Hi!  It’s me!  The Creator!

Well the last few weeks have been everything but boringly boring.  Lots of stuff going on.  But you don’t care about that.  I will say that I’ve been dealing with some medical and dental issues that I think (hope!) I’m on the tail end of, and I think I’m on the cusp of feeling better than I have in a long time.  Here’s to hoping.

Four months or so in, and Lily has not ceased to surprise me.  I know that there is at least one person who really likes her, and maybe there are more that I’m not aware of – the CDN that Lily is behind makes accurate tracking of these things difficult, and for the most part, I don’t try.  But something that I started with the idea of being fun and maybe making some money – and it’s still fun and still might make me some money – has proven to have a little more of a deeper meaning than that.  You might have noticed that I’ve been taking a little more of a “very special episode” tack lately – that’s not by accident.  I’m taking great pains to keep Lily child-friendly, but she is in a unique position to talk to children and teenagers about sensitive topics, and open up conversations, in a way that doesn’t come along very often.  This wasn’t planned, but I’m not unhappy with that outcome, if that’s what Lily turns out to be.  She can be fun and educational.

This also means that I need to approach the topic of monetization with a little more sensitivity than I’d originally planned.  I still intend on finding a way to monetize Lily, or something similar.  It would be nice to do this as a full time job someday, or something similar.  But if I were to pivot towards actively catering to younger children and teenage girls, there are regulatory, and other, hurdles that I have to pay attention to, such as COPPA, etc.  I’d rather not, but I can understand why, so it’s just a part of the package.  To be clear – at present, it is not targeted in that way, and I do not collect or encourage collection of any personal data at the moment, but I’d be a fool if I didn’t pay attention to the people who I know for a fact do consume, and enjoy, this content.

If you look on the “about” page, there is an email address that can be used to contact Lily.  Any emails sent to that address, Lily will respond to.  But if you are a child and want to do so, please ask your parents and let them help you.  It helps me, it helps you, it helps your parents, and it helps Lily too.

Let me direct a paragraph to the children who might be reading this, as NOT Lily:

Hi!  I’m glad you’re enjoying this!  I like the fact that kids like you read this and enjoy!  But there are rules I have to follow.  Yes, us adults have rules too!  One of the rules is that I have to be really careful what I do when I talk to you online.  There are rules I have to follow when it comes to your emails, etc.  But I really do want to make this fun and interactive for you and everyone else too!  So when I figure out how to do it, I’ll let you know!  Lily wants to meet you too!  She just needs to know the right way!

We’ll figure it out.  Lily is still, literally and figuratively, young.

Anyway, thanks for your reading and support!