So one of my New Years Goals was to write 1000 words a day. Which sounds pretty lofty, but really I can accomplish that in about an hour. Sometimes less.
In writing 1000 words a day, I’m actually getting a LOT of writing done.
It’s not just blog posts either.
Thanks to my 1000 words written a day goal, I’ve revisited an old script of mine, and am now in the process of writing it and continuing off of it.
I’m talking about my post apocalyptic lesbian love story with zombie-killing, starring Claire and Tracy.
I finished editing Chapter 1, and I powered through Chapter 2. It’s a GREAT feeling knowing there’s progress finally being made on a project that’s been on hold for months.
I’ve been revisiting this project in my sketchbook, as well.
A Work in Progress (click to enlarge)Sketching out an idea of the world they explore. (Click to enlarge).
And I’ve been doing some sketching to flesh out their world bit by bit.
I’ve also been looking at this list of post-apocalyptic tropes to avoid and what hasn’t been done yet. I’m hoping to add elements of things rarely done in post-apocalyptic stories, pulling inspiration from this list.
Like bike-riding. Oh my shit there need to be more bike riders after cars become useless hunks of metal.
What are some tropes of the post apocalyptic genre you can think of? What hasn’t been done in a zombie story yet that you can think of? Leave them in the comments below. I would love to hear about them!
You should click that image up there and get a better look.
No, really.
I’m so proud of this new commission I finished for a friend of mine. The client is an old high school friend of mine and the commission was to draw her family.
From left to right, they are: Delias, Kendall, Andris, Jake, Zo, Leon, Margie, and Itzal.
At the moment, I’m not available for commissions. There’s a few things I need to sort out with my day job first.
Once I’m available, though, I’ll announce it here on the blog and on my Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
Thanks for checking out the new work! There will be more of it soon.
It’s not yet New Years, but I wanted to talk about this early. That way I’m not too lost in the flood of New Years’ Goals posts that are sure to flood across the internet.
Sure, I have goals for 2015. There are personal ones like walk everyday, send more cards, that kind of thing.
But this blog post is being made to share the goals for my comics in 2015.
Why am I sharing them?
Because I want you to hold me accountable.
In sharing my goals with you, I hope that you can keep me on the right track, so I don’t lose my way, so I can succeed, and not back out of promises I made to you.
In return, I hope to hear about your New Years resolutions in the comments. So that way, I can help you do the same!
So, for 2015, I have a list. A list of things I wanted to accomplish. These things are…
Of course, a lot of those goals are not specific. So I broke them down into do-able chunks and came up with…
Write every day,
Publish 1 new eBook a month,
Finish 1 new painting a month,
Post 4 items on Storenvy every month,
Breaking it down even further, I have goals for every week and even every day! They are…
Write 1000 words a day,
Draw 2 Sketchbook pages a day,
Finish 1 new mini-comic a week,
Post 1 new item on Storenvy a week,
Update this blog Monday through Friday
To help me keep track of my daily goals, I borrowed from Karen Kavett and Charlie McDonnell (and Jerry Seinfeld) by printing up copies of the Don’t Break the Chain calendar.
The idea of this calendar is that you have a goal to accomplish everyday. Every day you do the thing, you check off the day on the calendar. Do it everyday and you start a chain of check marks, so don’t break the chain!
One of my big goals is to update this blog Monday through Friday. That will start January 1, 2015, this Thursday.
I actually tied a few goals together for 2015: I intend on reviving the Women Warriors Projectby making one new painting every month for it. By finishing 1 new mini-comic every week, I’m making one new item to sell on Storenvy every week. By sketching 2 pages everyday, I’m making content for eBooks I’m publishing every month. When I finish a sketchbook, I’ll make a video and upload it to YouTube.
I like combining goals. It makes accomplishing them more fulfilling.
What are your goals for 2015? Let me know in the comments!
Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you on Thursday.
Seriously, you, dear reader, are awesome. Thanks. :D
I have a lot of plans in store for next year, including more comics, more art, and more blog posts. Expect more mini-comics! Expect the return of Seeing Him!
And sometime, at some point, one of my comics will come to a close. I don’t want to say which one yet, because it’s a surprise.
I’ll talk more about my goals for next year soon.
Until then, have a Merry Christmas!
Also Happy Hannukah, Kickin’ Kwanzaa, Merry Winter Solstice, and have a Festivus for the rest of us.
So what are you grateful for? What did you get for Christmas? Let me know in comments!
Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you on Friday.
I have been working my butt off the last two weeks, and it’s not on comics.
While I’ve been taking this month off making comics, I’ve been working two part time jobs and making commissions for folks. And while it’s good to keep busy, it’s starting to take a toll.
All of this extra work is making me wonder,
“What can I do next year to go a little easier on myself?”
I admit, many of my goals for next year are work-related, and deal with making more comics, more books, more blog posts, more, more, more.
Part of that is my brain rationalizing that making more, better work will improve my art, thereby giving me more pieces for my portfolios, therefore more pieces to show off to people to say, “Look what I can do now give me work please!”
But where do you put the cap?
I’m hesitant to leave the day job I have currently because the alternative – freelancing full-time – is something I tried last year when I lived in Arizona. It didn’t really work. It’s one of the big reasons that I moved back to Ohio.
While freelancing seems to make more sense in the Midwest, where the cost of living is easier to manage, I’m still hesitant to switch to full-time freelancing because it’s a LOT of work.
The nice thing about my day job is it gets me out of the house; plus, a steady income stream is not a bad thing, either. It’s draining sometimes, yes – especially now that it’s the few days before Christmas –
Completely tangential paragraph: everyone says Black Friday is the day people shop the most but that is FALSE. This is a nation of procrastinators. The biggest shopping days of the year are the weekend before Christmas, and Christmas Eve. Bunch of Liar McCheaterTrousers.
Anyway, day jobs are nice and all, but it would be nice to make a living full-time on my art. My goal next year is to be able to leave my day job and just make art. But that implies freelancing full-time. I don’t know if I’m ready for that again.
The thing that weighs heavy on my head right now is the answer to the question, “How do I decide what’s worth pursuing for making a living on my art?”
Most art blogs I’ve come across don’t talk about how to tackle that question. All they do is talk about inspiration and works-in-progress and other artists.
They don’t talk numbers. They don’t talk business.
I took business classes in college. My parents owned a small business. I think about working independently and earning financial success A LOT.
So how do I decide what to pursue to grow my business – of making art?
I don’t know how to answer that question. At least not yet.
I have a few ideas.
And a beautifully hilarious notepad from Knock Knock I got when I stopped for a day trip in Ann Arbor with a college buddy. It’s called “Make a Decision.”
I’ve been consulting this thing constantly lately.
I get the feeling I’ll be using this little device an awful lot in the coming weeks.
If you have any ideas or advice for me, I would love to read them in the comments below. At this point I would love to hear outside opinions and experiences.
Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you again on Friday, the day after Christmas.
