Finishing Move

No blog of mine would be complete without an occasional video game reference and this one is a perfect fit for the after-publishing dance.

Authors have many different ways of taking this on: launching into more marketing and promotions, working on the next book, taking a break and clearing the mind.

But to say it's the same even for the same person would be wrong. In the beginning of my journey, it was a scramble for everything. I almost never start from scratch, having started many drafts just to avoid any square-one paralysis. I can't say for sure it actually does that since I've never worked exclusively on any one piece so there's never a blank slate to start with. 

Juggling three transitions--writing, marketing and resting, while doable, make each of them watered down to their purpose. For me, there was little productive about the transitions. I wasn't peaking without writing binges, I wasn't focused on where and how I was marketing and whenever I tried to rest, my head was torn between the rigid footwork of marketing and the floaty imagination of writing. I'm sure I told myself I was a superwoman and handling it beautifully, but now I can see that, while I was handling it, each of them deserved more dedication to their purpose.

Writing right after publishing can keep you from forgetting too much of the material so it seems like a natural fit, especially with a series, yet that presents issues too. Some stories seem best served by a little rumination period, one where I relive the written moments and create some mental 'bonus content' that humanizes (assuming they're human) the characters. To fly ahead in the story isn't always fortuitous. I've found it makes for a rushed draft that often needs a LOT of additional scenes to create the right moods and transitions. I can't say exactly which stories will need it since I'm right and wrong about my own. They do get fixed over the editing and I'm not certain it's beneficial to presume you know your story that well, especially before it's been drafted. It's work and hindsight always creates a 'should've' mentality that is about 50% helpful regardless. 

Marketing after publishing... Well, tip pages seem to stress that this should begin about six months prior to publishing. It probably should. I've focused less on that and more on the tip that says "write more books." While marketing can be immensely helpful, I've known just as many people who dump gobs of time and money into it and wish they could get both back. Some books hit the sweet spot of the zeitgeist and it markets itself. I just want to do the work so, while I post about releases, I leave it at that and focus on the next project.

Or... I take a break. It's probably the most difficult because my brain does whatever it pleases and it aches to create even when my body throws a hard negative. Yet, even if that means restlessly jumping from crochet to bead sprites to video games, it's important to consume. Friendships, familyships, spaceships, whatever--no matter how obsessed you are with your work, sometimes you need that hunger, that unpredictable inspiration, to fan the flame. Some people fear that time away will smother the flame, create apprehension to return, but those fears are more often unfounded. Even if those fears persist, you should take it as a sign that something needs fixed in another aspect of life and welcome the block as a form of self-maintenance.

But writing IS your go-to! Not right then, it isn't. If your identity is too wrapped up in any one thing, you're making it way too easy for your life to collapse. A decent foundation needs many supports so why would mental stability need any less?

So there's no right or wrong. They all have benefits but this time around, I'm no more confident I'm making the best decision. I'm taking a break. Maybe a little too long, but the past week was a trial I couldn't ignore. I'd like to continue releasing my current series on my mom's birthday, but it may mean it won't be my most focused time. And I certainly should have it set up by the beginning of February like I did this time. There's just the possibility that I'll be really murky around that time and my work should not suffer for it.

Scrivener Formatting

After the nightmare of Word formatting, I sincerely thought Scrivener 3 would just be a different headache.

Boy, was I wrong.

It's really just a matter of nailing down your settings, but I'll throw out what I did.

Most of your formatting WILL be in the final Compile setting, so...

