Starting a long-running webcomic is a big undertaking. There are a lot of things to keep track of, skills to hone, and tips and tricks that can make the process easier, as I've discovered over the year and a half that's passed since I first started working on my Undertale webcomic, Just Cause.

A fellow artist recently expressed interest in picking my brain, so I thought, "Hey, why not turn this into a blog post, so everyone can benefit from all this experience and brain-picking?"

And so, here we are, taking a look at the seven things I wish I'd known when I started out.

​Some of these tips are specific to digital artists in general and Photoshop users in particular, but if your image editor includes layers, most of what I say will work for you.
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Webcomic Lesson 1: Start with a template.

One of the best decisions I made when I first started to draw Just Cause was to make a template I could use for each page.

This template consists of several layers:

1. The outline text

This is the first layer above the background, where I write my notes about what goes in each panel. The characters' names, poses, facial expressions, backgrounds, items, or anything else I need to know in order to draw that panel go into the outline text.

This helps me to figure out the layout of the comic, and to know what goes where, before I even start to draw.

I recommend keeping the outline text layer separate from the background layer, so if you want to move a piece around, you can do so easily without leaving a blank space where the section of text used to be.

I usually use a pale grey shade for my outline text, so it isn't too obtrusive or distracting.

I've also found that, in Photoshop 7.0 at least, it's good to have a single pixel on the outline text layer, so it doesn't turn into a text layer when I start to write on it. This way, starting to write creates a new layer, which can be merged into the outline layer when it's done.

2. The text for the dialogue

Back when I was mostly drawing my comics on paper, I had a chronic problem where I'd draw the panel, then realize I had no room for the word bubbles.

Now, I add the dialogue text during the planning phase, so I know exactly where it goes and how much room it takes up before I draw anything.

This is especially important for a webcomic that I'm trying to make mobile-friendly. When you're making the dialogue text big enough to (hopefully) be readable on a smartphone, you end up with some pretty big word balloons!

I try to make my dialogue paragraphs as circular or ovular as I can - narrow at the top and bottom, wider in the middle - so they fit neatly into rounded word balloons.

I also use a color other than black and white, so the text is visible against both the white background and the black word balloons I'll later add. I'll turn it white after I add the word balloons, but in the planning stages, it needs to stand out against both.

3. The layout lines

Once I've used the outline text to determine where each panel goes, I use the layout line layer to create lines between the panels. This layer stays near the top of the Photoshop file, and the panels are drawn beneath it.

That way, I don't have to worry about accidentally coloring on the lines that separate the panels, since those lines are in a layer above the panel layers.

I recommend NOT using anti-aliased lines for your layout lines, except for the diagonal ones. It gives the lines a sharper, cleaner appearance, and makes it more obvious if you've made a line crooked and need to fix it.

4. The panel number

This is one of the more unusual elements of my process, because it actually has nothing to do with drawing the comic.

I'd noticed that some artists who had a variable release schedule were plagued by people demanding to know when the next page would be available - which, while flattering, can also create a lot of pressure for the artist, and it can become annoying if too many people are doing it.

So to make the wait easier for my readers and the comments section more pleasant for me, I created a progress bar that indicates how far I've gotten in drawing each new page.

Every time I finish drawing a couple panels, I update the progress bar. Trouble is, that means I have to keep counting how many panels I've drawn - which, in the longer pages, can get tedious.

So I created a text layer that indicates how many panels I've drawn and how many are in the page overall. Every time I finish a panel, I simply change the number in the "panel number" layer.

5. The color palette

Because I use soft shading, as opposed to cel shading, it's sometimes hard to tell where the base color ends and the light and shadow begin. This can cause me to lose track of which shade I'm supposed to start out with when drawing the characters.

I eventually got sick of repeatedly having to look up sprites or open separate files with unshaded versions of the characters, so I included a color palette layer.

This layer basically consists of the characters' names, with the letters written in their various colors.

6. The word balloons

In Photoshop, when you write a bit of text, it creates a new layer. On the layer directly below these new text layers, I have a dedicated layer for word balloons, labeled "Dialogue".

Once I've got the comic's layout fully figured out, I create the word balloons below their respective bits of text, then merge the text down into the word balloons.

