and the Good, Bad, and Ugly of April

Hey, welcome to a new month! I feel like I say this every time I write one of these, but holy shit where did April go?! I’ve been busy over at Conquer Thy Fear Studio.

What's Covered in This Newsletter?

• Current Goals of May – I'll walk through this month's goals and aspirations

• What I Worked On In April – What were my goals last month? What did I actually finish? Let's walk through it.

• Upcoming Events, Releases and Deadlines – What can you expect to see in the next few months, in terms of where I'll be, what will be releasing, and where I'm at in current release schedules?

• Reflection on April – What went well? What didn't go so well? What worked and what didn't? Let's talk about it!

Current Goals of May

As always, I like to look forward before I reflect back on things. I have a top goal in each category that I'd like to touch on, and other goals that I'd like to touch on throughout as well. This month will be slightly different. I'll still list out my top goals, but Aloe is my main focus this month.

This means that all of my other goals are on the back-burner until I can get the BackerKit together enough to review. So, all of the top goals will be Aloe and/or Aloe's BackerKit.

So, let's launch into it!

Top Art Goal - New Character Art for Aloe Campaign

My mentorship is wrapping up in the first week of May, and then I'll be hitting the ground running, creating some artwork for the BackerKit campaign and getting things together for the review to launch. My goal is to have the campaign built by the end of May, so that I can get permission to launch by June 15th so that the launch is piggybacked by sales.

I want to draw character portraits of the main characters in play so that I can get them made into stickers for the merch kit, and also give a bit of context and visual to the Story section. I also want to work on illustrations for the actual book so that I can share them during the campaign.

I don't know if I can afford to, but I'm going to try to get some pins made as well.

Top Writing Goal - Get Aloe Rewrite Finished

As it stands, the rewrite of Aloe is right about at the midpoint. This is actually good; a lot of the second half of the story will go much quicker than the first half did, because I don't need to reimagine the story for developmental changes. I'm pretty confident that I can hit the deadlines for this project, especially now that I have some other projects finished.

Top Overall Goal - Get Aloe's Backerkit Polished for Launch Review

This is largely dependent on whether or not I can get the artwork done in time for the campaign. A lot of what goes into this is making sure that people sign up to the teaser for the campaign so that I can show that there's interest in the crowdfund.

I need to reinvent my approach on the different support tiers, but that all shouldn't take me too long! I can take what I learned last time and build on that. I'm a little bit more confident in what I'm doing than I was before.

Other Goals -

• 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 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 have dusted off Wax and Wings and started to draft Threads of Scarlet Gossamer again. I'll be sharing some more info soon.

Upcoming Events and Timelines

Upcoming Physical Events -

Nothing in May

Nothing in June

July 11 - Local Author Book Fair @Houdini Plaza, Appleton WI

Upcoming Virtual Events -

May 1 - Crowdfund Teaser Live

June 2, 3, 4 - Queer Quarterly Sale - Lemon Balm will be $0.99!

June 15 - Anticipated Aloe Crowdfund launch!

June 21 & 22 - IndieStuffed - Lemon Balm will be free!

Nothing in July

Upcoming Releases -

Nothing in May

Nothing in June

Nothing in July

Rough Plan for the Month-

Nub of the Week (1st - 2nd) - This is the weekend, so I'll mostly be focusing on the Aloe rewrite and my commission. I'll also be sharing the teaser for Aloe's campaign on socials. (Sign up here to be told when the campaign launches!)

Week 1 (3rd - 9th) - Most of my week this week will be working heavily on Aloe, the artwork for the BackerKit campaign, and the commission. A friend of mine from Italy is visiting another friend of mine from Ohio, so I'll be out of town the 9th and 10th to meet up with them and go hiking! ♥ It'll be a nice little mini vacation away from home.

Week 2 (10th - 16th) - Because I need to focus so heavily on Aloe this month, there will not be a short story for Patrons. Instead, I'll be recording as I do the portraits for the Aloe campaign, and I'll share that and other BackerKit campaign thoughts, progress, and what all goes into building a crowdfund campaign this month for paid members.

Week 3( 17th - 23rd) - One of my small projects that I signed up for is to write a story steeped in folklore, and it's due at the end of this week. I'll be working on it throughout the month, but that will likely be my focus here.

Week 4 (24th - 30th) - Theoretically, I will have Aloe written by the start of this week, and I can go back and read from the beginning, work on some edits, polish it off, and send it to my Alpha team.

May 31st is a Sunday and will likely not be productive.

What Did I Work On Last Month?

Nub of the Week (1st - 4th) - Aloe - I laid out my itinerary for my mentorship for the back half of the course and began my Alphosine paintings on this week. I also got the onboarding info for my new contract job, and most of the blogs ported over to my new website.

Week 1 (5th - 11th) - I finished my Alphosine sheet and started the Anesh sheet for the mentorship. I also wrote the bulk of Saccharine Silence, the novelette for paid members.I painted four pre-made covers for my contract job and compiled a small portfolio. I also finished porting my blogs to my new website, and wrote over 15,000 words into Aloe!

Week 2 (12th - 18th) - I fell behind this week; started my Nosferatu concept art sheet and continued Anesh sheet. A lot of what I worked on was Aloe this week, and took a rest otherwise.

Week 3( 19th - 25th) -I finished my Nosferatu concept art sheet and continued Anesh sheet. I went to Indie Bookstore Day on the 25th, so a lot of the week was gearing up for the event. I spent most of my time working on a commission, Aloe, and prompts for a prompt game challenge I want to do in September centering on suspense and horror.

Week 4 (26th - 30th) - I finished my Anesh character sheet this week (still a week behind on homework). I also started my Chiara character sheet, worked on and completed the Sustember prompts, and shifted some of my store off of my website and on to Ko-Fi and Gumroad.