Keep a couple things in mind here. If you want to visually separate your scenes with separators, there is a built-in option for that later. If you want to preserve any format choices you make in your Editor options (fonts, etc.) make sure you select all text and Format>Preserve Formatting. Ideally, you will want to create separate files for each distinct category. I'll give you a visual representation at the end of this description, but start with this:

• Parts: Create a folder for each part, if you're using Parts. Later, you can designate the folder as a Part and choose whether it defaults text with "PART ONE: (name of folder)" or just "(name of folder)". If that's confusing, just make sure you name the folder.
• Chapters: If you are using formal chapters, create a subfolder in a Parts folder ( it will indent to the right to show it's in the main folder). Again, you can either name it 'Chapter #:(name of chapter)' or it can add the chapter number and the folder name as you request it.
• Scenes: These will be text files in your chapter folder, if you are using that tier. I only worked with Parts and Scenes for my last book (no formal chapters), but these will be text files with side note sections (any notes or comments you use are omitted by default). As mentioned above, rather than using these to separate just actual scenes, consider using them to frame out any paragraphs that are single-spaced. If you are tempted to double space to change locations or time spans, go ahead and start a new scene instead. Scenes are usually separated by double-space or separators, depending on your options.
• Front/Back Matter: Title page, dedication page, table of contents, etc. Use a separate file for each of these. You will designate these as Front Matter in most cases, but you can drag these to where they need to go prior to compiling. For now, just make sure you have them somewhere.

Visually, this is pretty much the tier I'm describing:

Front matter files (text)

PART FOLDER

          CHAPTER FOLDER

                   Scene (text)

You'll have setting and character folders/files in the default list, but these are also not compiled by default either, so don't worry about them ending up in your converted files accidentally.

Compiling for Print:

Since this is the more involved of the two, we'll start here. Before we hit compile, keep in mind that the first selected page will be a right-facing page. If your front matter has a title page, a copyright page and a dedication, then you will need a blank page to start your text on the right-facing page. Create blank pages with the <$blank_page> tag (I also put it in a new text file labeled 'blank' so I know it's there and can easily not compile it later for ebooks).

When all of your elements are in place, hit Compile in the File menu.

There is a Paperback Book option. Right click on that and Duplicate and Edit Format. Name it what you want. When you're done toggling these options, you can save your options. I'll get to exporting them for later use once you set up the rest. For now, just make sure you choose PDF as the output.

First up, Section Layouts. This is where you can choose what Scrivener shows. You'll see As Is is a frequent option for each section. Choose from Part Headings, Chapter Heading, Scenes, Front Matter. When you hit Compile, you'll see labels to the right of each checked element. Make sure they are all appropriately attached to one of the section types and whatever formats you choose in Section Layouts will adhere to those selections. The layouts will show if they support page breaks, As Is, etc. so just look at the types and choose which ones you want for yours. It's very visual, so there's little chance you'll be confused. There are even Previews in some of these settings options for extra clarification.

Next, Separators. If you want special characters or spaces to display between scenes, this is where it does it for you. Again, self-explanatory, but part of the reason I mentioned how important it is to use your scenes to create sections.

Page Settings. Start with Page Setup and define what sized book you're using. For me, it was 5x8. When you click on Page Setup, it's under Paper Size and Manage Custom Sizes. For margins, you'll need to know what your publisher requires. This will vary by page count. Max page count for KDP is 828. My recent book was at 767, but anything above 701 needs a .875" inner (left) margin. You'll having facing pages set by default. Your minimum margins for all other edges will be .25" (for black and white print). Again, look up the requirements for your page count. If you don't know the page count (you can get an estimate from the Project tab under Statistics), you can always run a test compile to see where you are. If you're a page hog like me, you can reduce font size to lower your page count. For KDP, again, minimum font size is 7 pt, but keep in mind, most people aren't trying to read your book with a magnifying lens anyway so try not to reduce font too much and alienate the visually impaired.

In Page Settings, check out Headers and Footers. By default, it will put your author name on the top of the left page and the Manuscript name on the top of the right. You can go into the page options (Main Body, Facing page, etc.) and manually remove whatever p-tags you don't want. Page number is not defaulted, but honestly, don't. The page numbering doesn't really jibe with margin requirements for self-publishing. I'll tell you how to add page numbers to the PDF later. I got rid of all of the tags, just because their footers aren't really margin friendly. Again, Adobe Acrobat can help here.

I didn't really have a need for any other options. When done, I went ahead and clicked the little gear under the Formats list to Export Format. This will save a file with all of these settings that you can import in other projects, pulling up all of your settings you used here. Name the format, save it where you like to use later.