While you're doing this, double-check to make sure the text is the way you want it before merging; once it's merged, you can no longer type in that paragraph, backspace, italicize, or anything like that. Basically, it stops being text, and becomes a picture of text.

7. The chapter number

This, along with the chapter name being visible at the top of the template, is an element I added in response to a specific frustration I experienced as a reader.

Sometimes, when I'm scrolling through Tumblr, I see a comic and start to read it... only to realize that it's a later chapter in a comic I'm reading but haven't caught up with yet, and I just gave myself spoilers.

To avoid doing the same thing to my readers, I have the comic title embedded as a permanent feature in the layout lines, and an editable text layer with the chapter number in the template. No spoilers for the unprepared!

8. A horizontal line

Have you ever had a time when you tried to use the line tool to make a perfectly straight line, only to find that the very act of clicking nudged the mouse or touchpad enough to make it crooked? I have. SO MANY TIMES.

So rather than deal with that frustration every time I want to make a line to separate one row of panels from another, I just have a separate layer with a horizontal line that I can copy, paste, move, and then merge down into the layout line layer.

Here's an example of a page template, with all the elements labeled by number.

The number labels are in bright pink, to differentiate them from the other numbers in the template.

​I forgot to add a separate layer for the dialogue text in the screenshot before editing, and I was almost done by the time I realized, so... just pretend it's there, OK?

1. The outline text
2. The text for the dialogue
3. The layout lines
4. The panel number
5. The color palette
6. The word balloons (not yet added in this stage of planning out the comic)
7. The chapter number
8. The horizontal line

Webcomic Lesson 2: Use what feels natural.

When I first started drawing my webcomic, I wanted to keep it simple and fast, so I decided to use cel shading.

I told myself, "I'll just do one layer of shading, AND NO MORE!"

As you can see, that commitment didn't last.

Even in the first page of the comic, when I was still trying to restrict myself to simple shading, I found that the TV was easier to draw with soft and complex shading to define its various planes and slopes.

After a few chapters, I concluded that I was spending more time trying to figure out how to make things look good with hard shading than I'd spend just doing the soft shading that came more naturally to me.

So I went with my natural tendencies, and started creating better art in less time as a result.

Even before I start to shade, my overall process for drawing things tends to differ from most of the processes and advice I've seen.

I usually see people recommending that you do a sketch layer first, then a lineart layer, then fill in the lines with color.

Personally, after making a rough sketch to get an idea of where all the body parts go, I find it easier to start with the color, sculpt it until it's the shape I want, then draw lines around that.

It's less effort to shave a couple millimeters off of a blob of color than it is to change the position and shape of a line, at least for me.

As a result, my drawing process after the sketch phase tends to look like this:
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And that brings me to the next thing I REALLY wish I'd known earlier...

Webcomic Lesson 3: Put the color, shade and outlines in separate layers.​

Coloring within the lines is SO much easier when those lines aren't on the same layer as the color.

When the outlines are in a layer above the color, it doesn't matter if the color brush overlaps with the lines a bit; the lines are hovering above the color, so they won't be affected.

That way, your nice, smooth lines stay nice and smooth, and you can color more quickly because you don't have to be as careful.

The same goes for the shading. If you realize you've put some shading where you don't want it, it's nice to be able to just erase it without accidentally erasing the base color beneath it in the process.

This separation of layers also facilitates another trick I've learned, which is...

Webcomic Lesson 4: Cheat your butt off.

Here's the part where I reveal my dirty little secret: I cheat.

By "cheat", I mean I follow in the footsteps of Andrew Hussie and several other webcomic artists whose stories I enjoyed, and use copying and pasting to make my work go faster.

If I have two panels with the same character in the same pose, instead of drawing the second panel from scratch, I'll simply copy the character from the first panel, paste them into the second panel, then change details like shading and the facial expression if need be.

I've even gone so far as to keep a folder full of stock poses for various characters, and some mix-and-match items like certain hair positions for Frisk that I can paste onto their head.

This folder is sorted by character, and each character's file includes accessories like their magic attacks as well as the poses.

By keeping the base color, outline and shade layers separate, I'm able to re-shade the images easily, which helps to keep the pictures from looking recycled and repetitive.

It also helps with situations where the light direction is different in the new panel than it was in the panel in which the pose was first drawn.

