Hello everyone! How are you all doing?
As you know, the world’s been a bit insane these last couple of years. Like everyone else, I’ve been affected by this insanity as well. I work at a pharmacy as my day job as low-ranking management, so this has eaten up much of my time. We’ve also been suffering from being able to keep managers on staff (We’ve had at least five in the last three years or so), and this affects my schedule as well as my one coworker who has been with me since the beginning (Everyone else has left or gone back to school).
I also don’t want to go into too many details, but things with my family have been rocky to say the best. My biological dad died last June, and I’ve been struggling mentally since then but mostly managing. My mom and I basically don’t speak. I talked with her last October after not having seen her since the end of 2019 in person, but things basically ended in calamity. She’s very anti-vax and anti-mask, and pro-gun, etc., etc. you get the point. She turned her back and walked away from me after I poured my heart out to her. She disowned me from the family before, and this was essentially the push I needed to completely block her from my life. Needless to say, this has affected my mental health a lot.
All things haven’t been bad though! 2021 was an incredibly rough year, but it hasn’t been too bad this year thus far. I’ve been drawing a lot more frequently (you can see a lot of this progress on my Patreon!), I did really well at the fair last year, and I did better than ever artwise financially, which is awesome! Still not enough to quit my job, unfortunately, but hopefully in the future soon! But this in itself is a blessing and a curse, I suppose. I love doing art, and I’m never going to stop doing it, but it’s very time-consuming! I also currently have two big commissions I’m working on, which I took when I didn’t have too many hours at my day job, but that has since changed. They are mostly both finished, but I don’t like having too many untied ends before working on another big project.
On top of all this, I am learning Japanese, trying to spend time with Dean in the short amount of time we have together every day (he’s also struggling at work), and snuggling with Vienna (my dog). I also occasionally get some video game time and reading in!
I know in the end, this all sounds like a bunch of excuses (and I guess it is), but believe me, I absolutely, completely miss drawing the comic. My characters bring me so much joy in drawing their dumb faces, and it’s not something I plan on quitting until the story is complete. I know there have been some pretty big gaps here and there, but unfortunately, that’s life. In the meantime, you can help me out by backing my Patreon or buying some stuff in my store! Every little bit helps me get closer to being able to quit my day job and retail (ah the dream) forever.
Thanks to everyone who’s been sticking with me all these years, I hope you all stay rad.
~Heather
I know the feeling. It’s a very rare occasion lately that I have a good chunk of time to try and plot out a storyline or think up a gag. It seems to be happening to a lot of webcomic creators as well. But I haven’t given up on you! 🙂
Thanks for your kind words! <3