Once you're ready, Compile. It doesn't take long, even for massive projects, so you can always preview the resulting PDF in Adobe Acrobat and note any changes you need to make in settings. If you exported the format, remember to save it with the updated settings.

As for page numbering, your PDF will have three options on the right side of a toolbar: Tools, Comment Share. Choose the Tools option and you'll see Header and Footer under Edit Page Design. Choose Add Header and Footer on that. For bottom margin, I lowered it to .4 then clicked in the box labeled Center Footer Text. Then you just click on the tab that says Insert Page Number. You can limit the Page Range Options and all that, but I just manually deleted wherever I didn't want the page to be numbered. There are help pages for all of the options, but I'll keep it simple--this will at least guide you in the right direction.

Remember to save the PDF once satisfied. Your final test will be in the submission process, so good luck!

Compiling for Ebook:

Once you've done print, this will be a lot easier.

For this one I just opened a New Format, rather than Duplicate & Edit. I set all Margins to .5", toggled Section Layouts and Page Settings again. Make sure front and back matter is where you want it (most people put all but the title page at the back for an ebook). If you're using D2D, you do NOT need to create a Table of Contents; their system does this automatically and you can hit the "these aren't my chapters! Help!" button to fix any mistakes.

In fact, I highly recommend using D2D to make sure your ebook is all good. Great interface...

