I recently found out that there are print-on-demand websites where artists can upload high-res art, and it will be placed on mugs, phone cases, pillows and more for people to order.

I thought that would be a fun opportunity for me to stretch my artistic wings, give the abstract side of me some room to play, and create some designs that would look better on products than as standalone images.

So I spent most of Saturday alternating between creating designs, playing Spyro: The Eternal Night, and trying to convince my brain that it was OK to just take a break, take an idea I like and run with it, and draw what I feel like when I feel like drawing it, even if that means it takes a few extra days to publish the next page of Just Cause.

(Seriously, the cowbell is all too real. Even though my readers haven't been nagging me for updates, which I appreciate, my workaholism loves to guilt me for not finishing pages "fast enough" even when I've created a lot of other art. >_<)

Anyway, if you want to see what the designs below look like on physical products, and maybe grab a couple yourself, you can see them on my Society6 page.

Without further ado, here are the designs!
​

So, here I sit. As I write these first few words, it's 11:07 on a Monday evening, I've had next to no free time today, and it's looking like free time will not be a thing for me until tomorrow evening.

Hence me writing this now, even though it's going to be published on Tuesday, because otherwise my weekly blog post will be posted at stupid o'clock at night, and I try not to do that too often.

Gotta give the people what they want, at an hour when they might be awake to read it. And I'm just going to make the crazy assumption that a trip into the weird side of my subconscious is what you want, because why the heck else would you click on a blog post with this title?

This won't be the last blog post I need to write tonight, either. Heaven help me.

For the current state of my to-do list, and the fact that so much of it is not done at this time of night, I partly blame a semi-accurate replica of a Star Wars rebel pistol I drew, a conversation about poop, and an imaginary pet rat with a prophecy attached.

Welcome to my Sunday night.

It began like many other nights. It was stupidly late, and I hadn't slept a wink. Par for the course, for me.

Maybe I need to start a trend like Thinspiration, but instead of giving people self-destructive diet advice, it's sensible and healthy and aimed at knuckleheads like me who consistently stay up too late.

"Do you want an extra hour of art time tonight, or sixteen hours of not feeling like crap tomorrow?"

But that's a topic for another blog post. Back to the stupid night I had because of something I drew and a couple conversations I had.

Once upon a Monday night...

Yes, it was still Sunday night, and the entirety of Monday was still ahead of me. Not that I remembered that.

In the bizarre hellscape my mind had decided to create, it was Monday night, I hadn't slept a wink on Sunday night, and my ENTIRE Monday to-do list was still not done.

And now I couldn't sleep.

Great, I thought, now I'll have to do all of my Monday work on Tuesday, with TWO sleepless nights behind me.

Ha. As if that was the worst bullcrap my subconscious could come up with on that particular night.

Enter the perilous pregnant pet rat of prophecy.

Apparently, for the mind of an author who writes a lot of angst, the appropriate response to my brother saying he was thinking of getting pet rats was to add said brother into my dream, and have him tell me that he'd had a vision where I was killed by a rodent and/or something else.

I forget what the something else was. The something else wasn't what came into my imaginary dream bathroom while I was taking an imaginary dream crap, and have imaginary dream babies all over the floor by way of splitting open and just unceremoniously dumping them out.

Never mind the fact that my brother was planning to get male rats, and have no females involved specifically to avoid the possibility of babies.

If mpreg body horror is what it takes for my subconscious to fulfill its fictional prophecy, that is what it will stoop to.

Such terrible literary standards. Subconscious, I'm disappointed in you.

Now, as for the improbably birthed litter of death-babies on my floor, I should mention now that I'm not normally afraid of rats.

But when they're involved in a prophecy that ends in my death, and they just came spilling into the world chestburster alien-style, my irrational dream self has a hard time bringing herself to touch them, climb off the toilet while they're in the room, or otherwise risk drawing aggro.

So there I was, trapped on my toilet by a bunch of possibly diseased rat babies who were theoretically going to kill me because my brother had had a prophetic dream within a dream.

My version of Inception is so much less cool than the movie.

Now, not only was my to-do list not done, but I couldn't go to sleep until I'd somehow managed to get rid of every single rat, preferably without touching them.

At least the rats weren't werewolves, right? HA.

At this point, art took a break from imitating life long enough for life to imitate art by dragging me into wakefulness for a trip to the real bathroom.

At least I didn't dream I was peeing and act accordingly while still in bed, so I suppose I should count my blessings.

Admittedly, that kind of math is hard to do when you have a long to-do list for tomorrow, and you just woke up after four hours of sleep, with a low probability of getting back to sleep in time to avoid having several extra hours of work due to sleep-deprivation-induced slowness.

