Over the last couple weeks I've been really getting back to pages and my writing. Endless Winter issue 3 is almost finished, and then there's just issue 4. I'm hoping to have both issues done, completing the story arc by MegaCon, but we'll see how that goes. That's a fair piece to do in a month around job and kids. There's no reason I shouldn't have the third done, though, as I'm less than ten pages from the end of the issue and I've done five pages in the last week, including two on Sunday. So here's to it....

Oh, and yes, I'll be at MegaCon again this year, February 27th - March 1st, table Orange #1 in Artists Alley. Looks like Hexx and the kids are going to sit this one out, but I'll be sitting the table with my friend JP. Who knows...he might sing you a song if you ask him nicely. Hope y'all can swing by.

To the site, LJ, Drunkduck, DevArt, MySpace, ComicSpace -- this is a global. Not to be so much with the drama, tho....

I've spent the last year and change working on Sune issue 5. I've felt something I haven't felt in years and had a difficult time putting my finger on, but I knew I'd felt it before and had a notion of what it was, but not how to put it into words. Not sure I wanted to.

Anthony and I have been working on something that takes place in the same universe as Sune and Endless Winter, something on which he'd do the art, while I scripted. Now, while I can bang out a script for an issue in six or so hours when I have my brain around where and why it happens, this one has been fighting me for months. I'd been working with it on the side, between working on Prenna, Sune, Endless Winter, and an attempt at new Dimension shorts.

Look, without me getting more verbose than I already have (course we know that's not going to work, you watch), I'm pushing burnout again. When I was talking to Anthony tonight I told him I knew the feeling but I wasn't sure when and where from, and without missing a beat, like any friend who really gets you, with whom you've had history, he said, "Prenna," and he was right. That one word said it. 1999, and what ended the original incarnation of Prenna.

Now back then, what ended Prenna was that to me the world was broken. The story was broken. I had tried to force it and as a result it had holes in it that, while minor or completely unnoticeable to most people, were so blinding to me that I couldn't focus on the story anymore. I'm going to say right now, this is NOT the current case. I do not view Sune, Endless Winter, or Prenna V2 as broken. However, what I am going through as a creator is the same.

I look at what I do as a second job, a second full-time job, and I'm trying to create this universe in a way that makes me happy, but I'm trying to do it in a window of time that would be laughable to even refer to it as "part-time", and while I have, over the last year, started to reach out for the first time in over ten years to people like Anthony and Hexx and Grace for assistance, I am still trying to shoulder most of it myself, on multiple books, looking at it as if it's a full-time job, and trying to treat the Stormchild comics as if they, and I, are a Marvel, DC, or Image and obviously failing miserably. This is not an assembly-line operation of corporate comics, where I do one task and can then pass it on to the next person, turning out one completed book a month, certainly not three. I've tried to deny it, half-acknowledge it, and then without a good answer by which to remedy the situation, go back to trying to juggle them all by myself (for the most part) a couple weeks later. However it has finally caught up with me. Hexx has watched me say I'm going to work on something and then come to find me still staring at the page three hours later, with maybe a piece of a line down, if I'm lucky.

I keep wanting to turn out work for a variety of reasons, including the feeling that I owe it to those of you who enjoy the work, but you know, what I owe to you and, most importantly to myself as a creator, is to produce a piece of work that is good, not rushed. Something with which I as the creator am happy. I am not a Marvel or a DC, I don't have the crunch or the deadlines, and while you guys don't generally (ok, every now and then there's one or two in my inbox) get on my case when I haven't updated in a while, I feel bad about not giving y'all new pages. I'm doing it to myself. I'm making myself carry this load on my shoulders that just about no one could carry pushing the same schedule, and then I kick myself on y'all's behalf when I start to stumble.

Only this time I have the benefit of having gone through this before. And I have the benefit of having people close to me who have seen it. I'm not going to push myself to the point of hating my current projects, or to where my desire to produce makes me break the worlds and stories on which I'm working. I'm pulling back before that happens. I'm going to take a break. A real break, not a "I'm on hiatus but really I'm going to try to do at least as much as I was doing before if not more, just quietly" break. That's akin to trying to quietly prepare for a triathlon while suffering from pneumonia. It's stupid.

It's taken its toll, and the last few months, the confusion surrounding the death of my father, my [still] trying to suss out my feelings for him and for that part of my family, what I left the sister I barely know to deal with in all of that mess...none of that has helped. And while the high point of the last year was the birth of my daughter, a huge thing...well, as frequently comes with that, there has not a lot of sleep for dad and mom, so I'm sure that's added a bit to my inability to focus creatively and the associated frustration.