One note of caution when using this art hack: if you take a stock pose and increase its size, it can get noticeably blurry.

If you expect to use a pose a lot, I recommend making a big version first and putting it in your stockpile, then shrinking it to fit the panel.

Or, if you started out with a small version and then needed a big one, you can delete the now-blurry outline and redo it, while keeping the base color intact. Isn't layer separation great?

Is this trick a bit lazy? Maybe.

But when the text file for your comic is 181 pages long, and it isn't even finished yet, you either find ways to make the process go faster, or accept that you're probably going to be doing this for the next decade.

Webcomic Lesson 5: Keep track of the characters' locations.

One of my biggest challenges has been keeping track of where the characters are relative to each other and their surroundings, and where the light is hitting them from, in scenarios where they move around a lot.

Fight scenes are a HUGE pain in the butt that way.

I've found that it helps to have a model of the area you're drawing, and icons that indicate where the characters are.

Even if it's just a bird's-eye view of the ground, and text layers with the characters' names that you can move around, this will help you to keep track of where everyone is in any given panel, so you don't have people or light sources teleporting around.

Webcomic Lesson 6: Let it go.​

When you start a webcomic, there are several things you have to let go of.

First, let go of the need to be perfect before you start, because your art style will inevitably evolve, and your best work now will look like crap to you later.

Case in point: Sans before, and Sans now:
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I mean, just look at the awful, lumpy marshmallow potato he used to be.
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And yet, no one complained about the quality of the art. That brings me to the second thing you have to let go of: being perfect AT ALL.

Webcomic panels don't have to be art-critique-ready levels of flawless; they just have to effectively convey the scene, actions and emotions in them.

People want to see the next chapter in the story more than they want the art to be perfect, and good dialogue and plotlines are more important than impeccable drawing.

Yes, if a picture looks wrong to you, it's probably a sign that something needs to be adjusted. And for me, there are few feelings more satisfying than finally figuring out what was making the picture look off, and watching it become awesome - often with a relatively minor tweak.

But bear in mind, you'll spend a lot more time drawing each panel and getting acquainted with its flaws than your readers spend will looking at it.

So unless you're planning to submit the image to a group that's specifically designed to provide constructive criticism, almost no one besides your most dedicated and observant readers will notice minor errors - and those sharp-eyed few are usually the ones who love your story, warts and all.

And if you do get critics who are just looking for something to complain about?

Evaluate their criticism carefully, use the accurate observations to improve, offer courteous correction to the accidentally inaccurate assessments, and ignore, block, or have some mischievous fun with the ones who are just throwing insults without providing any useful information.

Whatever helps you keep up your confidence and motivation to keep drawing.

Webcomic Lesson 7: DON'T let it go.

There are some things you SHOULD let go of.

Your passion for your story, your enjoyment of the process of creating great art, and your determination to see the project through are not among them.

When you're starting to feel discouraged, pause. Look at the number of views and favorites you've gotten on DeviantArt, think about the scenes you look forward to drawing, and remember that even the most popular artists started out obscure.

They didn't hone their craft, enjoy their own art, complete their stories, or get a raving fan base by giving up.

They kept creating great content, gathering followers as they went, and building up - sometimes gradually - to where they are today.

I'm not a wildly popular storyteller yet. Someday, I want to be.

More importantly, I PLAN to be, no matter how long it takes.

I have stories I want to share with the world, lives I want to touch, people I want to make happy, deep contemplations and discussions I want to inspire, and wounds I want to heal in my readers by helping them to understand themselves better through watching my characters evolve.

I have fan art of my stuff that I want to see, even though it hasn't been drawn yet, and fanfiction I want to read.

I'm not going to stop before that dream becomes reality. And neither should you, whatever your dream happens to be.

Now take these tips, or whichever of them sound useful to you, get out there, and tell your story. Your readers are waiting for you.

When you get an idea for a story, do you buckle down and finish it?

​Or are you constantly bouncing from one shiny idea to another, leaving a mountain of unfinished projects and disappointments in your wake?

If you're one of those frustrated authors who constantly starts new projects but struggles to finish any of them, check out my guest post on Adazing, where I reveal how I self-published four novels in less than five years despite having a rampant case of ADD-Ohh-Shiny.

