Tag: kelci crawford

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The Freelance Lifestyle – How I Maximize My Energy and Focus

In today’s installment of the Freelance Lifestyle, I share my secrets on how I maximize my energy and focus.

These are things I’ve been refining for the last seven or so years. And some things are still a work in progress. But these are the things that I’ve found the most helpful to keep up my focus on the tasks in front of me with the most energy possible.

I set routines for the boring stuff

I have a morning ritual, and a night ritual for getting ready for bed. I’ve also set my breakfast to be consistent, with the exception of when I travel.

I set routines, because here’s the trick: routines mean less decision-making. Once routines become a habit, they become one less thing to think about.

Especially as a freelance creative, decision-making is important. Every creative act is a decision. But our human brains are only wired to make so many decisions in one day before it gets tired.

So I make habits out of the more mundane stuff, to make less decisions, to keep up my energy.

I use the Pomodoro technique

The Pomodoro technique is something talked about in a lot of productivity circles, including by the likes of Thomas Frank. It’s a simple technique where you do work for a set amount of time, then take a break, then you repeat the process. The most common time blocking is 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break time.

With this technique you can set your work and break time to however long you want.

You can use timers to make this work. Personally, I like the Forest app. It’s an app that plants a digital tree for a set amount of time for you to focus. As long as you don’t touch the phone, that tree will keep growing. Once the timer runs out, you can set a break time before you sit down to plant another tree and focus again.

I like the Forest app because it keeps me focused, AND it keeps me off my phone. (My phone is super distracting otherwise).

I have a “commute” for the beginning and end of the day.

I hadn’t thought too much about this until I watched this video from The Financial Diet. In this video Chelsea shares tips on how to work from home effectively, which I highly recommend you watch if you want a supplement to this post.

In this video she brought up the idea of a “commute,” even when you work from home. And I realized, “Oh dang, I already do this for the beginning of the day.”

The idea of the “commute” is that you have something to help your brain transition from personal time to work mode. And at the end of the day you do that in reverse.

For me, transitioning INTO work mode looks like this: after my morning routine, I sit at my desk and draw script in my sketchbook for later chapters of The Legend of Jamie Roberts. I do this for ten to twenty minutes. After that, I take the time to write for ten minutes. And once both are done, I can fully get into work-brain mode.

To transition OUT of work mode, I wrap up my timed work on the Forest app/Pomodoro time block. Then I set down my tools, unplug things from my laptop, and take a shower while my favorite music plays from the Bluetooth speaker.

These are small things, but they help my mind slow down enough to shift gears.

I hope these help! If you’re still stumped, leave a comment below and I will do my best to help you out.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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Adventures in Moving – Being Safe

In these uncertain times, I’m making this announcement in the Adventures in Moving: I’m being safe, and delaying my move date.

For folks who are out of the loop, I planned on moving because the house I’m renting got sold. Thankfully, mom (who owned the house before) sold it to my sister. Because of that, the time table to move is more relaxed.

However, it is NOT relaxed for my sister’s current roommate. Currently, he’s renting an apartment from a preeeety shady landlord. This landlord has been demanding consistent rent payments and will kick out anyone whose lease runs out if the renter does not renew. Even during these uncertain times.

And what do you know? This roommate’s lease runs out in the beginning of June.

He also has a dog. An elderly, pain in the ass dog, whom both of my cats HATE. And he also has a kitten.

The house I’m in is small – so fitting 3 people under the roof is a challenge. Add an extra dog and cat, and that becomes my sister, the roommate, me, four cats, and two dogs (because my sister has a dog, too) under one dinky roof.

So I DO intend to move before June starts.

However, with coronavirus still being A THING, I’ve heard through the grapevine that Ohio intends to open the state back up around May 1.

I am of the opinion that this is WAY TOO DAMN SOON.

(Personally, I prefer the relief effort ViHart outlines in her latest video. Go check it out if you haven’t seen it yet.)

So I’m going to be safe.

Right now, the plan is to move out of my current home between May 15 and May 31. There are contingency plans if the move has to be delayed. But this is the current plan.

Where am I moving to? Well, it’s looking like the Toledo area – but Columbus is still an option.

That’s where things are at for now. As things change, I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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Apprentice Wise Woman: A Sketch

Way back in 2014, I drew this Apprentice Wise Woman.

…Mostly to play with the aesthetic. But also to practice drawing with some new pens I had acquired at the time.

In retrospect, I consider her a prototype for The Woman of the Woods. The face paint patterns are also proto-Nafrit, Nafrits being the nomadic women warrior peoples in The Legend of Jamie Roberts. The gang hasn’t met them yet.

Actually, I may draw more ladies like this one…

Oh! And she’s available as a hi-res download for Ko-Fi and Patreon.

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Sailor Mercury: A Sketch

sailor mercury fanart sketch made with brush pen and copic marker

I didn’t grow up watching Sailor Moon – unlike apparently 99% of other Millenials. I knew it existed, but I didn’t watch it regularly.

But when I DID watch it, I watched it for Sailor Mercury.

Mostly I watched for her because Mercury (the planet) rules Virgo, and that happens to be my astrological sign.

But also she’s smart. I REALLY liked smart girls in my cartoons who were also cute as heck. Surprisingly, not many girls on TV at the time were smart AND cute. You were one or the other. But Sailor Mercury dared to be BOTH.

So yeah. I drew her.

She’s available as a hi-res download now, too, on Ko-Fi and Patreon for just $1.

The original sketch will be listed on Storenvy soon.

Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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The Witch and the Demon: A Sketch

The Witch and the Demon has been sitting in the sketchbook, the short story file, and my brain parts for the better part of two years now.

The above sketch came first…I think.

Then I wrote the short story. And…ok, to be blunt, it’s pornographic.

There’s a part of me that would love to adapt this into a wordless comic one-shot. But there’s also the logical part of me that says that 99% of printers out there would not print porn comics.

The paradox of America: American comic printers will happily run a comic with a dude getting his dick ripped off by possessed animals, but they WON’T run a comic with someone getting head.

There are oversea printers – even one or two in Canada that could do this – but I want to be positive before I move forward with it.

The other issue with doing an x-rated comic is: there are a LOT – and I mean A LOT – of readers who think my work is all kid-friendly because of the art style I draw in.

On the one hand, I get it. It’s cutesy.

On the other hand, the subject matter is not child-friendly most of the time.

Case in point: Thoughtful Dinosaur.

Anytime this book is spotted on my table at shows, parents think it’s a book aimed at kids.

It’s not – it’s the story of a college student learning how to adult. While there’s no sex or cursing in it, it does tackle ideas that kids won’t understand, like existential dread and the meaning of life.

And I have to explain this more often than you’d think.

So because of all of those factors, The Witch and the Demon have been sitting in the rafters. And odds are high they will continue to sit there indefinitely.

We’ll see what the future holds for these two though. Auxaton as a story concept sat on the sidelines and was briefly abandoned… until I revived it for NaNoWriMo two years ago.

Who knows what will happen for the witch and her demon?

Thank you for reading.

You. Are. Awesome.