pm staring at a percentage that didn't make sense. I looked at it for a whole minute, checked out recent pledges, and saw that someone extremely kind had donated £1000 to Stim. Our project has been incredibly lucky that this is the second time we've had a donation so generous, but this time it came from a name I didn't recognise. We had leaped up to 81%.

From there, it's all skyrocketed. That weekend while I was frantically working on a deadline for that Monday, pledges were coming in left and right. My twitter was blowing up as people were excitedly screaming about us being nearly there. I had to turn my phone on airplane mode to stop it constantly vibrating from all the retweets and messages.

As I write this update to you all, I see that we've hopped up again to 89%.

That's a lot of new people in 10 days - hello to all of you. Thank you for joining us.

We're nearly there, and I think a ludicrously small number of hardbacks stands between us and 100% (at last estimate it was 90?!) In the last week I've been contacting all our wonderful contributors and talking to them about their pieces, deadlines, contracts etc. Basically, it's all happening on our end because I think it's safe for us to say the book is definitely going to happen. Of course, we need to shift those last 90 hardbacks, but I'm hopeful that the bountiful February payday is going to sort most of that.

I'll get the contributors working on some more introducing blog updates - everyone has been extremely busy the last few months, but I think we can get a few out soon. 

Once we hit 100% I'll be able to share with you all a publication timeline. I currently have about 1/3 of the pieces finished and in my hands already, which makes things a little quicker in terms of editing, proofing and producing the book so I'm hopeful we won't have to leave you all waiting for too long. 

As ever, your patience, support and cheerleading through this process is invaluable. Sending the project page to interested friends, family, coworkers, neighbours etc will help us reach the magic on hundred, so please consider doing that. 

In the mean time, I'll remind you of another Unbound autism project that needs your pledges. In Other Words is a book of short stories written by autistic people, and is 32% funded. They have low income options like Stim has, as well as lots of fancy hardback versions, so please go check them out too. Getting from 30-60% is the hardest bit in crowdfunding, so your support would really make a difference to them.

Once again, thank you.

All the best,

Lizzie