If you found this article helpful and want to support me, and if you want early access to my completed materials and exclusive access to works in progress, I hope you'll consider joining my inner circle on Patreon!

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If you're interested in character design, you've probably seen your share of tips. Some are good advice that should be followed, some are absurd, and some are misguided and pretentious attempts to apply blanket rules to a field with lots of variables.

But there are a few rules that I believe are universal, and that far too many character designers seem to blatantly disregard.

Here are some practical, commonsensical tips you can use to make your characters' appearances feel more real and fit the characters better, without restricting your creative freedom to "their outfit must have X number of colors!" in the process.

Character design tip #1: The character's outfit should fit the situation.

This especially goes for people who design female characters.

OK, it goes for all genders, but fictional women seem to be the most frequent victims of character designers who pretend their creations are smart, strategic people, and then send them into battle moronically and suicidally underdressed.

If your badass supersoldier spy is going undercover at a cocktail party, sure, you can put her in a flattering dress.

But if she's going into battle with her cleavage bared, against opponents who won't be distracted by that sort of thing, you're ignoring the basic storytelling principles of keeping characters in-character and making their decisions plausible just to shoehorn in a bit of extra boobage.

Granted, there are exceptions to every rule. Having a fancy battle dress is practically a requirement for being a magical girl, and their magic powers tend to make up for the disadvantages their wardrobes present, so there is some leeway there.

(Though, come to think of it, I'd love to see a magical girl series where their transformation resulted in armor instead of dresses. That would be a smart, interesting twist.)

Anyway, back to character design tips.

When it comes to armor, if you're thinking of depriving your character of that protection so their movements won't be restricted, bear in mind that a well-constructed suit of armor has approximately the same range of motion as the person inside it.

So while you don't want a stealth-based character who needs to sneak around, slip through small spaces, or blend into crowds clanking around in full plate armor, a character on the battlefield needs a better reason than "I need flexibility" to go unprotected.

Also, if your knight with girl parts is wearing boobplate (a 'breastplate' that cups and emphasizes her boobs separately, as opposed to covering the whole chest in one smooth curve), her blacksmith needs to be fired for being bad at their job and recklessly endangering their customers.

Because boobplate is suicide.

Here are some practical questions you can ask yourself to determine what outfit is appropriate for the character's situation:

1. What is the goal of their outfit?

Are they trying to blend in? Look sexy (for a good in-story reason, NOT a meta-story "sex sells" reason)? Protect themselves in battle? Carry every high-tech spy gadget invented by every sapient species at once, just in case?

Their outfit should reflect this goal.

2. What resources are available to them?

If your character is dirt poor and unwilling to steal, they might not be able to acquire armor or fancy clothing. Unless, of course, they have a benefactor who's willing to help them, whether out of altruism or because it's required for the mission for which they're being hired.

Your character's clothes should reflect their era, their geographical area and its culture and available clothes, and their current and past financial situation.

I mention 'past financial situation' because they might, for example, still have nice clothes that they bought before their finances crashed. Their whole life needs to be taken into account, to the same degree to which their past influences their present.

3. What is the weather like?

Unless they ended up in a location they didn't expect to visit, or the weather changed suddenly, your character should be dressed for it.

Unless their wardrobe comes with built-in thermal regulation, they're innately temperature-resistant, or they need their suit of armor regardless of the climate, it makes no sense for them to have the same type of outfit in a tropical or temperate location and a snow-covered forest. (CoughBlackWidowCough)

When taking the weather into account, be sure to consider how much time the character has to prepare and acquire/pack clothes, whether or not they would see this kind of weather coming, and whether they'd have the resources to get appropriate clothing with the amount of notice they had.

Character design tip #2: The outfit should reflect their personality and abilities.

This is closely related to tip #1, but is distinct enough to warrant its own section.

If a character is cocky, unwise, rebellious, or wants to mentally throw the people around them for a loop, they might deliberately choose to dress in a way that's inappropriate to the situation.

For example, they might enjoy showing up in court with a pair of bunny ears on their head, or striding onto a battlefield shirtless because their healing factor will make up for it and the sight of their wounds healing will demoralize their opponents.

Or they might just charge into battle shirtless because they're way too hot-blooded and reckless to care.

But if a character is very serious and practical and has no superpowers, they should dress accordingly, especially when going into battle.