I recommend choosing to save it both as an epub and a docx in Scrivener this time. Depending on whether you use D2D or Smashwords or KDP, they all seem to have different favorite files. KDP favors mobi files.

~~~~~~~

I know this probably seems like a lot, but if you've seen my Word formatting post, you'd also see this one is a LOT simpler by comparison. Scrivener more easily honors your styles and doesn't end up throwing in some poorly coded garbage you don't want. It lets you use your initial style choices or can just as easily unify your fonts. It DOESN'T make your italics or bracket styles disappear on font changes, which is HUGE for me. This means I don't need a lot of pictures and troubleshooting to explain it to you.

Truly, if you do NaNoWriMo, use that Scrivener discount to snag it for only $22.50. Best investment I've ever made as a writer. The learning curve is SO generous and it's really difficult to really screw things up. Self-publishing is not such a daunting task and I'm thrilled that writers can focus more on writing than reinventing the wheel of formatting. I don't regret that I often have to learn everything the hard way before things get easier. In fact, I'm often proud that, as an early adopter, I help a lot of programs become more refined through all my bitching about bad settings and coding (I say bitching, but I'm diplomatic. Diplomatting isn't a word).

Anyways, I hope that was helpful in your own publishing journey. I was thinking I'd be spending the next two weeks in a formatting haze, but no: two days and I was squared away. Less ahead, now that I have everything set up. Now I can take a mini vacation and enjoy some gaming. Sounds pretty sweet to me!

Land of Babble

I thought of a couple of points worth exploring so I'm gonna roll with it...

One thing is certain-- advice is everywhere and it's conflicting. For every writer that insists on a way of doing things, another will tear it apart. That's really the beauty of it. To be challenged, to defend your points, to be open to considering a new way of making your stories work. So what else is interesting to the writer's struggle to improve?

You Don't Have to Publish Everything You Write

This one stunned me a bit of only because I had tons of diaries and sketchbooks and notebooks full of things never shared. Some burned so no one could ever suffer it's mediocrity. I suppose the idea that all of it is worth sharing probably comes to younger people who grew up posting every garbage thought on social media. I wouldn't say discretion is simply for sake of your brand since variation and dedication isn't a bad thing. However, if you're a new writer and you're publishing everything to market without being edited and considered many times over, you could end up infamous for low-quality hurried work.

There are plenty of unofficial outlets for writing. Flirt with fanfic, do Twitter writing prompts, keep a notebook or journal handy. Writers are taken more seriously if they show value in the output. Even if you do officially publish most of what you write, tuck some quality practice sprints in there, something that aims for trying something new or improving a weakness. At least in the beginning, you might have an ego that vastly outweighs the quality. You will get a better sense of what really shows off your best work over time.

Reading Vs. Studying

Not the first time I've mentioned this but I've never really taken to the idea that writers should be voracious readers. I've said before that I was a voracious reader as a kid but this was difficult to keep up into adulthood. I was raising two young boys with social and trust issues (and though they still exist, I'm very proud of how they've blossomed over the years). Free time was when I got to sleep for many years there. When I was finally able to return to writing and drawing, I was stunned by how much I seemed to grow as a non-practicing artist and writer. 

Another article I stumbled on pointed to something that may be much more important: the studious creative. Rather than just reading novels, I had stolen moments where I researched something I was curious about, played a great video game for a little while or watched a YouTube video. I found that those bursts of concentration and even the inevitable interruptions were a crash course in discipline when it came to focusing in a flash. While I'd too often have to drop novels I lost my place on eventually, I found there were niches where I was developing without actual practice.

Keep in mind, I've also had a lifelong fascination with grammar and spelling and a natural talent for drawing (even with an unsteady hand) and color differentiation. It wasn't like I was just okay and suddenly I was brilliant. What it does mean is that those things, to me, fall under the category of remembering how to ride a bike in the actual way that relearning to ride a bike actually isn't. 

Getting on a bike after never having done it for 5+ years proves that is a lie. I had zero muscle memory left. Same with roller skating. Total Bambi moment there...

I know I'll say again and again that, if you don't know it well now, you will eventually realize that too many people will use deceptive wording to convince you that you can be successful if you just do this or that. Yet I've seen many new writers come from a place of arrogance then disappear when their debut was a bust. If you survive the letdown again and again, what happens is your stories tend to mature. Not necessarily in subject matter-- you just start to exercise more consideration and caution. If it didn't defeat you, you might become more critical of the work and dig deeper.

It's a bumpy road and all that. Lotta writers that gave up, making for some pretty gruesome speed bumps. For me, it's a cue to slow down and reevaluate. Hopefully, you're one of the enduring ones too.

