... And the Good, Bad, Ugly of May

It's coming up to a new month, and I feel like I'm always saying things have been busy over at Conquer Thy Fear Studio, but it's true! It's been non-stop over here since March, and time keeps marching on. Let's jump right into things!

What's Covered In This Newsletter?

Current Goals of June –

Time to look forward before looking back. Here's what the most important goals of the month are!

Upcoming Releases, Promos, and Deadlines (June - August) –

Now that the goals for the month are laid out and explained, let's look at what's going on! What events will I be at? Are there any fun promos or goodies up for grabs?

What I Worked On In May –

We've looked at the future, so now let's look at what's gone on in the past month! What went well? What didn't go so well? Let's take a look and dive right in!

June Goals

I don't want to jinx it, so I'm walking into June really slow and with my arms out defensively. It's supposed to be a bit less hectic this month; let's hope things keep looking that way!

Top Goal - Market Aloe and get it funded!

I recognize that this is less of an actionable goal and more of a bit of marketing, luck, and gathering people's interest, but I can market the heck out of the campaign and shout about it off of the rooftops!

This also is dependent on you, my lovely readers. If you like my work, if it resonated with you, please share the campaign! Help other people find me!

If you haven't backed yet and want to support the project, the link is here! If you're a paid patron through Patreon or Ko-Fi, you get a free tee shirt, as well!

The campaign was 66% funded in the first 36 hours, which is amazing! Let's get this thing off the ground! There are some fun stretch goals -- a cover album included, if we fund high enough -- so I'm hoping you all like what I have planned.

Top Art Goal - Draw Aloe's Illustrations

Aloe has been a labor of love from top to bottom, and I quite enjoy the process of getting the draft from "polished but plain" to having all of the flair and fun little embellishments that I can add to enhance the reading experience.

Lemon Balm has three illustrations included, as well as chapter header call-outs. I think I might do things slightly differently this time; draw POV change call-outs that are unique to each character, as well as chapter header call-outs. This will be simpler illustrations over-all, as well as more throughout the book, but will ultimately take me less time to create. It'll be a detail that's reserved for the print versions, but I can add little flavor embellishments like the page breaks to the other version as well.

Top Writing Goal - Short Stories for Uncanny & Uncouth

I have two stories that I need to finish and have feedback for by July 1st, and I want to have draft 0 written in the next week or so. Aloe will be with beta readers through June, which gives me the time and the brain back to write these stories and give feedback to others. I'm looking forward to this!

No spoilers for the stories ;) But they'll be between 5k and 10k words each. One that I have planned is a spec-fic blend of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy, and the other is horror. I'm really excited to delve more into the tension building and dark aspects of straight horror, and I'm hoping people like these!

They're going to be published and debuted on Substack, but there will also be books available!

Other Goals -

These haven't changed, since I didn't have time to touch any of them last month.

• I really want to keep the art style of the Tarot decks consistent with what's in the books, so that means redoing the cards that I currently have done in my black-and-white line art style, maybe with an accent color added. It also means revisiting some of the card designs.

• I want to make more pre-made book covers and artwork for the editing agency. I also want to spruce up my portfolio and make pricing sheets.

• I want to do at least one illustration for Yule Parlay, so that I have something to market with other than quick and dirty graphics. It will take me some time to do, especially if I push myself with the composition, and doesn’t have a deadline.

• I want to finish Such Sweet Sorrow. As it stands I'm behind schedule on this because I have not had time to touch it. I also want to get an illustration done for it, so that I can have a potential cover or have something ready for marketing purposes.

• I want to finish revamping my portfolio and building my commissions page on the website. It's been sitting on the back burner for a bit, and I'd love to make that more of a priority so that people aren't confused by what I do.

• Tiffanie and I had to step away from Threads of Scarlet Gossamer, but we're dusting it off again. I'll be sharing some more info soon.

Upcoming Events and Timelines

Releases

June 1
Considering The Veil (short story on Substack and my website)
Read it Here

In-Person Events

July 11
Local Author Book Fair

Promos, Sales, and Crowdfunds

Aloe’s BackerKit
May 28th - June 30th
If you back five campaigns in The Book Bazaar summer bonanza, there are extra perks and fun little goodies! The better we all do, the better the rewards, and the more cool stuff you’ll have discovered!

Also, FYI -- I have a free e-book of Lemon Balm to give away, thanks to a good friend! Check out details at his post on Bluesky, here.

Dark Fantasy Bundle
Available June 1 - 30
A bunch of FREE, full stories that fall under dark fantasy. You can grab A Priest’s Lament in this bundle, if you don’t have it yet!

Queer Quarterly event
June 2,3,4th
Lemon Balm will be $0.99!

Indie Book Stuffed event
Lemon Balm will be FREE June 21st and 22nd through Amazon and Kobo

Google Calendar Link - Since the newsletter only comes out once a month, I don’t always get a chance to update you all on the events and happenings that pop up! I can start upping the frequency of the newsletter, but I’d rather not do that. Instead, I’ve put together a Google Calendar where I regularly post the upcoming events -- in person, planned releases, pop-up events, etc -- if you want to keep up with things! This is also on my website.

What Did I Work On Last Month?

Nub of the week (1st + 2nd)

I spent Friday working on Aloe and commission work.

