Laid Off From My 9-5, Now What?

I've been working for the same funeral home for the last seven years, and after fighting against some injustice in the workplace, they decided to close business and lay all of us off.

Am I upset? Absolutely, but I don't regret trying to fight for better work conditions.

But what does that mean for me now moving forward? Grat question, becasue I'm not even sure! I've applied for new work, and all the safety nets that exist in California and the US.

More importantly, this will give me the oppertunity to do what I've always wanted to do, and that is be creative.

When I first started my funeral home job seven years ago, it was only supposed to be temporary support while I worked on my comic. But as I got better at my job, the more they promoted me until it just stopped. Things slowly got worse and even if I didn't get laid off, I already had one foot out the door.

So, I want to take this oppertuity and put effort back into whats always been super important to me, which is being a creative person and making art.

Yesterday I finished the firt draft of volume four, ending at a word count of 204,154. She's a chonky baby, but I'm really excited with how it turned out, and I loved writing this part of the story.

Sketches from Book 4 Through the Looking Glass

What's fun about book 4 are the added characters! I don't wanna spoil much, so I've just added a few sketches of some characters.

Character from Book 4

Because I'm such a visual person, when I get stuck on a scene, I find it really helpful to sketch out the character or the scene a bit to get past that block.

For instance, during a spicy scene I couldn't visualize how the position would look. So I do a quick little sketch and I'm on my way.

The sketch below is the scene in question. Its not finished becasue it would be a major spoiler.

Anyway, I'm very happy with getting the draft one done. I have my alpha reader (hello darling if you're here) looking over it and getting some of the main plot components worked out. In the meantime, I'll start plotting and outlining book 5, and work on commissions.

Thats the other great news I have. My commissions are open, and you can find them on my Ko-Fi

I'm having a blast so far, and would love it if I could somehow make it a career.

Anyways, what an update am I right?

I'm also trying to figure out what I can do to make my WIP process more engaging. I asked a poll and got some feedback, yall horny and want more NSFW sketches. Which, same! Ya'll my people.

So I'll start including things like that in my newsletters and just give a big warning!