Life Update 6/22/2024 (Patreon)

Hello my Dragons, I just wanted to check in with all of you and catch you up with what’s happened since the last time I posted.

I’m better (I think so at least). When I wrote my last update, I think the stress that came with months of consistent burnout was really getting to me… so I took a break.

I stopped bothering with social media (to an extent), I put as much of the book stuff on hold, I asked WT to put the comic on hiatus until July while I slowly caught up with work and TOOK MY TIME working on episodes.

Previously, every Sunday when deadlines were closing in, I felt like the episodes I was turning in were super rushed and nothing close to the vision I had. (I’d compare it to driving a car that’s going wayyy too fast, but you can’t stop it and you just hope the next turn you’re making you’re not going to completely crash T_T).

So that’s where I’ve been. I feel a tad guilty for not addressing it on here first but I hoped the little hiatus notice on the end of episode 200 would be sufficient. After Ep 200 I was very happy with the milestone but also very frustrated and tired.

Last weekend I also took part in Tokyo X at Houston NRG Center. I’ve attached some pictures from my booth below. (Pardon my awful pics, my phone is super old. The better ones are taken with my partner's phone)

Truthfully, I don't think we had nearly enough stuff for a table this size so the booth was split up like this:

1. SubZero Stuff - prints (including 2 new ones) as well as some stickers and a ONCE IN A LIFETIME chance to see the SZ Volume I book up close. Those of you who came to the table might have seen it and/or grabbed a bookmark!

2. My sister's crochet stuff. Including these cute sprout and bee clips. These did SOOOO well and it was so heartwarming to see random staff and attendees walking around with our sprout clips.

3. Capybara Corner - Some of you might have seen the handmade giant Capybara cutouts+ print I made on my socials. It was all part of my calculated plan to to trap innocent con-goers into a conversation about SubZero and Webtoon. It worked! (next year the capybaras will be 5X the size)

 Truthfully, we JUST barely broke even (the vendor booth fees were pretty high) but I had a lot of fun meeting readers and showing off Volume I for the first time!

I’m pretty sure I also converted a few people to check out SZ despite them never having an interest in romance/ comics either. Although it was a pretty exhausting event, It was nice to just stand up and chat for 2 days. It made me realize how much I enjoyed the process of sitting down to draw for hours at a time. Sometimes all we really need is a change of pace. :"D

Overall, despite things not going stellar I think I'm finally in a good headspace where I can handle day-to-day tasks without feeling terribly overwhelmed each time.

I still have a couple of semi-stressful things to go through (I'm being sent to a librarian convention at the end of this month) but I've been taking more time to plan out SZ and draw stuff (including some upcoming steamy content hehe). I'm also planning to do another Give*Away this month featuring all new merch so stay tuned for that announcement!

As I said, I think I'm doing ok now. Thank you all so much for your patience and sweet comments after my last post. It really helped me focus on on taking care of myself and not stressing about the million things on my to do list for a little bit. I can never thank you guys enough <3

-June