If a character is very comfortable with her body and sexuality, is too innocent to think much of showing skin, or simply doesn't give a crap what other people think of her, then it makes sense to have her show up in a crop top or revealing dress.

But if she's very shy or modest, or has openly expressed disdain for women who use their sexuality to get ahead in life, then showing her cleavage off will probably be out of character in most situations.

(CoughAerynSunCoughCleavageInBattleCoughWTFCough)

Their past, and the beliefs and coping mechanisms they developed as a result of it, should also play a role in your outfit decisions.

A character who's been sexually abused or assaulted might try to hide their body and attractiveness for fear of getting the wrong kind of attention. Or they might deliberately dress sexy in an attempt to reassert control over their sexuality.

Or they might just continue dressing the way they did before, whatever that way might be.

Once again, it depends on their personality and decisions.

Whatever clothing choices your character makes, the basic rule holds true: it should be in-character, and should fit their beliefs, personality, ability and situation.

Character design tip # 3: The character's body should fit their lifestyle and profession.

Can we talk about Lara Croft's arms? Her skinny little arms, with which she supposedly pulls herself up ledges? This woman should have some serious upper body muscle tone... but in some iterations, she doesn't.

This is an example of what NOT to do when designing a character, and it isn't just the ladies who get hit with it.

While females tend to be more consistently shoehorned into a single, sometimes implausible body type, characters of other genders have also been given this treatment.

Here are some examples of how a character's lifestyle might affect their physical appearance:

If your human character has a highly active lifestyle involving frequent feats of strength, give them the musculature they'd realistically require for the tasks they perform.

(Obviously, supernatural/alien/shapeshifting characters get some leeway here.)

If they frequently get into fights that involve cuts and/or burns, are not perfect at dodging, and don't have the medical technology or superpowers required to swiftly and flawlessly heal wounds, having some scars would be more realistic than their skin being smooth from head to toe.

If they live in a hot climate and are outdoors frequently, they should probably have a tan, unless they have a skin condition or wear clothing that prevents tanning.

For that matter, they should probably also have body parts that aren't tanned, unless they were out there nude.

Depending on their hair type, their hair might also get bleached by the consistent exposure to the sun.

If they use crutches or a manual wheelchair a lot, their arms should show the effects of the muscles being frequently exercised.

When you're designing your character's body, consider where they live, what experiences they've had, and what kind of activities they frequently do.

And for the love of all things holy (or at least, for the sake of plausibility, good-quality storytelling, and not making me roll my eyes at you), don't just design them for sex appeal in a way that makes no sense in light of their lifestyle or their past.

Please. Just don't.

Character design tip #4: Their voices should fit their background.

While watching Tangled and How to Train Your Dragon, I noticed a weird pattern:

The adults spoke with an accent that their children didn't share.

Rapunzel had never heard any voice other than Gothel's since she was a baby, yet for some reason, she never picked up her "mother"s accent.

And while the adult vikings all spoke with a Scottish accent, their children didn't.

This seemed weird and unrealistic enough to break immersion a bit, even in stories where hair glows, horses act like hyper-intelligent dogs, and dragons exist.

TL;DR: Keep your character designs plausible and in-character.

Sure, there are other, more nuanced and advanced facets of character design that someone who's studied the field in more depth could get into.

And even then, there would probably be exceptions to most of the rules they laid out, or rebellious try-hards who would take their "don't do this" as a challenge and find a way to make a maligned design practice work. (CoughProbablyMeCough)

But at the core of the process of designing your character, a simple, universal principle holds true:

Their appearance and wardrobe should make sense in light of their personality, environment and activities.

It's just that simple.

I was working on the latest page of Just Cause, and Undyne had a fantasy about a battle between flowery princess swordswomen.

​Of course, knowing my tendencies, you had to know I wasn't about to just make a small, simple panel for that. No, if I'm going to draw a flowery princess sword fight, it's going to be a full print-sized beast.

 
​There's a slightly bigger version on my DeviantArt account, if you want to see it.

In the process of working on this for a week, I discovered that realistic plate armor is far more complex than I'd ever realized. SO MANY joints, seams, and fortune cookie-like elbow guards that I never knew existed.

Also, the excuse some costume designers use for dressing their female characters in basically lingerie (she needs to be able to move freely!) is apparently BS; well-crafted armor has a better range of motion than its wearer.