To my surprise, after I'd finished shambling to and from my prophecy rat-free bathroom, it only took a little over an hour of tossing and turning before I managed to re-enter the absurdity my subconsciousness had decided to weave for me.

Once again, there were furry animals and echoes of a real-life conversation involved. Only this time, as you probably guessed from the headline, the animals were werewolves, and the conversation was about poop.

Did you ever take a crap so big that your pants fit better? Apparently a friend of mine did, and he felt the need to tell me about it.

​I also felt the need to show him a semi-accurate drawing I'd made of a Star Wars blaster pistol.

Both of these things are fine by me.
​
The fact that my mind decided to blend them into a werewolf infestation in my basement, when the only weapon I had was a crappy little blaster pistol that was designed to break up unflushable poop rather than giant carnivorous creatures of the night, was not.

And you know what?

As if that wasn't bullcrap enough, it was STILL Monday night in my dream, Monday's to-do list was still not done, and now I couldn't go to sleep until I dealt with the damn werewolves.

I wasn't even scared. I was just so annoyed that the werewolves wouldn't let me go to bed.

Kind of like that time when I dreamed that my paraplegic cat was going to take over the world, and my biggest fear was that, in the process of dragging himself across the globe, he would accidentally lose his diaper.

My dream self has some interesting priorities.

Eventually, my alarm clock rescued me from my nonsensical fantasy dreamscape.

By "rescued", I mean it dragged me into a real world where I had 20 minutes to haul my sleep-deprived self out of bed, visit my rat-free bathroom to take a dump that would hopefully not require a sci-fi weapon to get rid of it, and throw some leftovers in the toaster oven before it was time to get to work.

Almost 12 hours later, here I am, finishing up tomorrow's blog post, with another post still waiting to be written, because apparently I have strange priorities even when I'm awake.

Why am I sharing this with you?

Because I needed content for my blog post, it's late at night, and I'm getting revenge on my subconscious by sharing its crappy flash fiction with the world.

Also, if I have to deal with my dream world's bad werewolf fic and poorly-implemented fictional prophecies, so do you.

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.
​
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:
​

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:
​

I mean, just look at the awful, lumpy marshmallow potato he used to be.
​
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.

Have you ever wanted to be friends with an artist or writer you admired, but felt like you'd just be a bother if you tried to contact them?

An artist I follow recently had that dilemma. What came next was one of the cutest interactions I've ever seen, and I had to share it with you.

This person had admired one of the other creators on DeviantArt for a while. She was one of his first followers, and he credited her with the fact that he'd put so much effort into his ongoing fancomic.

He loved the cuteness of her art style, and he wanted to be friends with her. But he didn't ask, because he was shy and worried that he'd just be a bother to her.

One day, he mustered his courage, made an epic-looking piece of fan art for one of her original characters, tagged her in it, and explained in the description how much he respected her and wanted to be her friend.

You know what she said in response?

After spending a few paragraphs gushing over the awesomeness of his fan art, she told him she had wanted to be friends with him!

Why didn't she ask, then?

Because he seemed so busy, had such detailed art, and had so many followers, she'd thought she was the one who would be a bother!

A couple replies later, they were discussing which sites or software they'd use to chat with each other.

Will it always end that way?

Probably not every time, but you never know until you try.

In most cases, the worst thing that's likely to happen is that you don't get a response.

If that happens, it's probably nothing personal. Some people really are just that busy, and if they replied to every message, comment or friend request they got, they'd never do anything else.

If you aren't comfortable with outright asking to be friends, you could start out with something more low-key.

Show your interest and conversation skills by making insightful comments about their stories or art, or by asking questions about them, their characters or their work.

If you're up to it and you feel like the time is right, maybe ask if they'd be interested in chatting sometime. Find out which times of the day and week work best for them, and which methods they prefer to use for conversing online.

A quick disclaimer:

This advice only applies if you actually want to be friends with them. If what you really want is to get fame or exposure through being friends with a popular person, they probably won't appreciate it, with good reason.

But if you seriously want to strike up a friendship, go ahead and ask.

Some will say yes. Some will say "no" or ignore you. Others (like me) might prefer to let the friendship grow naturally rather than just declaring it official right off the bat.

Whatever happens, it won't be the end of the world, unless you REALLY don't handle rejection well and you have access to a doomsday device.

Sure, the possibility of rejection stings, but in my opinion, the chance of a great friendship - and of making your favorite artist's day - is worth it.

Is there a person you've been wanting to make friends with?

Did this blog post inspire you to take the leap and reach out to them?

I'd love to hear from you!

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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For every author who starts with digital self-publishing, there's a special little milestone waiting somewhere beyond the horizon: the day when they hold a physical copy of their book in their own hands.

