Hello, and thank you for your interest and support.

While website hosting isn't terribly expensive, neither is it also free. As an unemployed college student (major in English Education), student loans only go so far.

It has long been a goal of mine to support myself through creative endeavors. Throughout high school, my plans were to be a professional writer, and then for a good chunk of my nine-year military career, my attention turned to game design, though in both cases, my plans were a bit more grandiose than reality could support. Since then, I've scaled things back, working on short stories or "shorts" as well as a few forays into interactive fiction instead of overarching massive worlds that would require far more than one person to conceive and implement.

Previously, I hadn't felt comfortable in soliciting donations on my site for a relative lack of content. I've seen many, many webcomic authors who do request donations, but update only sporadically. Now that I'm starting to have more content (today 2008.10.31 marks four things under Interactive: two games, two choose-your-own-adventure style stories), it doesn't feel so much as soliciting a hand-out without providing anything in return.

Donations will never be required to access regular content on Hoshizora Arrange - that is, I won't be running a subscription service. So, why donate?

Well, one reason would be the example is the shareware model - that is, programs (like the games and other interactive sections of the site) that are distributed free, but request an optional payment as a form of saying "thanks." Another example is the aforementioned webcomic model - just a small donation to say "hey, thanks, I appreciate your work."

Also, while it may be cliche, but the old saying "time is money" is certainly apt. Creative works don't spontaneously generate themselves - as an example, The Haunted House took upwards of eight hours of just writing, not to mention the time in modifying the code, plotting and scripting out the various story arcs, and the little bit of research that was done. All that starts adding up to nearly a week's worth of part-time/after-school work. Push come to shove in this economy, and I may have to forgo much dedicated time on creation and instead return to the part-time job-search market.

Because I'm not terribly keen on asking, but not giving anything in return, here is my compact to you, my site viewers. Barring unforseen circumstances (natural distaster, etc), each month that recieves at least $50 USD in accumulated donations, there will be (significant) new content added. While I certainly don't plan on ceasing my creative efforts, some of my projects will take more than a month to complete and there are other competing demands for my free time (homework, the xbox, job-search, etc).

Donation is safe and secure, through PayPal. If you don't have PayPal and wish to donate a different way (though the postal service, for instance), feel free to contact me to discuss an alternative means.

In the (near?) future, I may put up a "commission me" page as well, once I decide on appropriate pricing. If you wish to consider a commission before then, again contact me and we can hash something out.

Thanks!