Is It That Time Already?

Yesterday marked the deadline for submissions concerning the fantasy anthology I will be a part of. Wow. In a couple of months (on Halloween), it becomes a thing. Because I've really only been working on my long game, it will be the first officially published short story I've done. I've free-published a lot of things over the years, but there's always something special about doing more than just poking at a keyboard and hitting the Publish button (coughbloggingcough). That's not to say blogs can't be researched and well-edited, but it's not the same beast.

If you flip through my many posts on self-publishing-- formatting, covers, etc. it still only covers the tip of the iceberg. I had to go through a lot of processes to make sure the quality was to my standards.

Namely from the time I finally finished my first series (I had decided early on that I wouldn't publish them until I'd written and edited them all meticulously), it took at least a month per book to get them all publishing ready. While a lot of that was learning, correcting, and trial and error, getting better at it really only shaved minute amounts of time off of the process. 

The first big hitch in my process came in formatting, the very first place I started. I've talked about it in detail before so the short version is that Word HATES imported text and styles and makes a mess of it. I did a lot of transferring the file to different versions of Word or mobile word processors without realizing that I confused the hell out of them. The first three books suffer from this problem since they were in various stages of completion over the ten years I started them and poked at them half-heartedly. Even when I've had to go back and reformat them for Smashwords Premium or do some minute edits, they've consistently been uncooperative. The best solution had been to import them into a generic text program to strip the formatting before pasting them into a clean file and NOT messing with the Normal style to create new body and header texts. (I'll paste the links for my tutorials at the end here since I'm bringing them up more than once.)

Editing is where a lot of people lose confidence or just get frustrated, but it can be enjoyable once you develop some effectiveness for the process. I know this goes against most "rules" writers are fed, but the first edit is usually more creative than my first draft. I'm taking everything I was wobbly with at first and refining it, developing the characters and story, and so on. If I ever ask anyone to read my work, I've already done two or three basic content edits by that time. My first draft is more like 1/8 of a treasure map and not one with the location on it. I usually develop the most confidence in my story well into the second draft, if not the third. Editing about 80K words take approximately 2-3 full days or a week with more of a part-time dedication. This includes content, grammar and corrective edits. If I end up having to add entire scenes, it can take another week. (Sometimes I consider this more drafting than editing since it's new content that I'll have to pass through editing.)

Design. It is what I went to school for, but graphic design also took me through formatting (I had to do catalogues, pamphlets, package design, copyediting-- so it's not just making collages and doodling). Book design carries a number of factors. Marketing or vision or both, it's creative control and also substantial time spent in the designing itself. The font and placement factors aren't such a huge deal with time, but remembering that the image will need to leave room for them is important (something I didn't much consider in the beginning-- oops).

Eh, for the hell of it, I'll share one of the first book designs I did for school.

Not bad for a beginner, but it's a tad bit cheesy and I'd use less glow and more textured backgrounds these days.

This tends to be where a lot of writers decide to outsource, but when you're an artist first, it just seems like a missed opportunity to improve that skill. If you do decide to go for it, I'd say it can take anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks to make a decent cover. Sometimes I do a cover design while writing the book and decide to tweak it or redo it, which throws the time off from any window of certainty, but I tend to be a quick though quality designer. While interning, I heard that a lot so it must be true.

The hamster wheel. Even when you're sure you have everything formatted, edited, and designed, self-pub services aren't perfect. They'll flag you for correction of weird and invisible mistakes, not auto-adjust an image that is 1/32" off-- fun stuff, you know? Every time, you must go through approximately ten minutes of uploading a new file. Smashwords gave me so much shit over my third book, the ebook constantly making odd sections of text bold when this anomaly wasn't showing up in anything but the epub file. I eventually fixed it, but it was an odd one that took a couple of weeks to iron out. Smashwords records all old and new updates so anyone can view the many times it took me to fix that.

To put it into perspective, I was finished writing all nine books by May 2017. The first was published August 7, 2017. The final one was published July 11, 2018. It seems 'fast' (when you consider most authors publish one book a year) but fast writers actually finish books in about 2-6 months on average. This is actually considered the slower part of the process since it entails most of the editing, formatting, wording process. However, you can expect about a solid month of aftercare, if that's also a fulltime+overtime level of dedication. One year is both ambitious and generous for a new writer. If you do take the six month deadline, then it's probably best to spend the next six months marketing.

