EDIT 5-3-2019 -Comic updated-
So, this update exists mostly to share with people where things are at on the current comic update. as I’m sure you can see, it’s going to have to be finished later. Going to try for tonight.
In the interests of transparency, I’m… in kind of a frustration spiral right now. I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to get focused and stay focused when it comes to comic-making time. Part of this is unavoidable life stuff (I have Maggie the puppy crying for attention and playtime behind me right now as I type this) , but other parts of this are, quite frankly, just distractions piling up. It’s really frustrating, because I used to not have any problem working through or past them. But somewhere in the last few years my ability to work around the various distractions life provides has just kind of… eroded.
I’m trying to work on it. I just.. need to figure out how.
And I hate to connect this to the comic time-management woes above, because it’s wholly unrelated to any of the distractions mentioned, but I’m trying to help some family out today. If I have any readers in the Kansas City, Missouri area, my aunt is holding a yard sale today and tomorrow featuring a large collection of vintage clothing. It’s from cleaning out my grandmother’s estate and trying to get her house prepared to sell. Lot of older-style clothing is available for sale. This can be found at:
10011 NE 100th St
Kansas City, MO
Thank you for your patience and understanding, everyone. I’ll be back later with a proper comic page.
If you want to take a break from updating, whether it’s a temporary hiatus or a more permanent schedule change (like from three times a week to once a week updates), I’m sure we’d all understand. Life comes first.
Sounds like you’re in solid need of a vacation, Dave. Don’t forget that it’s important to take time for yourself too. Sometimes you have to be selfish with how you spend your time, especially when it’s essential to mental and physical health. Please get some rest when you can.
Hey Dave? You should probably take a break. It sounds like you have your hands full as it is and a break can help you get it all sorted. We all know you aren’t really getting paid and we are so lucky you are sharing your story with us c: !
I can’t honestly say I’m “not being paid”, really, between ad revenue and Patreon tip jar.
I agree with the above commenters. You put a lot of energy into keeping your comics updated, and often at the expense of your own sleep schedule. I don’t think a single one of us would be upset with a temporary hiatus or a reduced upload schedule. Burnout is real! I don’t know if I can recall you taking more than a short break the entire time you’ve had Selkie running.
I’m not sure why that posted as a reply and not a standalone thread. 😬
Hey, take a break if you need it. Sometimes Real Life interferes. Sometimes you need to recharge. Do what you need for you.
Ditto with everyone saying to take a break.
But more importantly, I would use that time to see a doctor and/or psychiatrist. Anytime there’s a change in your baseline health, including mental health!, that’s reason to get it checked out. At minimum, PLEASE see your GP, best case scenario you may be put on mild meds to help your concentration.
Losing ability to focus can also be a symptom of burnout, so either way, a break seems in order.
Yeah, I’m not gonna jump to try to diagnose or anything, but the description reminds me of some autobiographical depictions of actual physical brain problems that cause difficulty focusing — executive function disorders, ADHD, Depression, or even just vitamin deficiency.
If it’s significant to actually impact your life and to make you feel troubled/worried about it, it’s worth checking out, because there may be an underlying cause that a doc can pinpoint and deal with (whether that means drugs, therapy, a break, more sunlight, whatever).
I’m also on board with the break week/month — the topic seems to have come up a few times in the past few months, but I don’t recall a significant break (just a mini-break in the form of one skipped or delayed page, and that is one of those “breaks” that just ramps up anxiety, in my experience from posting YouTube vids). Work toward a place where you could reasonably stop, and give yourself some time to get your head on straight again.
Creators might be fueled in part by brain imbalances and life troubles, but in general we do want the creators of our favorite things to be in good health and not be running themselves ragged just trying to entertain us. The stuff you come up with will be better for you having had some time off.
Heck, there’s an anecdote about two guys trying to saw down some huge trees, where the one guy just keeps at it all day, but the other guy stops every hour or two for a good couple of minutes. When the guy taking breaks turns out to have sawn more wood, the guy who didn’t take breaks asks him how.
Turns out those breaks were for *Sharpening the Saw* — thus making for a more efficient process, overall.
Seriously, man, take a break. Play with the puppy, read a book, go travel! A change of pace is good for the mind. We’ll still be here when you get back 🙂
I also put in my vote for you taking a break if you need it. None of want to see you get ‘comic burn out’ or whatever it may be called. We’ll be waiting for you when you come back.
Dave, take care of yourself. We all love Selkie, but your physical and emotional well-being come first. Take a break, and maybe consider changing things up. I’m sure we would learn to love teen-angst Selkie or a grown-up Dr. Terrorhammer Selkie as well!
I suggest you do what a lot of other online comic people do. Takea month and allow guest comics. While that’s happening you can work on your own comic at a casual pace and when the month is through, you’ll hopefully have a couple of pages you can then publish on the days you normally would.
I’d go further. Yes, line up guest comics — at least one a week to keep people coming back to your site. Or let people ask you questions about writing — for instance, do your characters ever surprise you?
But take a vacation from drawing Selkie. You like the interactivity, the immediacy, of drawing the next page having seen how readers reacted to the current one. That’s fine, it’s how your artistic process works, you don’t need to fight it or feel you ought to have a buffer. So when you’re taking a break, it has to be a real break.
Echoing same statements above. I am sure that there are plenty of people willing to guest play in your sandbox while you step back and recharge. We love the characters your created and thus we will wait until you are ready. Godspeed, my friend.
Give comic updating and comment moderation rights to a trusted person, and ignore everything having to do with Selkie for a month or two.
Do a full site backup, in case something REALLY goes wrong.
Breaks are needed from time to time.
I had to take off a whole semester of school once to de-stress.
Do what you need.
