April Newsletter
March Good, Bad, Ugly

It's coming up to a new month, and I've been busy over at Conquer Thy Fear Studio! Holy cats, I can't believe it's April already. The first quarter of the year zoomed past me at mach speed. That being said, I've been dialed down deep into a number of projects and have gotten a lot done this month! Let's dive right into it.

What's Covered In This Newsletter?

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

• What I Worked On In March – What my goals were in March and what I actually finished

• Upcoming Releases and Deadlines – What can you expect in the next few months, in terms of releases and release timelines?

April Goals

Like always, I like to look forward before I reflect back on things, so let's get started with our April goals. I typically come up with three main goals each month, and then I have a list of other goals that follow up, if I have time.

Top Art Goal — Mentorship, Portfolio, and Commissions

My art goals right now are still tied into the mentorship and current contracts. I have a few book covers on my list, so those take precedence. Outside of those commissions, I am actively in a mentorship at the moment and working on refining my skills. I likely won't have much time to work on things outside of mentorship homework and commissions, but this will help me with a few things in the long run.

I talked about this last month, but since this is carrying over into this month, let me say what my plan is. I essentially need to polish up three portfolios in order to update my work — concept art, illustration, and book covers.

For concept art — I'm focusing on Tales From The Night Garden concept art throughout my mentorship, fulfilling the homework with pieces I've had goals to create. I'm also looking forward to polishing up old work and getting it to a better standard that I can share. This has been going very well - if you look below in the "What did I work on in March" section, you'll see that all of the pieces except for the first week are Night Garden designs.

For Illustration — I haven't done too much illustration-heavy work with backgrounds and whatnot since I started the tarot project, but I want to do some more dynamic, fully realized drawings. This is both for portfolio purposes, but also just to push myself and have fun. I'm newly contracted with an editing agency that offers artwork, and the illustration portfolio is important for that.

For Book Covers — I’m going to take some time to put together a book cover portfolio showing my chops as both a book cover designer and an illustrator. Right now I don't have much showing that I can design book covers specifically. I want to get the changed. I also need to make a certain amount of pre-made book covers and illustrations for the contract, so I'll need to get some of those done. I have several planned!

Top Writing Goal — Get a solid chunk of Aloe rewritten

My goal for Aloe is to have the whole rewrite drafted by the end of May, so that I can get that to my editor and have a Kickstarter running throughout June for it. This lines up nicely with a sale on Lemon Balm, and also gets us slated for getting Aloe out late this year. Ideally, I'd like to get this out on Halloween, but it may be later than that.

Top Goal — Draw the cover, edit, and release Saccharine Silence for paid patrons

This one is really, really fun to write, because it's from a new characters' POV! I'm excited for this one to hit the members' eyeballs.

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.

• 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.

I believe this is all of the current projects that I have running. Where I've knocked a lot of projects off of my plate, I’m still in that space of, “I cannot add more projects, I’m at critical mass." I'm hoping to take a small break after the mentorship, and then I can tackle my projects with fresh eyes and a renewed spirit.

April Events and Timeline

Events

• There's a specific event for indie authors at Caramel Crisp Cafe in Oshkosh on April 25th. I should be at that one!

Releases

• The only release planned this month is Saccharine Silence, for Patrons on April 15th.

On top of this, here’s my rough plan for the course of the month —

• First nub of the week - (1st through 4th) - This first week is going to be homework, the website, the April newsletter, and Saccharine Silence. With any luck, I can get Saccharine Silence mostly drafted by the 4th.

• Week 1 - (5th through 11th) - I'll be working on Saccharine Silence and the newsletter. I'll be working on my mentorship homework as well. Hopefully the website will be fully switched over by the end of this week.

• Week 2 - (12th through 18th) - Saccharine Silence will be posted. I'll be working on my mentorship homework and Aloe.

• Week 3 - (19th through 25th) - again, working on the mentorship and Aloe

• Week 4 - (26th through 30th) -again, working on the mentorship and Aloe. Also putting together my newsletter for May.

What Did I Work On In March?

Week 1 - (1st - 7th) - This was a pretty standard week. The mentorship is still going strong, and I got my homework done for that. I drafted and sent the March Newsletter on the 1st. I was still actively going through Such Sweet Sorrow and reading it in the first week of March, and so I finished out Chapter 16. I also spent some time working on organizing my Tales From The Night Garden encyclopedia. Here is the homework that I did for the mentorship:

Week 2 - (8th - 14th) - This week was really busy. It was go time for a lot of projects. Lemon Balm was on sale for three days during this window, and I launched and took down the sale. I did some more work on the TFTNG Encyclopedia and put a lot of mileage into Aloe, as well. My goal is to get the book's rewrite drafted by the end of May, so that I can get the manuscript to my editor and get a Kickstarter going in June. I signed up for another sales event in June that lines up with this.