Marketing... yup, I'm still not there yet. But props to my friends/fans for dropping my name here and there while my head is still in the writing game.

I could add more but the weather is making me lazy about hanging out on my desktop to blog these days, so I want to surround myself with sketchbooks and notebooks on my floor instead. I'll throw my technical links below for easy use. 

Cover Design at a Glance

So You Want to Get Technical? Formatting 101

Where to Self-Publish 

Self-Publishing: A Process (This one takes you through some steps and requirements)

I've done tons of blogs dabbling in editing and method so it would be tricky linking those specifically. I've gone over some methods as I 'discovered' their use through trial and error to see what best fit any story I was working on. Most of these weren't described in great detail, but I might condense that into a post later, just some editing methods, what they were useful for and why. Editing is one I haven't specifically focused on, other than the mentality you can use to turn it into something fun rather than the chore some people make it out to be. I have picked up quite a few tricks to content and grammar editing. I'll have to bullet-point this one to hash it out best, but what is editing if not effective organization?

From time to time, I'll repost those links, but I'm going to tag this post with 'book links' for easy access.

The Climax and Cost of Accomplishments

Once upon a time, I never finished anything I started. It was easily a painful time of my life for more reasons than that, but more so because I was both angry with and willing to concede that I was full of wasted potential while doing jack shit about it. Focus was not something that came easily and new ideas would lure me away from the old. Abandonment was a pattern I couldn't quite escape, even when it was in my hands.

I'm going to ditch the "What Writers Should Blog About" advice and not attempt to make the whole concept a general one we can all get chummy and 'me too' about. I'm going to dance over some of my own history, but I'm going to apply the evidence of changing that attitude.

The first thing I ever completed wasn't high school; it was getting my GED. I did it so I could get into college. However, the arrangement was difficult since I had a lot of things piling up on me--

• I'd quit working as a pizza cook. No financial independence, but I'd started moderating in share hubs and learning how to operate a computer, including hardware installation. I also ate a ridiculous amount of hotdogs. When you're 19 with the metabolism of a hummingbird, that seems like a foolproof diet.
• I hated riding the bus and was even followed off of it a couple times. I can't tell you how many days I pretended I needed to shop at the grocery store at the bus stop, just to make sure I wasn't being followed home.
• My grandmother was lecturing me about money, which is insulting in most cases, but especially so given she was wealthy and I was quite aware of how to pinch a penny. Enabling was frowned upon, unless you were my mother. Someday, I'll memoir all about that double standard, but I'm not bitter enough to care to dwell on that these days.
• I wanted to enjoy being a 'new adult'. I reunited with a friend I fell out with in high school(a sort of soul mate). When the old college try didn't pan out, she actually got me a job at Subway until I worked for Border's and then worked with her again at Target.
• The counselor that signed me up for courses screwed up my major and basically told me I'd have to 'lock in my position' and take classes which wouldn't credit towards my major (and after having my grandma snap at me for finances, I was mortified of bringing that up). Seriously, government needs to crack down on the deceptive practices colleges are allowed to use. Keep in mind, this was University of Cincinnati, a public college, not a private one. And these are supposed to be the 'good guys'. One girl was in limbo for three years waiting for a coveted space to open up in Photography.

A lot of things that just added up to walking away from a shitty liberal-arts-that-should-have-been-fine-arts degree. I did get a single credit in the elective basic drawing class I took, so guess what it takes to get me to the finish line?

*Back then, I didn't realize that my confusion and moods were related to BPD and ASD. lol Back before these were on the radar, my sort were just kind of the clowns, court jesters, off-color, or eccentric sort. It's not really unfiltered or even brutally honest, but social acceptability tends to fall pretty low on the list of why I should probably not share something. Either way, I like the adjectives over the letter crap, but the letters were a good baseline for understanding what dumb shit triggered me. It took a lot of lost jobs and hospital visits before I realized that I have to approach life Mission Impossible style. I kind of have to risk looking dumb to show I know what I'm doing.*

Me, except setting the alarm with my boobs.

Either way, I learned then that 'winning' isn't really a pattern or a streak. That everything that reaches an end is a battle with time, priorities, self-doubt, even isolation. Again, life started piling on against my aspirations. I started college again in my mid twenties, this time online so I could take the pain in the ass of transportation out and just focus on the work. A few months into it, I had a breakdown (again, memoir-- this one had to do with more toxicity and abuse). Just woke up in the middle of the night thinking I was having an heart attack because it felt purely physical. Even though my BP was in stage 2 hypertension, the culprit was a panic attack. On medication, I just got sicker, which led to another ER visit. I admitted to a nurse I was fantasizing about how I wanted to kill myself. Sure, that wasn't exactly new, but it was the first time I ever told an adult as an adult myself.