Well, this week, I hit that milestone: I ordered some copies of Catgirl Roommate, and they're finally here!
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If you prefer your cat humor to be made of paper, encased in a box too small for a cat to fit in, and physically present for your cat to nuzzle, lie on, and possibly pee on, click the button below to visit Amazon and grab your copy.
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It's not often that I inwardly cheer at the sight of a fictional kiss. The 2014 film Maleficent had one of those rare exceptions.

Those who know me have heard me complain before about how romance - particularly romance between a male and female - seems to be a nearly mandatory ingredient for a happy ending as far as some writers are concerned.

The couple doesn't have to fit well. They don't need to have known each other long, or to have interacted with a way that justifies the swift development of their bond.

They just have to be male, female, and prominent figures in the same story, and there's an excessively high chance that they'll end up together, even if the story doesn't justify it.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problem with romance in a story if it's written well.

It's the "if they're male and female, they MUST get together regardless of compatibility, whether or not the romantic subplot is even remotely relevant or necessary, as an obligatory part of a happy ending" thing that bugs me.

This trope seems to be part of a larger societal trend.

Romance is treated as necessary.

Relationships are expected to develop quickly.

And people place so much emphasis on one kind of love that they devalue the others.

How many times have you heard people bemoaning the existence of the dreaded "friendzone"? Yes, being in unrequited love sucks, but comparing an offer of friendship to an offer of a dead dog is pretty gross.

This trend is demonstrated by an argument I recently saw below a YouTube video about Madoka Magica.

I won't name the characters to protect you from spoilers, but suffice it to say, one of them had gone to extreme lengths to ensure another's happiness, and it triggered a debate about whether or not the character in question had romantic feelings for the girl she was protecting.

Some of the commenters made a good point: "If the characters were opposite sexes, a lot of people in our heteronormative society would assume that the protector's feelings were romantic."

I certainly couldn't argue with that.

At the same time, I couldn't help but wonder how much the truth of that statement depended not just on heteronormativity, but on the mindset I mentioned above: that romance is assumed to be the default outcome of close relationships, to the point of devaluing non-romantic bonds.

Some of the commenters scoffed at the idea that a bond so powerful could be anything but romantic. But what does that say to or about asexual and aromantic people?

Does that mean people who can't feel romantic or sexual attraction can't be just as devoted and passionate as people who can?

What about family members? Comrades in arms? Close friends? Nakama?

Can NO other bond besides romance drive a person to go to whatever lengths are necessary to protect a person they love?

That seems to be the assumption.

That's why I found the relationship in Maleficent so refreshing.

The princess is comatose. They've brought in the prince. The three fairies pressure the young man, who has met the princess all of one time, to revive her with true love's kiss.

And, to my great relief... it didn't work.

That's not to say that love at first sight doesn't exist, or that unconditional love for all people regardless of how well you know them wouldn't have been an acceptable explanation for the kiss working. And I certainly don't have a problem with the idea of Aurora and Phillip getting to know each other at a more reasonable pace afterward.

But the expectation that romantic love will blossom after the very first meeting, JUST because they're a male and female of attractive appearance and approximately equal age, is a tired and inaccurate trope that I was happy to see subverted.

And then, to my even greater joy, when Maleficent kissed Aurora on the forehead, the dormant girl stirred.

Now there's a fictional kiss I can cheer for. Because nonsexual friendship and platonic love are just as valid and valuable as romance, and it's high time that more stories - and people in real life - acknowledged that.

Do you think romance has been made too obligatory, at the expense of good storytelling and non-romantic relationships?

Do you have any thoughts to add, or did you notice something I missed?

I'd love to see your thoughts in the comments!

What's the difference between writing a story you like, and writing a story you're flat-out obsessed with?

Over the last week or so, I've seen the difference firsthand, and it's been really striking.

​For two years, as I worked on Catgirl Roommate, I was writing a story I liked.

I had lots of funny material to share, I enjoyed the way the protagonist's character development caught me by surprise, and it was an interesting challenge to write a genre I'd never written before.

Apparently it worked out well, judging by the fact that when one of my friends was partway through it, he was laughing so hard he couldn't speak.

Unfortunately, I've got a dirty confession to make:

While I did like the story, I wasn't obsessed with it. And although I liked the characters - well, most of them - I wasn't in love with them.

As a result, writing Catgirl Roommate was more difficult than most of my other projects, and I enjoyed the process less than I did when I was working on stories where the characters really tugged on my heartstrings.

After I finished Catgirl Roommate in December, I didn't do much fiction writing for a while, because I had a lot of client projects and I was focusing most of my creative time on my Undertale webcomic, Just Cause.

Now that one, frankly, I AM obsessed with.

