I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! We certainly did! Even though Christmas hasn't been the same without my grandparents these last few years, my sister's kids are turning Christmas into something that is different than it used to be, but no less wonderful. Something about the holiday would be terribly incomplete without them.
My husband and I had a talk after Christmas about how to tackle some long-term goals in the new year. One of the things I'm not verry happy about, but that isn't as bad as it first sounds, is that I need to cut back on my art for a while. This is not what we had planned, and to have gotten well into doing things the way we had planned, then having to stop and say, "No, this isn't going to work," is really frustrating. Almost heartbreaking, really.
Our plans had been based on the fact that, in the past, his physical concerns have been less severe in the fall and winter months. There's a lot to be done around here, and fall and winter was going to be our time to do it! Instead, I spent the entire month of December feeling pretty ill, and his physical limitations have not allowed him to take on the things we thought he'd be able to. There is now enough work to be done that I have to choose between my art and my home.
As I said... it's really not as bad as that makes it sound. It's not like I'm going to quit drawing completely. I'm just going to quit holding myself to a schedule for it for a while. I'll still keep doing the "at least one blog post a week" thing, and any posts that happen on a Wednesday will still be "Webcomic Wednesday" posts. This may even be what I need to help me get back to what I originally set out to do with this blog... talking about how and why the art is done, not just the fact that it's ready to be sold. I haven't been happy about how far I've drifted away from that over the months.
This is why I'm reluctant to announce plans for things. Not everyone's life can fit into a regularly scheduled workday, and part of why I'm able to do this is that I get the flexibility I need. But I don't feel so great about it when it means having to say I'm not going to have to put off for a while longer something that I've got people looking forward to. I can only hope that some of my readers are gamers. That would mean you're used to not knowing when something new will come out, being told it might come out on a certain date, being promised it will be out one month later than that, and then finding out it won't be ready for another year. Yes... I'm working on "game release date" time here.
I'm disappointed, yes, but not sorry. I see how many people feel they can't choose home and family over their work, and they hate themselves for it. I get to choose home and simply scale back work... not having to give it up completely, and not a permanent scale-back. It's not what I expected, but it's the right thing for us for now.
Now let's see where the rest of the year takes us.
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