My Sh!t: The Getting Together Of

[the_gneech]

I have been quietly, but nevertheless definitely, going mad for the past few weeks because, like HAL, I feel like I have been given mutually contradictory directives, each of which has priority over the others. I think if the apartment had a pod bay, I would have locked myself out of it by now.

Fortunately, we do not. The closest we have is a back yard overgrown with weeds, and locking myself out of that would at most be an inconvenience until lythandra came home and said, "What are you doing out there, you fathead?"

But my brain has been wrestling with the problem of "You must start bringing in money!" vs. "The only thing I really care about doing is my comic, which does not pay and effectively precludes doing anything else!" Every course of action I've considered has been stymied by this.

• Get a job. Any job. This would make money. But it would prevent making the comic, which is the only thing I really care about. Untenable.


• Write novels. More enjoyable than getting a job. Pay is more likely than with the comic, but hardly guaranteed and certainly not likely to be in the quantities needed. Also, it's not making the comic.


• Run out of money, starve, and get kicked out of the house. Would prevent making the comic.


• Have money magically appear. Good plan! How?


• Uhhh... Yeah, I thought that would shut you up.


• Get paid for making the comic. I earn ~$250/month from Patreon subscribers and maybe $10/month from book sales. To make a living, I would have to increase that twentyfold. How?


• Uhhh... You're really not very good at this.


• Go mad? That's what I've been doing. It's not helping.


• Return to the top of the list and try again, hoping something changes this time. This is just an extension of the "go mad" bullet.

Well, unlike HAL, I can step sideways instead of going up and down the crazyladder again and again, and that's what I'm going to do. At this stage taking action, even if it turns out not to have been the 100% optimal action, is preferable to going around and around in the same rut.

So I'm going to start by signing up for The Oxford Program and going through it in order to find (or at least try to find) some kind of lucrative career that can mean enough to me that I don't feel like I'm throwing away my life just to chase a paycheck.

While that's underway, I'm going to continue getting as much done on my comic projects as I can "on the side," with an emphasis on speeding up my ridonkulously slow production time. Prolific creators are profitable creators. How I'm going to do that is a topic that will require some dedicated thought and is a topic for another post, later. The main thing is going to be focus and deliberate action, if I can figure out some way to develop it.

So, we'll see how it goes, wish me luck. The comic must continue, but money must be made. Those two items, combined, are the victory condition.

-The Gneech

Comments

[laurie-robey.livejournal.com]

While I appreciate your sense of urgency, I will find another job, so it's not like you're going to remain the only one bringing in a paycheck. Just something to hopefully ease your mind.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

<3

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Getting a job does not necessarily mean not making the comic.

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

If there's anything I know, it's THAT.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

It's hard to say definitely one way or the other; but one of the reasons Arclight Adventures failed was that I couldn't meet the production schedule while dealing with a day job. I draw very slowly, and I have to figure out a way to work with that, if I'm going to draw at all.

-TG

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

You are making an assumption that you can't work with it, though, in all your discussions here. What happened in the past is over. This is now--things have changed, you're older, you've changed. But if you decide, in advance, that you can't hack it if you take a day job, then... you won't. We are remarkably good at fulfilling our own prophecies.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I realize it's considerably after-the-fact, but I just wanted to say thanks for the encouragement and apologize for the drama. A lot of this post and the ones surrounding it were "hit the bottom" moments of my depressive cycle, which I'm usually much better at keeping under control.

So, my apologies for being so angsty. It's not my true nature, honestly! ^.^'

-TG

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain on that whole issue. My one solution has been to scale back a bit. My existence is all free podcasts and YouTube videos. I don't buy DVDs or anything fun anymore. You've got three cats, so that can be a bit of a moneysink, admittedly, but you also have no kids, which balances things out.

Cutting out the occasional "mad money" expense is not much of a solution, but it's a nice temporary ego "boost": "Aha! I decided not to buy this one thing. We saved $XX! I'm gonna celebrate by drawing Langley doing roller disco! ... Okay, maybe not that."

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Langley doing roller disco sounds awesome, actually! If only I had time to draw stuff. ;)

-TG

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

Look into E-lance perhaps? wait, now it's called https://www.upwork.com/

There might be some small writing / coding / presentation / powerpoint design / somethingtotallyelsethatyoucoulddo things that could occupy a few hours, bring in a few dollars, and extend your time/finance window to figure things out.

You've had experience with enough gaming and adventure modules to know a gem from a turd, as well as knowing why. Also, you can sneeze out a world/game/adventure intro that's better put together than ones i've seen on shelves in the gaming store. Publish some? burnish up some that you've already worked out, like the savage worlds borderlands and ghostbusters conversions, offer it for free, so you're not earning $$ from somebody's © and trademarks, but it'll bring you eyeballs and patreon followers. and/or file off the serial numbers and re-brand it as a "____________"-style game and sell it.

Ask your patreon crowd what it's looking for as it grows, and work on the things that overlap your interests the most. Heck, i bet you and the twitterponies could make some ponyD&D modules easily enough. XD

Hell, be bold, shop some of your stuff past the savage worlds folks, and see if they'd be interested in making it an officially branded thing.

[rowyn]

I knew you were driven to make stuff, but I hadn't realized that comics in particular were the thing you really wanted to make.

I wish you the best with making them faster and more profitably! And I hope the outlook has improved a little from the bleakness of this post.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the long delay between comment and reply here, but I did want to come back and apologize for the freak-out post and say thanks for the kind words. Like I mentioned to haikujaguar above, this post was made from the bottom of an emotional well, and I am usually more disciplined about filing such posts in the "never to be seen by mortal eyes" file rather than actually posting them. ^.^'

Thanks for your patience!

-TG