New Year's Vlog! (Patreon)

Hard at work in Jamtown but I put together a nice long vlog reflecting on where we've been and how I intend to move forward. 

All throughout January you'll be hearing more about these other ideas :D

***

Okay hello patrons it is Sunday it is New Year's Day January 1, 2017. 

I know like a lot of you I'm excited that we have successfully concluded 2016, it was a bit of a rough year for a lot of people, but I'm really glad to be on the other side of it. Although, I mean, all of the conditions that brought us to 2016 have not changed, so it's definitely going to have to be something that we brace ourselves for I think but a milestone is a milestone. It is important to take stock and celebrate what you've got. So as I mentioned in my last post--  I know that one was a bit frantic but the holidays keep us a bit frantic -- I was going to do a bit of reflection in this in this update. 

So 2016 was a pretty big year for me... Definitely the first and most important thing that comes to mind is that I was able to conclude Wasted Talent with a very successful Kickstarter and that was huge and amazing and I'm gonna come back. But I did a lot of other stuff this year... I started the year I went to Japan and I got to share that in a travelogue with you guys which was something new and different that I hadn't done before. I mean I did my Burning Man travelogue and this was a second exploration in a travelogue format and I think it went pretty well I think I still have a lot to learn about that format in terms of how to keep it engaging and how to keep on top of it while you're there, but I had a lot of fun doing it and I hope you enjoyed reading about it as well. And Japan too, of course, was a really intense and exciting trip. We went end to end in 14 days and spent a lot of time skiing and exploring and... wow! That was a blast. And that was kicking off the year! And after that I did a bunch of other stuff... I went to the consumer electronic show (which is coming up again but I will not be going this time) and I went to Salt Lake for work I went to.... (I'm trying to think there was even something else but I can't remember anymore). But I think what sticks out to me more is that I spent a lot of time doing stuff in nature which is not new to me but something that I'm starting to realize is really important to me at my core. 

Spending time outside in nature -- really far out there. I went on a kayaking trip, I spent a whole day with to my friends Layne and Alina who were in my hourly comic-- we spent all day in a canoe out on the lake in the interior was that was really fun. We went spelunking in a cave at one point, and I went on a big hike on my birthday. And I just really want to do more stuff like that this year, and I think I'm going to make that a priority.

So that's 2016... With the exception of ending Wasted Talent.

So that brings us now to 2017 and moving forward and what does that mean. And I feel like I've spoken about this a lot... About the conclusion of Wasted Talent and that it's not the end for me it's what I'm doing-- but I haven't spent a lot of time talking about what's next and where I intend to direct myself and there's a very important reason for that. So Wasted Talent was something that I did for 11 years obviously and I was always in a particular context when I was making it. Back when I started the way to succeed on the Internet was to produce content at regular intervals. Building up that relationship and that reliability was very important at the time so that's where I started. I would say in 2007 is when I really started. In 2004 I had already been making comics but they were more reactive. I was in university at the time, obviously University was my priority, and so I would make comics kind of as I went, and I would scan and post them in batches. And then when I graduated in 2007, I realized people were reading the comics. I realized that webcomics was "a thing" (Well you know I knew it was a thing) but I was taking a much more serious look at it where I hadn't before. I hadn't had the space to really look at it before. And so 2007 began that period of time and I was like " well let's try 'the web comic thing' and see how it goes".

And so I pursued that path.. I don't think there was a well laid out way to be successful even at that time. It was still very much in flux and was very much a no man's land-- but people were starting to put together these metrics of success-- how many readers you should have per day, what kind of revenue you could expect from that and how to generate revenue in other ways like making t-shirts and books and blah blah blah. And so in 2007 I had a little bit of information, I decided "okay, well le'ts follow this advice and see where it takes us."

So that's when I started drawing the comics in marker -- because I had more time to dedicate to the work at that point. That's when I started with regular updates because as I mentioned that was very important.

Well if you fast-forward now to 2017: 10 years later after 2007-- the Internet is obviously a very different place. The Internet is more algorithmic in nature. So even if you have dedicated readers, and I mean there's no flaw in any of this --the way that we "receive content" if you want to put it that way and the way that we interact with it changed pretty fundamentally. And so, the regular update schedule was no longer important. And that's a pretty big distinction to me. Whereas before if you were producing 'pretty good' content on a regular basis, that would be your path to success. And now it has completely changed to where the good content on a regular basis would not necessarily equate with success in whatever kind of success you want. Like whether it's-- everyone has different success metrics-- it could be readership, it could be a number of subscribers, it could be ad revenue... stuff like that. That used to be directly correlated, now is not. And so what I had been noticing on the Internet is that what is more successful are, let's say, intermittent content but it at a higher level. So I was noticing a lot of people getting more success when they would take their time and produce content that would not necessarily be regular, but it would get a lot more attention because it was right message at the right moment and it it was a lot more polished than what someone could produce when they were producing work regularly. 

Now all of this is kind of irrelevant, right? The Internet and life in general is a very "you do you" kind of thing so if I had felt that producing content on a regular basis was working for my life, then I wouldn't's feel a need to change. But it comes to the matter that as I was working full time, as I was finally in a role where I really wanted to dedicate more to this this role at work-- the time that I spent producing content on a regular basis was starting to detract from the work itself, I felt.