​Furthermore, boobplate ('breastplates' that cup the wearer's boobs and accentuate their shape) is asking to get stabbed by your own armor. Hence the lack of noticeable boobs on these ladies.

Speaking of stuff I learned while creating these outfits: I sought inspiration for the dresses by looking up the cultural meanings of different types of flowers, and choosing ones that fit the image of their personalities and backstories that I have in my mind.

The lady on the left is a disgraced princess who was discarded by the royal family while their country was at war. Despite being rejected by her family, she continues to care about her people, and is determined to protect them, even if it means putting herself on the front lines.

Her flowers and their meanings are:

Coriander: Hidden worth.

Black-eyed Susan: Justice.

Anemone: Forsaken.

The acrobatic warrioress on the right is the beloved daughter of a protective family, and was told to stay away from the battle despite her outstanding skill, strength and agility. But when she saw soldiers limping home from the conflict, and heard of the devastation that her kingdom's villages had endured, she couldn't bear to sit in safety while they suffered.

Her flowers and their meanings are:

Wallflower: Faithfulness in adversity.

Heliotrope: Eternal love.

Dog rose: Pleasure, pain, healing, secret love.

And so, the two princesses met on the battlefield. Neither knew who the other was, or how much bravery and love for their people they shared, or what they would come to mean to each other as they fought each other to a draw over and over again.

Neither of them expected that the more they learned about each other, the less they would feel like enemies, and the more they'd realize they were kindred souls.

By the way, in case you're wondering why they're not wearing helmets, there are two very good reasons for that.

One is because this is Undyne's fantasy, and she's the type to whip off her helmet right before a battle.

And the other is so you can recognize their faces when they kiss in the next panel. Because Undyne fantasizes about forbidden romance, too.

I'll add shading and a background in the future, but for now, I've been working on this all week, and am feeling a bit burned out on the project. And I don't want to keep people waiting for the next page for too long.

Also, I'd love to get your feedback on what kind of background you'd like for this. Who knows - maybe I'll make a few versions with different backgrounds and corresponding shading, if enough people are interested.

In the meantime, if you want to support me as an artist and storyteller, and to get advance access to completed art and exclusive access to works in progress, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

Sometimes, when I'm working on my Undertale webcomic, Just Cause, I draw a panel bigger than its intended end size.

This is partly to make it easier to get all the details right, and partly because I want to be able to share them in all their full-sized glory.

In the case of flashback panels, where characters remember moments from scenes I intend to flesh out later, it's also handy to have full-sized versions of the images, so I can reuse them when the time comes to show what was happening in those briefly-remembered scenarios.

The two pictures below fall into the latter category. In the comic, they're smaller, sometimes partly hidden by dialogue, and also darker to show that they're memories, so I wanted to share them with their full size and coloring.

Enjoy!

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There's plenty more where that came from! I have a general art gallery, an Undertale fan art gallery, and an ongoing webcomic based on Undertale.

To support me as an artist, and to get exclusive access to WIPs and advance viewing of completed art, please check out my Patreon!

For many people, monetizing their artistic talent isn't the first path they take in their quest to make a living.

You may have an existing career that you want to keep until your art or writing business takes off, or to keep indefinitely if you like it enough.

For example, I love helping business owners to connect with more of the clients who need them, and I'm also passionate about writing novels and drawing webcomics.

​After several years of treating the latter passion as a spare-time activity, I realized I wasn't happy with that.

I wanted to make creating content for my readers a more consistent priority, both to serve them better and for my own happiness.

Of course, this presented a challenge: how do I find enough time to run two businesses, while giving both of them the care and attention they need?

If you're in the same boat, hopefully my experience will help you.

Today, I'm sharing a few specific strategies I used to make a time management system that works for me, and I'll explain how you can use those strategies to have more time for your writing or art while getting things done.

Strategy #1: Know yourself and how you function best.

At first, I tried splitting my work days in half. Four hours on my coaching and marketing business, and four hours on content creation and marketing for my fiction work.

For some people, that might have been a good arrangement. But after a few weeks of trying it, I found that it simply did not work for me.

I'm one of those people who does not switch gears easily. When I'm in "marketing business mode", I work better if I can just settle into that mode and stay in it until the job is done, even if that means working longer than expected.

