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.

I recently had an interesting conversation with some of my fellow writers who were struggling with social media addiction.

They wanted to focus on creating content, but they felt compelled to continuously check their notifications on their favorite social channels.

As a result, they were struggling to actually make time for writing, because they were spending so much time online.

But as I pointed out, social media addiction isn't 100% a bad thing. I have the opposite problem: if left to my natural tendencies, I'll sink into content creation mode and forget to check my social media for weeks.

If it isn't in my calendar, it probably just isn't happening!

​I have to schedule dedicated social media times into my calendar several times a week, to make sure my messages and replies don't end up sitting neglected.

Obviously, writing is important. But if you don't put your work out there and engage with your audience, then all that content creation is nothing more than a secret hobby.

How can writing hermits and social media addicts find balance?

Obviously, this isn't a question with a one-size-fits-all answer. Different audiences hang out in different places and want different levels of engagement, and different authors have different strengths, styles and challenges.

In this section, I'm going to give you some guidelines you can use to create a social media management schedule that works for you.

1. First, get clear on your goals and needs.

All the planning in the world is worthless unless you know result that plan is supposed to create.

That being the case, your first step is to get clear on what you want to accomplish through your online interactions.

Do you want to build a highly engaged audience that eagerly snaps up each new story you put out, and that readily shares your content with their friends?

Give people a way to contact you and to stay informed about your latest projects?

Learn about your industry and hone your craft?

Just have fun?

Once you're clear on what you want to accomplish, you can work from there to create a plan to accomplish it.

2. Determine what you're good at and what your writing career needs.

As noted above, different authors have different strengths and styles, and different people have different needs.

So in this step, you need to look at what you need and what you're equipped to provide.

If you're self-published and doing most of your book marketing yourself, being a social media addict can work in your favor, as long as you focus your social time mostly on interacting with current and potential readers or with people who can give you exposure to more readers.

If you're more of a hermit, like me, then you should probably still spend some time on social media, but you may need to deliberately set aside time for it.

Put it in your calendar to check your social media channels every day or two, answer any messages or replies you have, and post helpful comments and questions in groups that are relevant to your genre.

But what if you're traditionally published, your career doesn't need that level of social media interaction, it DOES need you to spend more time on writing, and yet you still can't pull away from the siren song of your notification icons?

3. Set boundaries.

If your social media addiction has reached the point where it's preventing you from writing, there will be times when you need to draw the line.

If you can't have your social media page open without constantly checking it, then log out, close the tab, and mute any notifications that you can get even when you're logged out, if that's what it takes.

You don't necessarily have to do this all day, but if you can't focus on your writing for any length of time unless you do this, set aside a chunk of time and commit to working until that time is over.

How long this time increment is will depend on your attention span. If you can work for an hour straight, awesome! If not, try scheduling four different chunks of fifteen minutes into your day.

One method I use is to find an hour-long song compilation or a fifteen-minute song extension on YouTube, set it going, and keep working until the music stops.

This makes writing more enjoyable, and it's a constant audio reminder to stay focused. It also gives me a clear indication of when the assigned time increment is over, without the threat of a jarring, startling alarm hanging over my head and tugging the edges of my concentration.

But what if closing out your social media windows feels like too big a commitment, and your reluctance to finish your social session and close the tabs actually makes you spend MORE time on the sites?

In that case, I recommend putting all your social media tabs in one window and minimizing that window, so you aren't constantly seeing the tempting tabs while looking at your other tasks.

4. Use scheduling software to avoid temptation.

If part of your social media strategy involves posting on your page or profile once a day, and you can't do that without getting sucked into the inexorable whirlpool of your notifications or timeline feed, it's best to find a way to post content without even seeing that temptation.

If this is an ongoing challenge for you, a social media scheduler that can post content to your channels without you actually logging into those channels can be invaluable.

Personally, I use Hootsuite, but there are other options available if you don't like that one.

Do you have any tips to help writing hermits engage with their readers, or to help social media addicts to focus on their writing?

I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

The 16th page of my Undertale fan comic, Just Cause, is ready! Enjoy!

 
​Ah, Undyne. If only you knew that you DID, in a way, train Frisk... by killing them repeatedly until they'd had enough practice to consistently block your attacks.
 
At least their confusion over whether or not spear fights are taught in human school was enough to distract the poor kid. The storm's been averted, at least for now - just in time for another to arise.
 
Man, though, it was hard to squash Asgore, Undyne, Papyrus and Alphys into the same panel - they're such different heights, haha! So I've decided that the shorter three are sitting in Asgore's lap. By the end of the anime series, he will probably be crying and hugging them.

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

Few things take more concentration than creating a work of fiction.

You need to keep the plot consistent, keep the characters in-character, make the descriptions compelling yet concise, write convincing and entertaining dialogue, and so much more...

All while life insists on happening in the background, dragging your mind away from the words on your screen.

So how do you block out all that noise, and keep your mind on your story?

Personally, I've found instrumental compilations to be absolutely invaluable. They help me stay focused for an hour or more, while making the process of writing more enjoyable and keeping the world's ambient noise at bay.

If you need help to concentrate on your work and to block out surrounding noise, here are some of my favorite one to two-hour instrumental compilations to help you keep your mind on your writing:

1 Hour of Dark Winter Music & Gothic Music
​
This hour-long compilation is one of my personal favorites; it's beautiful and atmospheric, the kind of thing you can just sink into for an hour and feel the tension draining out of you.

1 Hour of Elf Music
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1 Hour of Fairy Music and Fantasy Game Music

These two collections of beautiful melodies are varied enough to be interesting, yet unobtrusive enough not to demand your attention.

Best Relaxing Piano Studio Ghibli Complete Collection 2016

As the name implies, this is a sweet and relaxing collection that will create a peaceful atmosphere for your work.

World's Most Breathtaking Piano Pieces | Contemporary Music Mix | Vol. 2

Beautiful and varied, this collection definitely earns its name.

​2 Hours Epic Positive Music (Epic Fantasy Uplifting Orchestral Vocal)

This is a good one if you want some songs with a bit more energy to them. It contains a couple songs that have lyrics in English, but it's easy enough to skip over them if songs with words hurt your concentration.

World's Most Emotional Music | THE BEST OF MIX

Some of these are dramatic, some peaceful, all beautiful. As with the one above it, there are a few that have lyrics, but those are easily skipped.

I hope you found this collection helpful. If you have any instrumental compilations you'd like to share in order to help your fellow authors concentrate on their work, please feel free to share the links in the comments!