Angelarium: End of Year Update (Patreon)

As my holiday chest cold clears, it feels important to take a moment looking outside of my dark basement studio to assess the state of things. It’s as cold as the arctic outside and It’s going to be 2018 tomorrow. The cynic in me wants to say the New Year is arbitrary, but my better angels are pushing me to reflect on this past year, the way people tend to. Besides, I owe a couple thousand people a Kickstarter update, so let’s jam.

The Past

Let’s start with the bad shit. Even the Jedi couldn’t make it through this year without scoring some serious ‘L’s. If the powers at Disney and Lucasfilm can’t get it done this year, I’m feeling hard pressed to fill the void myself. My trend of declining productivity was supposed to have bounced back this year. Well shit. I guess that means my book isn’t going to be done in 2017. With 15 hours left until that deadline, I’m going to call that my biggest failure of the year.  

There was plenty of time to complete Book of Watchers in 2017. Whatever setbacks and heartaches happened were not the reason I haven’t completed that project. That blame falls on my unwillingness to change my very worst habits. Despite seeking treatment for my ADHD, I found myself indulging in compulsive habits that ate my time and destroyed the faith of many of my supporters. That manifested in endless thousands of dollars being refunded for Kickstarter pledges and in declining pledge numbers on Patreon. A combination of broken promises and low productivity have dropped my yearly income to about half of what it was last year.  

The knowledge that everything will be better as soon as I finish Book of Watchers has been a double edged sword. On one hand, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. On the other, I’ve spent most of the year convinced that it’s only a couple of months away. This book has always been one last hard push away from being all over. The estimated delivery deadline has been feeling as though it's sitting at “eternity + 1 day” and with that my ability to see a future beyond it has been drifting out of sight.

Depression prevents you from imagining a better future but the reverse is also true. Every time I come up with a fun idea I want to chase down, I remind myself that I need to finish my book first. Over time, that’s made the joy of invention has been replaced with a sense of hopelessness. All my ambitions have been buried in cold storage in an effort to stay focused on this single looming deadline that never seems to arrive. Here we are, New Years Eve on the year I promised it would definitely be done and it’s not done. If you had told me at the beginning of 2017 that I would spend the entire year too depressed to complete this project, I would have believed you. A part of me knew this was likely to happen, I was just too scared to admit it.  

The Future  

Feeling the sting of failure has always been important to me. Pain is the learning feeling. Looking back on a bad year hasn’t made me feel hopeless, despite feeling hopeless throughout much of it. The pain of depression. The pain of knowing that I let people down. The pain of watching my business suffer. They are all contributing to my resolve to fight back. Even if it is an arbitrary line of demarcation, I’m ready to use 2018 as an excuse to fight back.

The truth is that The Book of Watchers is really almost done. In November, I made dozens of small illustrations to accompany the book. They were a joy to make and pushed the whole project tangebly forwards. If I can get another one or two of those, I can really, truly wrap this thing up. 

Beyond Angelarium book 2, there are a lot of things in the pipeline. A new one just popped up recently and I almost can’t believe it’s happening. I wanted to make resin cast Angelarium figurines for a long time. But without any knowledge of the resin figure market, I didn’t want to end up thousands of dollars into a project full of problems I didn’t know how to solve. Instead, I’ve held out hope in a ridiculous dream. The dream was that an incredibly talented sculptor with a passion for my work would contact me out of the blue with a stellar looking Angel statue and a desire to collaborate.

Turns out, dreams come true.  

The Art Director for the new God of War game, Rafael Grassetti, is currently working on a sculpt of Muriel, Angel of Cancer. He contacted me this month showing some early progress and stating a desire to make a resin mold. So, holy shit. If this is a portent of things to come. Bring it on 2018, I’m so ready.  

The goal is to finish Angelarium: Book of Watchers and the last few pieces of the Zodiac series. With those done, there is a blank canvas for me to attack. Here’s a few things I’m ready to work on as soon as I clear my plate:  

• A new Oracle deck - Angelarium: Oracle of Watchers  
• Muriel, Angel of Cancer - Resin Statues  
• Angelarium Jewelry  
• Angelarium: Book of Seraphim - Archangels, Zodiacs and Celestials  
• Original oil paintings  

The way I get to these things is by managing myself better. Whether that means building in new systems of accountability or by building new habits, I need to make changes if I want to get this done. I’ve taken some steps already, but more needs to happen.  

Right Now  

This month was 2017’s last shot at bringing me down. 30 days of physical and mental illness. It was the worst month of the worst year I’ve had in a long time. But it’s over.

I’m sitting here now full of energy, aware and in control. I’m late on a few things: my book, my current painting, my emails and my accounting. Okay, I’m basically late on everything but that’s fine. I’ll pay the consequences and hate doing it. That pain will teach me to do better next time. Everything may be hurting right now but nothing is broken. I’m counting 2017 as a loss and moving on. This is not the best I can do and I’m committed to doing better.

Best,

-Pete