I need to step back, take some real-live breathing room. Maybe even, as has been suggested, packing up my pages so I don't see them every time I sit down; I have pages for different projects everywhere. Don't let it get to the point where I was when rounding out 1999. I'll likely still go to cons, we'll see. My main focus right now I think is attending to the well being of my creative energy, and the long-term health of my projects. For me and for y'all.

Thank you for your continued patience.

-R.

Hexx and I, along with the kids, will be at MegaCon 2008 in Orlando March 7 - 9. We'll be in the Orange section of Artists' Alley, table 3, so come on by. We'll have copies of Sune, Endless Winter, Dimension, and Prenna, along with prints, posters, and bookmarks on the table, so add a few to your collection. Hope to see y'all there.

I thrive in chaos, as Anthony said last night. This is why, historically, I've always worked on multiple projects at once, and back then I had the time to do so, being single when I started this habit. Now, however, I'm all familified and I have enough multiple constantly running "projects" on the home front that are naturally occurring, to where I don't need to go and artificially create my chaos. As a result of that, I can only realistically afford to give my focus to one project at a time, given that these are no longer the years where I can dedicate all my waking non-working hours to producing material.

It's not that I can't work on (currently) three books simultaneously, doing pretty much everything myself, just that I can't do it all consistently. Two or three weeks, maybe a month and a half, I'm running fine and then something derails me and suddenly I don't have one book on which to catch up, I have three, and nowhere near the time around job and Hexx and yard work and spending time with the boy (and soon girl, in addition) and helping with homework. It's one of those reality check moments. And a bitch for someone such as myself, who has grown very use to doing everything singlehandedly, not having to depend on really anyone, especially when it comes to the creation of my comics.

Anthony has been assisting with layouts and Hexx has picked up a pen for the first time in, like, fourteen years and started to help me with inks, but really, I need to cut back what's on my plate, and luckily, I'm probably in the best place I can be to do that.

The line art for the first issue of this two-issue Prenna story is finished, and I have my own layouts for half of issue 2, along with the first five pages in various stages of pencils and inks. Endless Winter is two issues down and going into the third and final issue for this current arc.

If I can get those two books down, I can dedicate most of my own energy and time on the art front to Sune, which has the longest to go in terms of story. Then, while I continue on with the writing side of the other projects, I can perhaps hire people on to take over art chores for future one-shots and story arcs of those titles. I just need to do a better job than I have in the past of picking artists who aren't flakes.

So, I think my first two tasks are to bring on a colorist, to take over the Prenna pages and book covers in general, and for me to finish Sune issue 5. That will at least give me another issue of Sune complete before I go off and do this other stuff. Few things are more momentum-zapping than going off to work on something and then coming back to the reality that you're not even at a "start" or "stop" when you return, but still somewhere in the middle. Then I can focus on the second issue of Prenna while Hexx inks the pages of Endless Winter that I have done, and Anthony works some layouts for me. Since the second issue of Prenna is shorter than the third issue of Endless Winter, I can get that knocked out and over to colors while at that point I move over to Endless, do pencils for that and hand it off to Hexx for inks, and then move over to Sune.

Not sure what they're doing, I think they're both kind of busy at the moment, but I'll check with Grace and San to see if they have any open spots for colors either now or in the immediate future. If they're booked, I'll see who else I can find.

Meanwhile I'll be looking around for artists.

Course, that's always all easier said than executed.

There should also be a new site design finally coming down the pipe in the near future. Instead of trying to wrangle one more project into my list, that was my first step on this whole "relying on other people again" kick. So with luck we'll have a nice shiny new site soon that will still have the general vibe of the current site, while at the same time being a little bit cleaner visually and better organized for ease of use.

Okay, so the Otakon schedule is now out and available in PDF format on their site.

Friday night is my "workshop"...on the schedule it just says "Stormchild Studio" from like 5:30p to 7:30p in Workshop 3. Though I haven't spoken with the planner directly this week, I was told by another staffer last night they have someone else doing sequentials and inking on Saturday (unless there's been some confusion, which is entirely possible given the jumping around between phone and email conversations). So, to avoid being overly redundant, and because the workshop apparently has no particular designated subject...

I'm going to just say, "the creative process" and let those who attend pretty much dictate the topics by the questions asked. Plotting, scripting, dialog, penciling, inking, lettering, tips, tricks, materials, whatever...I'll pack my laptop and my art supplies and we'll just go from there. If you want to talk about the comics, we can do that too.

Actually, I find the idea of something more freeform like that rather appealing. Sure, it has potential for chaos, but therein lies the entertainment value.

Afterwards, Hexx, Anthony and I are going out for dinner (I don't particularly care where so long as it has beer), so anyone who wants to tag along and continue whatever trouble we've gotten ourselves into is more than welcome to follow.