Sure, it's fanfiction. Sure, it's not one of my novels. But the relationships that grew inside this story, and the character development that blossomed within those relationships... these are a few of my favorite things.

Some of the characters became so psychologically complex, some of their bonds with each other deepened in such beautiful ways, and there are so many little running themes and symbols (I'll admit, I'm a sucker for those)... I'm just so in love with this story.

But the trouble with telling a long story via webcomic - especially when you feel a compulsive need to add lots of layers of shading instead of just basic cel shading - is that, while a picture is worth a thousand words, it takes a thousand times longer to create.

​It took months of drawing, and several pages of comic, to work my way through what would be a single scene in a written story. And, over time, I began to get frustrated with how long it was taking to get the story out there.

I have so many scenes that are burning in my heart, and I want them out there now!

So I decided it was time to do what I'd been procrastinating on for a while, and start actually writing the story.

When I did, I was stunned by what happened.

I already had an outline, so I didn't need to figure out what was involved in each scene. I could just go ahead and write, and boy, did I write!

​Where it used to be a challenge to get 300 words written in one day - partly because I had to make sure that as many of those words as possible were funny - now, I was EASILY writing 800 to 1,000 words or more. Sometimes over 2,000.

​​This, despite the fact that I'm also running a business that sometimes keeps me busy for 12 hours a day.

Now, going by chapter count, I'm almost halfway through the story. Barring unexpected delays, I should be done by the end of February, easily.

And then I can continue gradually working my way through the comic version of it, one thousand-word picture at a time.

Do I regret spending so much time on Catgirl Roommate?

Not at all. Even though I wasn't as thoroughly in love with it as I am with my current story, I still enjoyed it, and I still believe it was a story worth telling.

People are still laughing until they choke because of it, and who knows - maybe Sam's growth as a person will inspire other people to see where they can grow, too.

In the meantime, I have stories to write, things to draw, a neglected YouTube channel to create music videos for, and maybe even some healthy self-care to squeeze in between my content creation and business-running.

I'm three scenes away from getting to the part of the story where the backstory is revealed, and I've been dying write that backstory for so long... I LOVE the relationship between these two characters...

*Gives a totally undignified squeal and runs off to work out and write*

Now it's your turn.

Have you written stories you liked, and stories you love, and noticed the difference? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

Sometimes, you just really need a change of pace.

For the last few months, nearly all of my art time has been spent on my Undertale fan comic, Just Cause. I was starting to feel the need to draw something different. For a while, it has been on my heart to draw something graceful and beautiful - a butterfly, a flower, a waterfall, or maybe a dancer.

The image of a flowing blue dress stuck in my mind, but who to put it on? Not a skinny, conventionally attractive white woman - we're seriously overrepresented in the "depictions of beauty and grace" department. Not that there's anything wrong with pictures of skinny white women, but what about all the other demographics who don't get to see themselves portrayed as often?

While I've never watched Steven Universe, online discussions about it did inspire me to start consciously including a wider variety of races and body types in my writing, and that effect has spilled over into my art. I decided that, for my depiction of beauty and grace, I would draw a big, beautiful Black woman, and make her as lovely and graceful as my artistic skills would allow.

I procrastinated on it a little, since I don't like to have too much of a delay between Just Cause pages, but the idea kept nagging at me. Then, on Sunday evening, it caught me and held on tight. I had planned to attend evening church, but a conflict of scheduling with my family's vehicles prevented it, so I decided to have my worship time home alone.

I sat down to try to read the Bible, but I kept getting this urging: Worship Me with your gifts. Celebrate My creation. Give this gift to My children.

I wasn't sure about it - I thought I was "supposed to" spend that time in Scripture - but I couldn't shake the feeling. So I decided to go with it.

And so, four hours of drawing later, here she is: a beautiful, free spirit, dancing wild and carefree, barefoot under the stars. Graceful, gorgeous, and revelling in it, without a thought for what anybody thinks of her.

Hopefully this picture will bless someone who has been told that she isn't, or can't be, beautiful with her body type. You aleady are, and I hope you can find a way to revel in it the way the woman in this drawing does.

If nothing else, at least your hands probably look better than hers. :P Ah, hands, the bane of artists everywhere.

Speaking of better, you can see a better version of the image here, since my current site host's image uploader has been iffy lately.
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If you haven't been reading "Just Cause", you can see the whole comic here.

My Patrons on Patreon can see the full 12-panel WIP here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/7708864

And if you want to keep tabs on the progress of the next chapter, I've created a handy progress bar and chapter index here: http://stephobrien.deviantart.com/art/Just-Cause-Index-and-Progress-Bar-634267167

I hope you enjoyed these two pieces of art, and I look forward to sharing more digital drawings with you in the future!