The trouble with that was, my days often DID bring more work than I'd anticipated, and this work was usually of the kind that involved commitments to others that I didn't want to break.

This meant my marketing business work often ended up spilling into the time I'd reserved for my art and writing, which left me feeling frustrated, resentful, and out of control of my schedule.

​Working when I expect to be working is fine, but working when I expected to be doing something else is another matter entirely! Especially when there's a touching or hilarious scene that I'm dying to write, but I feel obligated to postpone it until I've fulfilled my promises to non-fictional people.

To make matters worse, I always felt like I wasn't spending enough time on my marketing business, even though, for purposes of an even split, I was spending too much time on it!

I don't like feeling like I'm going halfway on something, and splitting my days 50-50 basically guaranteed that I would chronically feel that way toward BOTH of my businesses.

For me to create a better time management system that worked for me, my first step was to get a better understanding of how I work.

First, I took a bit of time to observe the way I emotionally reacted to the work scenario I'd created for myself. I noticed that, on the days when I simply expected to work all day, I could work from the moment I got up to the moment I went to bed without having a problem with it.

But on the days when I expected to be done by a certain time and wasn't, I got upset and resentful in a way that I couldn't seem to talk myself out of.

Based on this, plus the abovementioned difficulty in switching gears, I concluded that it was time to adjust the way I distributed my work hours.

Strategy #2: Understand your desires and goals.

When my time management system failed to satisfy me, I took a few minutes to do an exercise I learned from Mary Morrissey: I asked myself, "What would I love?"

Not "What seems feasible at this time?", but "what would I LOVE?"

The answer I came up with was, "I want to continue helping people to connect with more clients, but I'd also love to wake up on most days and know that I have few or no obligations to anyone except for creating stories."

This seemed like a big stretch; I was already working longer hours than I planned to on my marketing business. How was I going to create weekdays when I could focus almost exclusively on my writing and art, when I was having trouble just setting the evenings aside for it?

I didn't want this shift to come at the expense of my valued clients, so I needed to find a way to make more time for both of my businesses.

Strategy #3: Remember that you have more control than you think, and be willing to experiment.

I've learned better than to assume that my circumstances are outside my control. We create our own circumstances more often than many people think, and even when things outside our control affect our lives, we can still choose how to respond.

So rather than assuming I was too busy and couldn't do it, I wrote up a new schedule for myself.

On Monday and Tuesday, I would spend two hours each day on my coaching and marketing business. On those days, I would catch up on the emails that came in over the weekend, complete high-priority tasks, and put out fires.

The rest of the day on those days, I would work on the stories that have captured my heart.

On Wednesday through Friday, I would work on my coaching and marketing business from when I woke up until I got everything done, even if that meant copyediting a project while I brushed and flossed my teeth at bedtime. If I got finished early and got some free time, bonus - but I wouldn't frustrate myself by expecting it.

With this arrangement, I would be devoting entire days to each business instead of just select chunks of those days, so I could serve all of my clients without feeling rushed to get everything done by a specific time of the day.

And my impossible little dream of having four days out of the week to work on my stories and art became reality.

All because I took three simple steps: I was honest about what I wanted, I paid attention to how I function and chose to work with that instead of against it, and I chose to create and implement a specific, actionable plan to make those goals happen in a way that works for me.

What was the result of my experiment?

Since I started managing my time this way, I've found that I'm more productive in both of my areas of passion.

I'm creating content far more quickly and consistently in my art and writing business, and I'm serving my marketing clients with more joy and focus, which helps both our relationships and the quality of my work.

I'm spending more hours per week on each of my businesses now than I was before, but it feels like less, because I'm doing it in a way that's in sync with my natural process instead of fighting myself.

Will you do it the same way? Who knows.

Maybe working from wake up to lie down on one business three days a week doesn't work for you. Maybe you'll function better if you split your days half-and-half.

What's important is that you know what you want and how you function, be completely honest about what you'd love, and create a strategy that enables you to do what you love in a way that works in harmony with your natural tendencies and strengths.