On top of Aloe, I worked on Yule Parlay because I got notes back from my Alpha readers and found an editor with availability on the 16th. I helped my husband with making boutonnieres and a bouquet for a friend's wedding. I bought new stands for my tables when I'm vending, and did some table tests.

Lastly, I got my mentorship homework done. This week was environment design. Here's my piece:

Week 3 — (15th - 21st) - This was another busy week. I ordered stickers the week before, so I spent a lot of time doing market prep and getting my new stickers into inventory during the week. I also spent a day signing up to different sales, markets, and events this year. Some are in state, some are out of state, but either way I went way out of my comfort zone with this. I am a pretty intensive introvert; markets are sometimes exhausting, and I definitely was tired for the market I did on the 21st! But, I want to do more of them. I genuinely love meeting other artists and authors, as well as fans and readers. It's a lovely experience.

Speaking of the market on the 21st, it went really well! There were a lot of people there earlier in the evening, and the crowds were attentive, interested, and curious. We got there around 3:30pm for set up, and the market started at 6pm. By the time we were broken down and on our way back home, it was 11:15pm. It was a long day!

I found out I got hired as a contracted artist somewhere, as well, which is an awesome feeling!

Outside of all of the market prep, I worked on Aloe, and implemented edits on Yule Parlay from my editor. It only took her a few days to read it, and the feedback was really good! Yule Parlay is now officially done and ready to publish. It's ahead of schedule; it's a Christmas story, so look for it in November 2026!

I also started building a new website on a different platform from what I currently use, and it started this week. The last thing that I did this week, was I got my mentorship homework done. Here's my piece:

Week 4 — ( 22nd - 28th) - I spent most of this week working on the website and getting everything set up. I spent a small amount of time polishing up some old pre-made covers and sending them over to the place I got contracted through, worked on my mentorship homework, and spent some time in Aloe. I also built a dragon head for a friends' play.

Here's my mentorship homework (these are slightly less impressive because I spent less time on them):

Nub of the week (29th - 31st) - This last little nub of March hasn't seen too much progress, to be honest. I spent most of the last few days on the website, and writing this newsletter. My mentorship homework was to make a list of projects for the next six weeks, and I haven't sat down to do that quite yet. That's tomorrow's task.

March - The Good

I got hired at the editing agency!

This was a really, really good thing for me. I'd been looking for a job since November, and it was really starting to impact my mental health. was starting to give up on finding anything, let alone something in my field, so I'm really happy to have been given a chance here.

Once my portfolio is refined, I'll also be applying to agencies and seeing if I can't get work with bigger clients that way. One step at a time!

Keegan got a new job on his birthday!

Keegan has also been looking for a new job since November. His team is pulling out of his current company. He got a job offer on his birthday, for a decent little raise too! He's starting in the middle of April.

I had a successful market at The Gibson Show!

This was awesome, because it'd been a while since I've done a show. People really seem to like both my art and the books. I actually had someone buy a merch kit because they liked the art so much! The shows always make my heart sing when I do well.

Auden got married!

This is something that's been eight years in the making. My husband and I made boutonnieres and their bouquet, which was a lovely touch. It was a beautiful day and I was happy to be a part of it.

I finished Yule Parlay way ahead of schedule!

Yule Parlay isn't due to the anthology it's a part of until August, and I've actually gotten it entirely ready and professionally edited already. That means it just needs to sit until the submissions for the anthology open.

The mentorship has been going well!

I feel like I've been really gleaning a lot from this, this time around. My art feels better. I feel better about my art. It's been a nice feeling, and I'm happy with the current trajectory I'm on.

It's been a really, really positive month overall.

I feel like I can take on the world.

March - The Bad/The Ugly

I did NOT finish Such Sweet Sorrow!

This was something that honestly made me sad, but I had several things fall into my lap that were far more important to address. In terms of negatives, this is a very small one that I can fix another time. Besides, I don't have the money to get this edited this year, I don't think.

I was too busy this month.

This is the first time in a very long time that I felt like I was overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I had to do. I need to be better about organizing my time when new, time-sensitive things fall into my lap. I've been recovering from the super busy vibes over the course of the last few days, and I'm already starting to feel a bit more grounded. It was just a stark reminder that sometimes, because I have fun with what I do, it's easy to bite off too much.

As Always, A 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. Patreon has an extra tier that includes merch, but that's the only difference. 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 on Ko-Fi.

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