I create cool, cute, and spooky sci-fi/fantasy stories for animation and video game fans. Sign up to get some fun treats like the musings of a creative cat mom, doodles and behind-the-scenes looks at my work, and sometimes even accompanying audio blurbs delivered right to your inbox!
I didn’t sleep that well Monday night, and a lot of it was thanks to a really rough migraine that knocked me flat horizontal.
I’ve got a medley of chronic conditions (henceforth referred to as debuffs) that regularly knock me out and prevent me from living my life, which leads to a lot of time lost! I can’t talk to my friends and family. I can’t create. I can’t live.
I bring this up because there was a feeling of guilt that hit me just as bad as that migraine. I felt bad that I had to retreat away from the world once again to rest and recuperate.
The same feeling hit me after I had to get surgery to have a HUGE, CANTELOUPE-SIZED TUMOR (oh, and an organ I guess) removed from my body. Aaand the same feeling hit me when I had to have a different tumor (oh, and half an organ) surgically removed last September.
AND YET!
I was talking to a friend of mine this week about how he was working in overdrive with a client, and I wished him a well-deserved rest. I even said to my buddy, “it’s productive to rest, better to be refreshed than to try to slog through everything at 40% capacity!”
I always wish my co-working neighbors a well-deserved rest after they’ve been putting hours into their ventures and businesses, and yet I’ve adopted this double standard that it’s bad for ME to rest up.
If you can (unfortunately) relate, know that it’s not bad to rest and refresh, and it’s not counter-productive, either! The last thing you want to do is burn out, and rest is one of the ways you can counter that burnout.
That being said, I am the furthest thing from a health professional, and I can only speak from experience. Check out this article from the American Psychological Association on rest and the different ways you can achieve it.
One thing I def want to get into the habit of trying more often is journaling, as my brain is always buzzing with a medley of loud screams, various songs, “oh shits,” and “what ifs.”
Back To It!
These next few months are going to be…SO BUSY for me. On top of the usual Studio Hours streams I’m hosting every Sunday (which I’d LOVE to see you there!), I’ll be vending at a local arcade during a Trunk-or-Treat event this month on the 18th and hosting an in-person event in November.
But on top of that, I want to get back into the flow of working on TwistedFates:LUCAS! Part of that includes recruiting, and while I know this is a non-commercial hobby project, I do feel kind of embarrassed that I don’t have much outside of my own skills to offer for compensation. Like a full-colored portrait.
So while I’m getting help with getting my websites back up and running, I’ll be pacing back and forth in the studio trying to figure out what to do about that.
OH, AND THE IN-PERSON THINGS
Save these dates! Sunday, October 18th, I’ll (hopefully) be vending at the Fourth Dimension Fun Center for their Trunk-or-Treat event! It’s going to be my first time vending since my absolute flop at Anime Impulse in LA, so I am! Admittedly a bit nervous.
And Monday, November 2nd, I’ll be hosting an event at Venture X Frederick called “Mellow Monday,” an encore to “Whimsy Wednesday” where I’ll be leading a casual workshop about painting with coffee! It’s also a Bring Your Own Mug event, where we’ll be serving a variety of warm drinks and delicious treats to settle into the holiday season. I’ll be releasing more details about Mellow Monday as soon as I iron out the details with staff, but I’ll keep you posted! In the meantime, I’ve started a special list just for live and in-person events, so if you’d like to know about opportunities to say hi (and chill and have a great time), sign up for the list here or click below!
*Except when my body hates me or I do something else like running a small shop!
Oh, did I tell you about Studio Hours?
Sundays, I’ll be streaming live from my home studio as I work on a variety of digital and tangible projects. Last week, I bumbled around my laser cutter.
This week, I’m designing black cat stickers because I have a distinct lack of seasonal paraphernalia to peddle at the Trunk-or-Treat I signed up to vend for. So on top of designing “Oops, All Seasonal Packaging!”, I’ll be trying to make portraits of Cinnamon into a variety of fun, goofy stickers.
If you’d like to join for a chill time, to watch an easily distracted cat lady scribble in an art program while gurgling at said art program about it “being itself,” or even to have background noise, I’d love to have ya. I’ll be streaming on both Twitch and Youtube. 🧡
I'm an indie artist who pays for many things (including community outreach) out of pocket. Thanks to my monthly supporters (and one-time donors, too!), I'm on my way to doing what I love for a living and supporting myself and my family. Thank you so much for helping me inch ever closer to making that dream a reality!
I create cool, cute, and spooky sci-fi/fantasy stories for animation and video game fans. Sign up to get some fun treats like the musings of a creative cat mom, doodles and behind-the-scenes looks at my work, and sometimes even accompanying audio blurbs delivered right to your inbox!
