There are many different shades of ‘crazy busy’, and this year, the combined crazy busy of my friends, family, and partner-in-crime Aithan have touched on a good spectrum of it. For me, I spent most of the year struggling to find work and attain the elusive grail of “financial independence”. Amidst all the applications, resume re-writes, portfolio revamps, portfolio site revamps, and having my bag of filled job applications stolen out of my car (I shit you not) when I decided to apply for retail and service jobs in the hope that SOMETHING would stick, I seriously considered that I must be doing something horribly wrong to not land even one part-time gig. The process took a lot out of my self-esteem and confidence in my abilities.

And then several things happened at once late summer. A friend from animation school got married (congrats!), my younger brother relocated from across the globe and moved in to complete his studying, and I landed a freelance contract while he was moving in and had to work from home–a situation I normally have nothing to gripe about if my place wasn’t in complete move-in chaos at the same time. As this happened all within con season, that ruled out getting prepared for any convention going.

I eventually did attend APE for a few hours as an attendee, and frankly I was so stressed out and busy juggling everything at once that I remember little about it or the people I met. If I happened to run into someone, I’m sorry!

Shortly after in September, I injured my arm and had to take a month-long break from doing computer or drawing work. Attempting to work in all sorts of unergonomic positions coupled with my bad habit of gripping tools too hard caused a shooting pain from my pinky and ring finger down my wrist and all the way along my arm to my elbow.

And then, right on its heels, I got a full-time job as a cleanup artist. The contract was originally for two weeks with possibility of extension, and is now looking like I might be there for another month or–I hope–longer. It seems like things might be settling out and the worst of the craziness is over, but I dare not call it.

I’m still drawing and working on The Boy Who Loved a Dragon and Riiit on My Head; just at a much slower pace than I originally thought. Dragons and Riiits are fickle creatures; they do not come when told, and least of all when I’m stressed out with wanting to hammer out panels and illustrations on a deadline. On the plus side, I solved a few design issues that have been bothering me since the start of the project. One day I will compile my process into a post of some sort; maybe that will be of interest to someone out there.

Things are likely to continue to be crazy for the rest of the year, but for now, it’s reached some temporary point of stability amidst the chaos.

And I guess that’s something.

In Other News: A good friend of mine, Handy Lee, is running a Kickstarter to print their illustrated novel Our Architect–please, do check it out!