Archive for December, 2014»
Productivitude
I have a confession to make:
It takes me forever to do anything.
Writing, drawing, even simple stuff like taking a shower and get dressed, I move slowly (when I move at all) and am frequently annoyed to discover that instead of being 8:30 a.m. like I thought, it’s actually midnight two days later.
This is frustrating. But worse, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, it’s unproductive and is severely hampering my ability to make a living at it.
Compare/contrast someone like, say, Graveyard Greg. Whether or not his creations are to your taste, there’s no denying that he is a content-generating machine. He cranks out stories, scripts for comics, you name it, at a phenomenal pace. And when he’s finished with something, he just moves on to the next thing. This means, among other things, that he can take on more projects and/or new projects quickly and easily, always expanding his product base, in a way that I can’t.
It’s like I once said of Neil Gaiman: I create work of the same quality, but he sneezes out a short story over lunch, while I take two months to produce the same volume of work.
At this stage, some may be thinking, “Don’t beat yourself up about it Gneech, you just create what you can and your loyal readers will be there!” or something similar. And while that’s true, and I’m extremely grateful for it, it doesn’t make my tortoise-like pace any less of a problem. Because, you see, I have to earn a living.
Forget for a moment that my vocation is writing and comics. Pretend instead that I’m a clockmaker. Say I live in Zurich, where clockmakers outnumber non-clockmakers, and while I’m a perfectly good clockmaker, there are plenty of others out there who are also as good. More importantly, the others work fast enough to make two or three clocks for every one I can force myself to produce. It’s pretty easy to see that those other clockmakers are going to have a much easier time putting food on the table than I will. It’s not a matter of quality or dedication or what-have-you… it’s pure mathematics.
This is my biggest problem, as a creator. It takes me so long to create my “core content” that I’m already permanently behind schedule. I can’t add new reward levels to my Patreon campaign in order to attract more supporters. I can’t push for a ton of commissions. I can’t sit around coming up with (and then producing) new merchandise. I am maxxed out as it is, and rapidly being left behind.
I don’t know what to do about it. The first obvious answer is to change my “core content” to something I can produce faster, but if it was that easy I’d just go back to a day job and be done with it. I create Suburban Jungle because on some level I’m compelled to do so. The second answer is “Work faster!” but again, if it was that easy I’d have done it already. I have managed to increase my speed a bit over the course of Issue Two, but only a bit, and I don’t think I can go much faster than this without completely sacrificing any semblance of quality.
So… still looking for a solution. In the meantime, I need to stop blogging and get to work. I’m behind schedule. Like always.
-The Gneech
I’ve been trying to come up with an interesting and insightful post about my creative process and how to make the business end of it all work and so on, and so far all I’ve managed to do is write “Duh… me like chocolate!” over and over again. So I’m going to punt on that idea and just put up a random collection of SJ-related flotsam and jetsam that I don’t have anywhere else to put.
First of all, Issue Two is now available for pre-order from FurPlanet, including a full-page color rendering of Charity’s Surfing Lesson, available only in print or to Patreon supporters. My intention is to start including a bonus art piece in every issue (and posted to the Patreon page) as a “thank you” specifically to those readers who help me put food on the table.
Issue Two should be available to pick up at Midwest Furfest this weekend at the FurPlanet table. I’ll also be at MWFF, grabbing a spot in the Artist Alley whenever I can. Come and find me! Commission me to draw stuff! I’ll be your friend! ^.^’
Second, after November’s Ask the Cast page revealed that Charity was named after her great-grandmother, who was a member of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, I received an e-mail from a reader named Kim who told me that her own mother was also a member of the WASPs, and thanked me for helping spread the word about them. She also sent me a couple of photos of her mom, with permission to post them. Click through for the full versions.
Kim told me that the second picture was a stopover on a delivery flight: the men had never seen a female pilot before and were so impressed they asked for a picture. Kim’s mom is alive and well and going strong at 98, which is pretty awesome.
SAAA-LUTE! :)
Finally, the cover of Issue Three was supposed to go up on the SJ site today, not sure why it didn’t. So it’ll go up tomorrow! Issue Three will begin running in January.
-The Gneech