2024 Yearly Wrap

Events, Personal, and other stuff:

My daughter started high school and became an official teen! 

Covid finally caught up to me, and we adopted a second cat (a tuxy boy called Griffin) after the shelter we fostered with last year stopped managing new fosters and we couldn’t get more kittens. 

I attended Sydney Supanova, Oz Comic-Con, Newcastle Book Boyfriend, Central Coast Comicon, Love on the Beach Book Signing, and Book Fair Australia.

I cut my hair short for the first time in many years, ran a Kickstarter to fund the first Shadow Dragon Saga audiobook, and had to end the employment of my assistant after many years working together due to lack of funds. 

Next year-

Normally at this time of year I have a firm plan of how many big projects I’m going to get done, with a calendar schedule all planned out. But I don’t this year.

My plan is basically to just trying to earn a living however I can. I’m sure there will be more colouring books coming out, and I’m open again to commissions of any kind I can get, and might end up bugging everyone with a few more kickstarters. I even started looking for external, non-creative employment that could fit someone with no real skills or experience outside of drawing. 

I’ve had an INCREDIBLE run. It’s hard to express how lucky I have been in being able to make a living from my art for so long. That kind of success is so rare and precious and I’m so grateful for what I’ve had. 

But I’m also older now, and SO TIRED. I’ve worked so hard for so long to maintain that success, and now that it feels like I’m working harder than ever and unable to make ends meet, maybe taking a check-out job somewhere would be easier and earn more, you know? 

It’s hard to say whether my drop in income is simply economic, with so many facing financial hardship currently, or whether it’s AI flooding creative markets and taking other jobs, or whether it’s my fault for prioritising my writing over the last two years rather than art and colouring designs. 

We’ll see whether things turn around in 2025. I don’t need a lot to get by. I live a fairly frugal life overall, and will be infinitely grateful if I can earn enough for mortgage and groceries. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported me this year and any time earlier with sales or kind words. In the attention seeking world of mass media and non-stop content we currently live in, I’m constantly in awe anytime someone chooses to spend their time or money on me and my creations. Honestly it blows me away and is what keeps me going. So thank you! 

I hope I can create more in 2025 that you’ll enjoy.