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As I was drawing one of the panels in page 13 of Just Cause, it occurred to me that this was a great opportunity for a behind-the-scenes peek at the drawing process behind my comics. Enjoy!
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It's a bit backward from the way most people do it - they make sketches and outlines, then add color. But I find that this works for me, especially because I tend to make some body parts too big on the first pass, and having a color blob lets me use the eraser to chisel it down until it's the right size.

I guess my drawing style is more like sculpting than sketching, haha.

Did you enjoy this quick demo, and would you like me to share more detailed behind-the-scenes information about my drawing process?

​Let me know in the comments!

In my last post, I talked about the way my writing style was affected by the character through whose eyes I was writing. Having more or less reconciled the Fugitive’s style with that of the first book, however, I found myself faced with a different dilemma: the portrayal of the Beachwalker.

As I noted in the first post in this series, I’d originally conceived the story through the eyes of the female protagonist. I knew her pretty well; her motives, style of speech, and personality were fairly well-formed. But since the entirety of My Fugitive was written through her eyes, I never had to stop and think about how she would look to her patient.

Would she be as much of a mystery to him as he was to her, powerful, daunting and unknowable?

Or would he see through her easily, maybe even viewing her as a naive child whose iron will would take her where her experience couldn’t guide her and her abilities couldn’t protect her, and who was biting off more than she could chew?

​Both were equally plausible, and in some ways, equally true.

To a large degree, I’ve found that it depends on the scene I’m writing. Her pride, strength and self-sacrifice are familiar elements to him, as he bears all of them himself, and he respects them in her even though they cause him to worry for her. But after so much time spent alone among his enemies, it’s her gentleness that disturbs and confuses him.

Sometimes, I also have to remind myself that not everyone who reads Voice will have read My Fugitive. So even though the Beachwalker’s backstory feels familiar and self-explanatory to me, I have to bear in mind that it’s a complete mystery to her patient. In some ways, though, that’s a good thing; the process of him figuring her out gives me a way to show his intelligence, which was difficult to do when his mind was seen only from the outside.

Another aspect that has been a challenge to translate from one book to the other is the strong thematic elements that were present in My Fugitive. But this post is getting long, so I’ll write about that next time.

Last time I posted, I was talking about how different Voice of a Silent Fugitive is from My Fugitive, despite being essentially the same story. I mentioned that I was torn between making the Fugitive’s writing style match the Beachwalker’s, or letting him use his own, more concise way of ‘speaking’.

In the end, I found myself doing both. For the first draft, I wrote it the way he would – succinct, factual, almost military. There was still a bit of the poetic element from My Fugitive, though even that felt forced while writing that initial draft.

That mismatch of styles made it kind of uncomfortable to write, like putting on a pair of pants that didn’t quite fit. In a way, though, it actually worked out better to do a more concise version first; it made it easier to keep the facts straight from one book to the other.

Now, in the editing stage, I’m taking the bare framework I created with the first draft and fleshing it out. Some scenes are staying more or less the same, butith others, I’m slowing down, digging deep, and instead of skimming over the scene, I’m exploring further into the turmoil and emotion that run beneath the Fugitive’s stoic surface.

For example, in the initial draft, I covered the Beachwalker’s second inspection of the Fugitive’s injuries in just a couple of brief, unemotional sentences. While editing that scene, however, I realized that having those injuries examined a second time, after the agony he’d suffered when the Beachwalker first cleaned his wounds, would be a deeply painful and frightening experience for him.

So instead of skimming over it, I lingered, diving deep into a moment I’d mentioned only briefly in My Fugitive. It swiftly turned into a tense and apprehensive ordeal, in which the Fugitive’s mind was drawn painfully back to the torment he experienced when other, less gentle hands created the injuries the Beachwalker was examining. It added a whole new layer of suspense and emotion to a formerly trivial scene.

So, to answer the question that inspired this series of posts: will the writing styles match between books?

​To a certain degree, yes. I’ll still be using the same poetic, first-person, present-tense style you enjoyed while reading My Fugitive. But there will still be some differences, some subtle, others less so. Next time, I’ll talk a bit about the differences in the ways the two protagonists perceive each other, and how the order in which I wrote the books has affected that so far.

In the meantime, I'm curious to hear what you think. Which is more important - for the writing style to remain consistent throughout a series, regardless of which character is telling it? Or to give each character a unique voice?

Personally, I'm doing my best to strike a balance, but it's an interesting topic, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.