So there are things that I wanted to do with my creativity, things I wanted to do with my storytelling, things that I wanted to learn... and because I was always bound to creating a comic every single week on time, and that comic after a certain time had to be to a certain standard-- it had to be a certain level of "funny", you know it had to be a certain level polish in terms of how I did it 9 x 12 full colour... there is really a floor on the amount of time that it takes. And I would say when everything was clicking it was about four hours. 

So I want you to imagine your own life, and you know... You work all day long 9-to-5, you come home you do your chores, you do whatever it is you need to do to keep your life running-- and now imagine your weekend and what it takes for you to reconnect with yourself, to get back on top of anything that you let slide throughout the week. And now imagine at least four hours of that every single week being sucked out of your life. After a long period of time that really started to drain on me. And it started to drain on my creativity-- a lot of what I said when I described this is that Wasted Talent takes up too much "headspace". Because even when I wasn't working on the comic I was, let's say, concerned about whether I was going to make the next update. So that four-hour time period: I had to know when that four-hour time period was coming. So if I was going away for the weekend I had to make sure to schedule my materials in advance, or, you know, when I went to Japan I had to do three or four comics in advance. And so I had to find all of those time-chunks and push them all forward so that I could go and do something interesting like that. 

And it is tough! That type of mental scheduling and mental juggling was really really tough and draining. And so that that's all driving towards why I kinda wanted to end Wasted Talent and not moving forward.

So moving forward now-- I finally successfully concluded that, I concluded that in a way that I'm really happy with and feel good about that. But now going forward it's a big change. 

A project that big and that consuming... it kind of feels like a relationship. And so the way that I try to treat myself when I'm managing how I feel about Wasted Talent being done and what I'm gonna do going forward... I'm kind of trying to treat it like I've just come out of a really long relationship. And so the analogy being I want to make sure I don't get something on the rebound. I feel a lot of pressure from people-- not saying that people are putting to this direct pressure [on] me, but it's more of this implied pressure. This implied expectation of like "well what's coming next, when are you going to start your next project-- I have to know what's coming down the road.... and so I'm consciously trying to resist that. Because I want to create space in my creativity and my life, to form some good foundational habits, and to find a new way of working that works best for me.

So for-- maybe for two or three years when I was working for "energyWise" and I was looking for a way out of "energyWise", I thought for a while whether or not I wanted to my art my full-time thing. And I tried it for a while, I tried the math basically, and I looked at it and I gave a really hard look at what my life would look like if I was creative full-time. And I decided way back then that that wasn't for me. It's just-- it doesn't work with the way that I thrive in a working environment. The amount of solitude is little bit too high-- I really like working in teams, I really like collaborating with other groups of people, I really like the sciences... so taking a step back from all of that I think would be a detriment to my life. So whatever: I'm happy in my job. So now if you take that context, and you reevaluate your life, you're like "what is the best way that I can move forward as an artist?" Taking the work-- and the stability that I have from work-- as an advantage rather than a detriment. And so what was really interesting to me about work is that I'm always surrounded by really interesting people, I'm always exposed to really interesting concepts in the sciences and technology and future thinking and stuff like that-- it's a tremendous source of inspiration and that's what led Wasted Talent to be successful towards the end, I think. And I'm not losing that.

So how I continue to retain that as an advantage? And when it comes to time... because I have the stable source of income, I don't need to chase freelance, I don't need to worry about keeping my work "marketable" because it's not my primary source of income. So, rather than seeing that as a detriment in terms of how much time actually have to devote to work-- use that as an advantage again. So now I have the opportunity to be more risky-- more bold in my work. I have time to dedicate myself to research and really thinking and digging down and refining on a concept and making it as best as it can be. And then, when I've created something, releasing it to the world and not worrying about regularity. So I'm really hype on making something amazing... but it's going to take a lot of time research I think to determine what that's going to be. 

But I'm excited to start that process of research. 

The first step for me is doing a bit of housekeeping-- doing a bit of inventory, let's say "mental inventory". Over the years-- I mean, I've been doing this for 11 years I haven't just been sitting on my hands-- I've been thinking about other stuff that I could be doing, I've been writing, I've been making exploratory jaunts in different directions to see whether there was something that really clicked. So I have a good stable of ideas, I think, and I'd like to go through them one by one and kind of take stock of where they're at and where they need to go and where they would fit and why they're interesting -- and start sharing that with you on Patreon. And then that's not to say that any of those ideas necessarily are to be the ones that I pursue. But having taken inventory I can start digging, right? You know-- it's a mining exploration. I need to start exploring some of these concepts more deeply and refining them and getting to that nugget. And for me it's getting excited about the process. And I know 'process'-- I think maybe readers-- and I don't know this for sure, you tell me, maybe readers get more excited about the outcome, you know, the release of the new work that they get to read, but what's exciting for me is the process and I'm hoping I can bring you a little bit further into the process and we'll see how that goes. 

But for me, I'm still focused on the Kickstarter getting that out the door and completely closed and shut. Making good progress on that my designer closed off book four today (or two days ago) and she'll be getting towards the next steps of book 5 pretty soon. I finished the prints that need to go out, I finish the pin and the magnet got those negotiated again with the manufacturers and finalized so I will be ordering those in a couple of days and I'm about to finish off on the stickers-- hopefully today-- and then moving onto the box. So progress progress progress! New Year! Lots to do. Lots of exciting stuff that we can explore. I hope all of you had a fun and safe New Year's Eve and I will see even more of you in 2017. Alright, bye! :D