New Years Revolutions

The unholy rebels in my soul have risen up to conquer the ruling procrastination regime of my brain. Death to the ivory tower eggheads! Up with productivity! Long live hope and change! Viva la revolucion!

Of course, such battles are long, bloody affairs with many casualties. (Sanity? First to go.) But we must fight for what is right and good! It hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt.

So now it's time for me to make some OFFICIAL resolutions for the new year. This is the day of optimism, and I intend to ride it! Here we go, with them in no particular order.

- I will keep Precocious going strong! This is intentionally open to interpretation, as changes may be in store. I want to keep going with the current format as long as I can, but I may have to scale things back slightly to fit in all these other resolutions. Don't panic yet! I'm just being cautious here. Ideally things remain as awesome as they are now.

- I will get my lazy butt into grad school. This one is major, as I've dilly-dallied far too long now. Granted, I've had my reasons, with all the chaos going on in my family. It's very hard for me to leave right now, but I've given myself over for two years now. I'm going to be in my 30's before I start school again no matter what, but 30 is way better than 31! (I'm also desperately in need of a change in venue.)

- I will find a way to start making money from my cartooning. This means designing shirts and setting up a store. I want to create a Precocious book as well, but that may have to wait until I'm in grad school. I should set up an shop, on etsy or somewhere, where I can sell prints and paintings. My birthday gift to myself should be a quality printer, which can enable me to create prints and such to sell! On the website side, I have to consider ditching Project Wonderful for a more paying ad service. I like PW because it helps other comics, but I'm not making close to what I could with my readership and pageviews. I should also start attending conventions to learn how I can one day *successfully* attend them as a vendor.

- I will do better to enhance my presence in the comic community. My horrid antisocial tendency might doom me, but I want to make myself known. This involves posting more on message boards, READING all those webcomics sites that I've been ignoring and becoming somewhat likable on twitter. I should reach out to other cartoonists and build more friendships. Once people know me, attending conventions becomes a little less intimidating!

- I will finish my Little Anxieties painting series. This can take all year, but I want it done. (Commissioned paintings do come first, after all!) If I get it done, I can start looking for galleries to display the series. (Getting into grad school might help me here!)

- I will work on improving and expanding my art skills. I want to learn how to use watercolors, so I can be like Bill Watterson! Ink and watercolor Precocious paintings make more sense than forcing acrylics to work like drawing. (Drawback: Watercolors and ink drawings do require me to mat them.) I also want to work on drawing furry. As I wrote a few days ago, I never set out to be a furry artist, but the fans sure seem to wish I was! This isn't just me giving in to pressure, it can potentially open up new illustration venues without starting from scratch and learning to draw comic humans. Human or furry, I must re-learn non-cartoony anatomy drawing. That would help me immensely, and likely make Precocious' drawing more dynamic.

- Like everyone else in history, I want to drop at least 10lbs. The stress from family crisis after crisis, combined with sedentary behavior has made me plump. I know I'm not fat, but any extra weight on my scant frame looks bad! I'd love to start exercising again, focusing on cardio, but I'll settle for better eating/living habits. When I visit the grandparents, I need to have more willpower - everything here is drenched in butter! If I have to start bringing my own snacks here, then so be it.

- I want to end this year better than how I started it. As you can see from these resolutions, many tie into each other. Getting into grad school gets me into a better environment, which enables my art skill-building and improves my health. Improved art and spirits help me find the energy to keep Precocious going AND do the extra work to get the store going and socialize. Becoming more social in the comic community gets me more readers and earns me invites to conventions, where I can make more bonds and potentially money! One good change encourages another.

So there we are. Let's check back in a year to see how I did. Heck, let's check back in two weeks, when grad school applications are due. (Good lord, I'm terrified!) My first test, of course, is probably my hardest one. Wish me luck!