Week 1 (3rd - 9th)

My last mentorship class was this week, and it was fun to close out the class. I worked heavily on Aloe this week, and when I wasn't working on Aloe, I was building out the Backerkit. I started the story sections, creating call-out images, and made all of the tiers and add-on images. I also finished one of my commissions and sent it out to the commissioner.

I got to take a mini-break out of state that weekend. A friend of mine was visiting another friend of mine from Italy, and we met the 9th and 10th for a mini hiking excursion! That was really, really cool!

Week 2 (10th-16th)

Back to working heavily on Aloe. Pretty much all of my free-time outside of work hours went to the book. The bulk of final drafting happened this week. In the meantime, I kept refining the Backerkit add-ons and brainstormed some engagement options. I worked pretty heavily on commissions this week outside of Aloe.

I also finished the Acanthus portrait this week, and set up the character profile picture rewards for foil printing since I finished drawing the border.

Week 3 (17th - 23rd)

Aloe was my life for a while here. Pretty much all of my free-time outside of work hours went to the book.I kept working on my commission, and poked at my website a little.I finished Azalea and Cypress, as well. I also sketched Azalea, François, and Nekane, and brought all of them to the flat color phase throughout the week. I ordered my BackerKit pin rewards, as well.

Week 4 (24th - 30th)

More Aloe work. I finished the draft and started leaning into my edit pass. We got through to the end of chapter 19. (there's 30 chapters) I finished the last three character profiles and sent the goodies out to print, and started re-working my website's store.

On the 28th, the backerkit launched, and I participated in a launch party with the other members of the Book Bazaar collection!

May 31st

I spent the day editing and got through the rest of Aloe. I sent the link off to my Alpha team to read today! ♥

May - The Good

I've made lots of cool new friends this month! And kept up with old friends!

I've been having a blast this month, talking to new writing friends and artists, keeping up with the communities I'm in, and meeting some old friends in person!

I've started talking to a super awesome group of writers who are all currently backing projects together, thanks to Aimee Cozza. Aimee's involved in The Book Bazaar, which is a collective fundraising event geared towards lifting up human-made projects and getting eyes on indies. I believe William, who is heading the Space Wizards is running the Summer Bonanza, but don't quote me on that!

It's an amazing collective with a ton of cool people, and there are so many awesome projects involved! Be sure to check out the whole collection of the books in the Summer Bonanza here! Everyone involved with their own respective projects have been so, so cool. It's a nice group, and it's really fun to celebrate everyone's successes when they reach them! Cheers to new friends ♥

And now, let's switch gears to old friends ♥ I got to meet two good art friends towards the beginning of the month, and we went for an awesome hike in Indiana at a state park called Turkey Run!

I've known Flavia and Jay for a while now, and it was so cool to finally meet them in person and have an awesome weekend together. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, and the hike was just the right amount of challenging! It also wasn't ridiculously crowded, which is always nice. ♥

Flavia and Jay both have absolutely amazing artwork, be sure to check out their work!

Flavia

iz0zi (he doesn't have much online, but his work is amazing!)

The launch for Aloe's BackerKit was a lovely, exciting launch!

As it stands, the BackerKit has been open for a few days, and we're 2/3rds funded! This is amazing, and I am blown away by the outpouring of interest and support for the book. ♥ Thank you! If you'd like to back, we have 1/3rd left to raise, and there are also stretch goals we can hit if we get the funding high enough!

Once again, the link to the campaign is here.

I touched on and finished most of my goals, and moved well out of my comfort zone! Also, a lot of people have been showing interest in my work!

This one speaks for itself.

I cannot believe how much I got done this month! Six illustrations I could share, one I couldn't, one to the painting stages (that I can't share), website stuff, event things, signing up for interviews, the bulk of the Aloe rewrite, all of the Aloe self-edits, the backerkit campaign polished and launched, planning a second launch for October, and making sure I've got artwork and time in place for the events during busy season. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, too.

I touched on everything I wanted to and THEN some, and also did great work that left many people happy and excited. I've been getting commissions again, and people are loving what I'm sending back. It's a great feeling, and I'm happy to be able to do this work for people.

My heart is full.

May - The Bad/ The Ugly

Deadline crunch has me exhausted.

This is my own fault. I set really ambitious goals for May, and didn't leave any wiggle room. A few things came together that required me to have wiggle room. Aside from the hike on the 9th and 10th, I didn't have a single day off this month. No weekends, no free time. Lesson learned, I will plan better for next time. June is already looking a lot less stressful and far more balanced.

Aside from this...

Things have been overwhelmingly positive this month! I need to be better about finding balance (and not working on weekends...) but, overall, May has been an amazing month, and I'm happy to have spent it with all of you!

And, as always, the final reminder! ♥

♥That being said, here's the reminder that I offer art services and have my books and merch for sale directly through me!

If you like my work, but you don't need any artwork, I have paid membership options for extra content and behind the scenes stuff. My paid memberships are the same across platforms - Patreon, Ko-Fi, and Substack. The tiers start at $5 a month. There is a guaranteed Thing released at least once a month that's exclusive, and you also get early access to podcast episodes, extra art, and story details.

You can also tip me or buy something on Ko-Fi or Gumroad.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a fantastic month!