January Newsletter (Patreon)

It's another month, which means another newsletter! Wowzers!

Sleep Problems

First thing I'm gonna mention this time around is that it is my biannual terrible sleep cycle time. For as long as I can remember, there's been a couple times a year when I'll just randomly stop sleeping very well for a few weeks, and then abruptly return to normal. It's just something that happens; I've worked with doctors of all stripes in the past, and we don't know why.

Anyway, the second half of January has been plagued with exhaustion, and mostly I bring this up because I'm not entirely certain this newsletter is gonna be coherent! So thanks for your patience and, uh, good luck, lmao.

Bonus Comics & Buffer Buffing

Primary focus this month has been focusing fully on trying to get ahead of the curve on both bonus comics and the buffer. The first half of the month was mostly spent trying to wrap my head around the new way of doing things -- focusing on basically exclusively these two things and then ignoring everything else in favor of health. It's been...interesting!

Thanks to Ari joining the team as my cowriter, the bonus comic scripts have been coming out quickly and smoothly, and we've now got comics and artists lined up through June!!

Here's a look at our upcoming schedule of Tales from Treehollow comics, which are released to $5+ folks on the patreon and later made available for purchase on the shop! (50% of all proceeds go to the artists!)

February 10th: Tainted
Artist: Minty Messerly (Twitter: @StarshineBeast)
When Cur runs away again, the Treehollow Council must figure out how to aid him. They can only hope that his social worker, Lizette, has some idea to help the young cub out.
Patrons Starring: Cur (Chaon), Lizette (Lizette), Timmothy (TimmoWarner), Honey (Ashley Nichols), and Bleddyn (Dorian Inman)

March 10th: First Night Alone
Artist: IzzySqueakzy (Twitter: @izzysqueakzy)
Young Belfry babysits little Briar, and it goes about as smoothly as you'd expect. Can the two sisters overcome their differences and realize what it means to be a family?
Patrons Starring: None

April 10th: The Wild Walligog
Artist: Scott Fraser (Twitter: @ScottDerg)
Jason tells (or sings) a grand and extremely believable tale of adventure, a mysterious monster, and TREASURE to Piper and Anthony. How did the Guppy and her crew make it home?
Patrons Starring: Captain Gillian (Hindae), Winnie (Third), Artie & Hattie (Lightfox Lowell), Jason (Marco262)

May 10th: The Parent Trap
Artist: Knack Whittle (Twitter: @whittledraws)
Piper (finally) learns a valuable lesson in empathy from Anthony after a prank against her mother goes predictably awry. Will she actually learn anything, or will this be like...every other time?
Patrons Starring: None

June 10th: (Unnamed)
Artist: Lauren Pierre (Twitter: @boxfulthoughts)
Milo is asked to teach Tamberlane and her peers for a day. He may make a good student, but how will Milo handle being a teacher?
Patrons Starring: TBD

One of the things I'm changing a little about the Tales from Treehollow comics is that the cut off to qualify for receiving the PDF will always be on the 10th, but the actual release will be sometime during the second half of the month.

This is to make sure there's plenty of time for the artists to get their stuff done while maintaining a proper work/life balance, and so that I can be sure the PDFs are properly polished up! I'll make sure you guys are aware of the progress as it goes, though!

And Speaking of Work/Life Balance...

I've been doing pretty good about my whole work/life balance this month, and I've extended this to the artists I'm working with as well! 

Some steps I've taken this month:

• Limiting myself to a 30 hour workweek (6 hours a day)
• Not allowed to do work on weekends even if I want to
• Constantly reminding myself I can take hiatuses if I need to
• Focusing hard on creating a buffer so things aren't quite so ride or die
• Refusing to pick up new projects that don't fall under my two major goals (... mostly)
• A slight Patreon rework to ensure this can continue to be the case
• Trying to pick up hobbies to occupy me in my off time (Spyro Reignited, reading books, reading webtoons)

I'm feeling much better about being able to balance all my responsibilities. And the things I've been picking up outside of that (namely a couple of very rare commissions from some special folks), I have made clear that the turnaround time will be more extended than usual as I work on it in between my main obligations. I'm learning!

Extremely Minor Patreon Rework Upcoming

As you know from the poll I sent out recently, I'm considering some things to tighten up the Patreon. This is going to be extremely minor, mostly to make sure my work load is manageable. That poll was to see if there were any things most folks didn't care about, and the answer was: nope! And that's fine, because I was pretty confident to begin with. So nothing on the list is going to get dropped. That said, a couple of things (greetings, Q&A) will get reformatted and rearranged to be easier to manage.

The main change to come down the pike is I am cutting off story-important/speaking cameos. I currently have a pool of about 40 cameos to juggle, and that's going to be a lot to manage! So I want to make it easier on me and Ari and make sure the cameos are limited.

What this is going to mean in concrete details is still being decided, but I can at least answer this question:

If you sign up to a cameo tier before they go away, you will indeed get a cameo. You will get another page of screentime for every 6 months you stay pledged to the cameo tier (which will be unpublished, so still available to folks already pledged to it but not new folks). Folks who pledge to the tier for 1 month will get a very short/unimportant cameo, but it will still be a cameo!

I hope to have the adjustments done and available by end of February. More news to come!

Posts That Went Live in January

Pages

• Page 246 
• Page 247 
• Page 248 
• Page 249 

Commentary

• Page 248 

Illustrations

• Illustration: A Little Topple 
• Emotes for the Treehollow Society 

Bonus Comics

• Previous Months' Bonus Comics: Available! 
• 3 Days Left to Get January's Bonus Comic! 
• Bonus Comics Now Available for Public Purchase 
• The Campsite Rule will come out the 11th! 
• The Campsite Rule has been distributed! 
• Poll: Milo Bonus Comic Topic 

Polls

• IMPORTANT POLL: 2021 Roadmap 
• Important Poll: Cameos? 
• Poll: Cameo Page Count 
• POLL: What Can I Get Rid Of? 

Marketing

• Winter Wonder Sale Ends Tomorrow! 
• Introducing: Mystery Grab Bags! 
• Buy 3 Tamberlane Books, Get a Mystery Bag Free! 

News

• Happy New Year! 

New, Returning, and Upgrading Patrons

Big huge mclove thanks to the following folks who joined, returned, or upgraded their pledge this month: Fruitso, Chuckles, RootGryph, Lee Colagiacomo, Eric Tryon, Bearded Programmer, Ariel Rosenfeld, Fruxalga, Christa Paolucci, Frenone

That's it for me this month! See ya again soon!