I don't know; goodbye, cruel world?

What tipped her off is that I was very matter of fact about it. I was numb to everything, just going through the motions. I signed myself in to psych, spent a week looking for where I left myself. Disassociation is a weird bitch. You're sharply aware in a way, but you kind of feel like you're a placeholder for yourself, holding your seat until you get back. I ate well, drank a lot of juice and watched people. Nosy as fuck, I'll admit, but I wanted to know what put us there and since *I* was a placeholder, things like reputation and self-consciousness were out to lunch too. Essentially, I was more like my childhood self, the me before trauma started its uneven layers, surrounded by more child-adults. Were we weak? Broken? Did we get a scarlet letter now? But no, they were mostly just people pushed too hard on one side of life and couldn't avoid a face plant. Most of us were kind of in a state of shock when we first got there, like when blood is gushing out of your nose and your first instinct is to try to put it back in. I wouldn't say the bullshit little groups we had to go to were actually valuable, but I think ultimately, they knew that too. It didn't really matter if we participated. We were herded around so we could relearn the basics of function. Really, they could have talked about how to make grilled cheese with Elmer's glue, but instead they told us how to breathe and scribbled on a whiteboard. I also remembered I was still a college student, but we'll get to that.

My new friends for the week. Some I'll never forget. I like three-story-verbatim guy and his rivalry with the sniveling angry guy who kept asking if he could call home to ask his wife if she let the dog out. They both wore their shorts and socks too high and I'm convinced this is why they were rivals. Three-Story kept going on about baseball (he was a friendly dude, just a broken record on a nostalgic loop) and the other guy was flipping his shit because he couldn't take the repetition. When my dad and brother came to visit, I whispered to my dad 'shhh, watch this' and repeated the next two sentences of the guy's story when he said them. I'll never forget my dad's face because there are few times my quirkiness can genuinely surprise him. I think it was mostly relief that I'd gotten my weird sense of humor back.

What happens after you lose your shit is often this laser focus on the order of things. I started to say this when I brought up the groups, but it's pretty important to how all people 'work'. It's never more true than after a breakdown. In fact, the morbid aftermath isn't just embarrassment or disorientation, but an underlying sense of relief that the simple things are still there after the chaos blew everything else to shit. I was in reboot with a bunch of people reorganizing their life code. When I ate, it wasn't about enjoyment (even though the food was good)-- I took a bite of everything in a clockwise direction one time. Another time, I worked on eating all of something before eating anything else. It wasn't even because of the limited stimulus or boredom or burn-out; it was more akin to reprogramming ourselves with conscious attention to ritual. There was no indoctrination here. We still had to go it alone, but we didn't have to explain it to our audience-- there was a cathartic understanding that we were all on training wheels. For me, every day was on autopilot until I was able to update. It took a lot of fruit juice and some pretty amazing nurses too, but I graduated from placeholder to person again.

When I found part of myself (again: group activity-- what were you most proud of?), I immediately panicked. I had a big project due in a 3D modeling class and if I failed, I'd have to retake it. They let my dad bring my laptop and watched me in an observation room while I scrambled to turn in a passable final project. I got a B.

Appropriate share time! A room modeled from a source picture. I was in my 20th week of school and finishing my model creation class. Side note: the rest of my models from that class are in my FaceBook photos, so add me and check them out!

I wasn't yet hip to the scam that private schools are, but I don't think you could have stopped me from doing it anyway. My credit was already shot to hell and I didn't think school was even possible. So when I got in and got through a mental breakdown but kept my head above water, I think my intent to fight was just stronger than my vulnerabilities at the time. They sprung on me that I needed to pay several thousand to make up for what financial aid didn't cover. When I got into this school, I made it clear that I had no income so I was devastated. I didn't want to give up! It was one of the few things that made me want to stay alive at the time. Instead of dissolving, I started looking at transferring to a more affordable school. I couldn't find another animation program, but I switched to graphic design. It wasn't exactly a downgrade either since the idea of getting better at digital painting was appealing too (and turned out to be what pushed me into learning how to publish my work).

I worked my ass off and nabbed my associate's degree, but financial aid was dancing on some more deceptive crap. In order to get my AS (which I achieved cum laude honors on), they wanted more money I didn't have. I applied for grants and decided to continue for a bachelor's and this covered it (somehow-- I think that legally they're just allowed to lie to some extent to extort you). Financial aid kept shitting on my doorstep throughout. The stress of busting out my best work was hard enough, but add to that the dreaded phone calls every few months that needed me to maneuver through loopholes to plug their loopholes. I had taken on a part time job even though service jobs never worked out well for me. It still wasn't enough when FA decided to bend me over again shy of that second degree. I wrote an essay writing contest and secured a grant that let me walk away with two degrees (and $60K in debt).