I am also here to vote for a vacation – your stereotypical day job comes with a certain amount of time off per year, and you should allow yourself that when you’re acting as your own manager, too. Wishing you well.
last panel =
“???
Profit”
Hi, Everyone! Sorry I’m late!
Dave, seriously… what everyone else is saying.
If you need a break by all means, take it. Gotta take care of yourself first!
Would a guest short story work instead of a guest comic? I cannot draw very well, but writing, that I can do. Take some time off or switch to a once a week update schedule for a while. It’s ok and very important to take care of yourself.
Sorry to hear about your troubles. Maybe give yourself one extra day off a week. it won’t hurt updates THAT much.
Man, jumping onto a mattress is rough-housing now? Kids today have it ROUGH. No wonder they end up so screwy. All started with that Ritalin stuff, man.
Wat
I’m going to join the chorus of A: time to take a break! and B: yeah, might be worth checking to see if there are any physical (or brain chemistry) reasons for being distracted. (Sleep apnea’s always a “fun” one…)
And also potentially C: maybe just build in a week every month where you take a break. Or swap to T-Th on the last week, or something, where you can build up some sketches in a more leisurely way, with a pupper to play with. Slowing down to pace yourself can totally be a thing.
Todd’s getting pretty good at this parenting an exuberant 8 year old thing. It’s obviously a coil mattress, which is why he didn’t want it dragged out for seating. They’re tough, but not built to be used as trampolines.
I love the way he gets this across to Selkie.
Eight year olds don’t understand that a mattress _can_ be broken.
I once read about a dancer who was getting exhausted by the end of an intense five-minute routine. Her coach told her to find places to relax her muscles in between the movements, and it worked – at the end of the routine she felt fresh.
Since there’s an advice bandwagon going here, I’ll risk jumping on it:
It may take practice to develop the skill of refreshing yourself in short breaks. Start with longer ones – long enough that you can really disconnect. Then gradually shorten them, making sure that you always take enough of a break to come back refreshed.
With enough practice, a walk around the room or even a good stretch may be enough – but start with “as long as it takes.” And stay with “as long as it takes” as your primary goal, and “more efficient” as your secondary target.
Remember the person (Darwin?) who wrote, “This letter would have been shorter if I had had more time to write it.” Practice disconnecting first – then think about keeping up your output.
And, of course, you can use the disconnect time for the rest of your life – playing with a puppy sounds like a great way to help you disconnect – as long as you are actually disconnected, and not worrying about the comic. Let that muscle relax.
You can only get so old before dad doesn’t let your friends play on the mattress. Enjoy the indoor bounce house while you can!
I know you’ve heard it enough, but, take a break, Dave!
One of the biggest problems when learning to integrate breaks into your creative process (isn’t that an oxymoron? How can you call it a creative process when you’re not doing anything?) is the first hurdle of coming back. Even if everyone tells you it’s okay, it might feel like a failure when that first deadline passes where you should have posted, and you just accept it rather than rushing to post a lineart of the page, or a “today’s page will be a little late” post. In the meantime, why not consider when best to take your creative time, and how best to enforce it with your family, and yourself? You can browse twitter, tumblr, whatever, for art tips, and practice walking away from social media instead of getting trapped in a meme hole. You can do sketches you don’t ever intend to post (don’t get too engaged with another project; that turns into dozens of unfinished ones real fast). You can ask other artists about their experiences, especially at this stage. Or you can go for a walk in the park, and spend time with your family!! One last piece of advice for the future, take breaks when you’ve scheduled it, not just when the writing gets hard.
I understand if there’s a brief hiatus, or guest comics, I can’t wait to see Selkie again!
Selkie: “I saids I was gonna bounce on my mattresses, not pee on it! I don’ts wanna sleep in a puddle of pee even IFS I breaks it! That’s gross dads!”
Todd: “No, not URINE pee, vegetable pea.”
Selkie: “I’s allergic to vegetables. You knows this. First pee puddles and now veggie beds? Can yous find ways to punish mes that won’t gives me an illness please?”
Todd: “The Princess & the Pea is a FABLE! A famous story! I know we haven’t actually read it as a bedtime story since I adopted you, but how did you miss a cultural icon like that in your first 8… (oh yeah, lived underwater) alright, then in the last 3 years?”
Selkie: “Probablys for the same reasons yous don’t knows the words to Spongebob Squarepants or Dora the Explorer opening songs.”
Dave.
Take a break. Please.
We all want you at your peak, and feeling good about yourself.
Seriously, dude, take a week off or do one comic a week for a month, whatever helps you out.
I’m not going to try to give any advice, because I’m not very good about this stuff myself and also suffer from chronic and poorly-managed focus issues that I suspect are moderate-level adult ADD.
But I will say to be careful to identify what your actual problem is.
Is it really just time management? Certainly could be (I’m horrendous at that myself), in which case the solution is figuring out how to focus on what you want to accomplish and also enjoy it.
Is it actually a problem with focus, and one you didn’t have before? That could be anything from not enjoying making the comic anymore (so it’s now work instead of fun and your brain procrastinates accordingly) to some sort of health issue (nutritional deficiency, chronic illness, who knows). Can’t really solve it without figuring out why, though.
Or, perhaps most frightening of all, is it actually a symptom of impending burnout? As far as I can tell that’s second only to chronic wrist problems as an occupational hazard of being an artist. I’ve known artist who hit that wall, and it isn’t pretty.
Point here only being that it’s worth some introspection and self-analysis to make sure you know what the actual problem is so you can address it appropriately.
And of course if that means taking a break, even a long one, do it.
urgh, I hate that I have to say this, but take a break from the comic. Not just a week off, either.
Take a month.
Hear me out! As much as I would love more comics, fact is if life is kind of piling things on you, a week isn’t gonna cut it. So, take a month. Straighten things out and contemplate on what you want to get out of this comic.