Another personal victory was achieved. Petco was the longest job I've ever had, at 20 months. And I didn't get fired for acting out/insubordination. For the first time, I handed in a formal two weeks notice and got to leave with dignity.

After college, I still wasn't 100 percent what I wanted to do. I had a lot of teachers that asked to use my projects in future classes, graduated with honors-- I knew I was damn good at what I do. It felt... Beyond gratifying to be more than just a job monkey for once in my life. A writing teacher told me I'm organic, deep, funny and faithful to my ideas. I'd already begun reviving the longest story I'd written to date-- sixty pages-- after I found it while rummaging for old word docs prior to rewriting a fairy tale for that class. That book became The Truth about Heroes: One of Many. It became seven books by the time my mom died.

I've already talked about the impact of death over the course of writing those books. I was able to bend my mind around finishing the series at nine books. I'm currently working on my 11th book. If you've been reading my blog, you know how much my mom was a part of the process, so I won't go into that again. I grieve best when I don't let it paralyze me, so stopping was never an option.

Huh, what? You mean these books? How ever did they get on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and digital retailers all over the world? Could it be... sheer stubbornness?

There isn't a turning point to nail down here. Over time, I even stopped imagining what things would look like when done because I stopped believing they would be. I don't regret going to school and it wouldn't have mattered if it were Yale or some rusty shack out of Deliverance-- my instructors and my knowledge are irreplaceable. It taught me how to trick myself out of a pattern of walking away. Because I was so fixated on 'the end' being years away, I was amassing a body of work after each class, finished work, and before I could self-sabotage, it was too late. I couldn't pretend I was destined to flounder because I'd found the mental shortcut, a way to finish by always putting the end out of reach.

The downside here is that my victories are something almost transient, more like an orgasm than a trophy or a tiara I can wear everywhere. In a way, I became a sort of Daenerys, Collector of a Million Titles, a character more about adapting and determination than pride. What I did is something I still fail to connect to at times because it's also a mind-altering drug. I'm addicted to seeing big projects through so the victories pass when the next idea twinkles ahead. I finished things, but what else am I capable of? Again, mobility towards my goals was possible because I always keep a big fat carrot on the end of the stick, but it almost means I am TOO far-sighted creatively. For now, it's enough that I am actively working towards goals, but it does need some work.

I'd be lying if I didn't say the obstacles are there. There are a lot of people that assume what I'm capable of as a woman or a white person (we're unfashionable in identity politics and trends these days) or presume to tell me what I could or should write about. There are people who don't realize that my drawing style is intentional and not because I can't keep up with the trends in realism, that I love exploring ways to incorporate realism into my style, but am still a comic book artist and fucking proud of it. And yes, people swear by one discipline in their career but what makes my talent so healthy now is that I know how to feed it.

Drawing, nom, writing, nom nom, comics, nom nom nom. Notice the one cookie dangling juuuuust out of nom.

The cost of accomplishment is exposure, which creatives are wary of in its many forms. People will either swear you can't do better or can't do worse (AKA you suck). You're naked to this, but once I've broken through my prison, my hell, my tormentors, there's this thick extra layer, air tight and a perfect fit, this layer that de-weaponizes words, silences trolls, tunes me into my purpose. I can take in what I need to realize my vision, to share it, but it doesn't really matter how precious people think their tastes are. It doesn't get to decide if we're worthy of seeing it through.

Get around to reading my work sometime, if you haven't already. I'm learning to be a bit less humble about it. It's a very different creature from my blogs-- I have a lot of fun with fantasy that is worth a try. While I have to admit, it's a dream of mine to write for a video game company some day, I'll stress again that I use THIS medium to ITS benefit-- my books are books, not just the basis of a show, movie or game. They'd have to be reworked into those mediums because I optimized them as books, first and foremost. I know my way around a story. And yes, swearing and sex happens in my adult books, but just like their appearance in my blogs, they're not accidentally there. Them being there at all seems to be 'gratuitous' without exception to some people. On the upside, they're... not really that long. Maybe someday I'll do a page/paragraph count just for the hell of it.

There's a market for me. And one of these days, I'll look for it. I keep saying that, but someday I'll mean it more than the other times.

You know... now, when I think of that stupid interview question 'where will I be five years from now', I can feel a secret smile twitch at my cheeks. Just me, you, and my ceiling... chasing dreams.