SPACE and the Kickstarter blues

This blog has been a little lost in the shuffle of all the updating online.  And if this is your spot to catch up for all things T. then I’m sorry to have neglected you and will try to bring you up to speed.

Thing 1. Kickstarter

A majority of my spoons these days has been going to running the Kickstarter campaign for The Chronicles of the Tal Nor issue #1. You can view and donate to our Kickstarter here www.tal-nor.com/ks

It amazing how much time and energy one of these campaigns take.  In my case, unsurprisingly most of this time and energy is spent worrying.  Because this blog is a place of raw, unedited honesty, I’ll tell you that it’s not looking too good for our little Kickstarter experiment.  As of writing this, we stand at 30% with just 12 days yet to go.  We didn’t get off to the start I was hoping for and that is my fault. I underestimated how important the video is to a successful campaign.  Due to time constraint, budget constraint, technical difficulty and plan old poor execution, the first video I made wasn’t good.  More than that, it was straight up terrible.  We have since shot another video and my artist, Kelsea Jewell, has also made a video which is fantastic.  If fact you should head over to our Kickstarter www.tal-nor.com/ks and watch it right now. I’ll wait.

Welcome back, how great was that?  Not only is Kelsea Jewell incredible with the watercolors, but is funny too. She really came through, but I fear it’s too late.  You see the way Kickstarter works is that you have a window where your campaign is listed as new and most people who don’t know you that just check out the new comics, just watch the video.  Also the Kickstarter Staff, just watches the videos when picking what campaigns will be marked as their favorite.  They do this within the first 24 hours.

I’m also not the greatest at promoting the Kickstarter.  Asking for money has always made me feel uncomfortable.  I find it much easier to throw the link out there into the void of Twitter and Facebook than ask individuals if they would donate.  I know that 1^st time kickstarters get 80% to 90% of their funds from people they know. I just feel super uncomfortable with directly guilt tripping my friends and family into giving me money. Especially since most of them aren’t comic fans so the rewards are not something they will enjoy.

I also have periods of thinking that all I’m offering is really cool art and a mediocre story at best. I know this is my depression talking. In my moments of clarity I know that the story is solid and the dialog is actually funny at times. Know this because there have been some people who read the book wrote in to tell as much. How did anyone get a copy of the book to have written? Because I took it to Space!

Thing 2 - SPACE

One reason there was time constraint of the Kickstarter was because I wanted it to coincide with the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo(http://www.backporchcomics.com/space.htm).  My sister, Kat LoGrande, and I split a table at this years show. I wanted to make a special edition that was exclusive to SPACE. My hope was the between the promo cards and comics sold I would drum up a big bump in donations to the Kickstarter.

First off let me tell you I had a blast at this year’s SPACE.  It was almost everything I wanted in a Con.  Our table neighbor was Jack Wallace of Disposable Fiction.  I’ve know Jack for years via email and have done a bunch of lettering for him.  You should check out his stuff at http://www.disposablefictioncomics.com/index.html

It was amazing to meet him in person and we got along swimmingly. It's always a fear when you meet people in person after only knowing them online, that you only work as online friends. I was super luckily that wasn’t the case with Jack or with Joel Cramer (http://www.joelcramercomics.com/) another creator that I knew only online . In fact all or the creators were awesome. I was able to reconnect with David Branstetter (http://strawmancomics.com/) and became fast friends with Kuroitenshi (http://kuroitenshi.com/).

The comradery and creative spirit was fantastic. So many great creators all in one room celebrating their love of comics and showing off their creations. What more could you ask for? Attendees, that what you could ask for more of, Attendees.  I don't know if it was the change in venue or change in date ( SPACE was originally set to be in April but when their original location closed suddenly it had to be moved to a new spot and to July) but there really wasn't much of a crowd.

I was able to make sales and actually had a pretty high sell rate per person I talked to.  Unfortunately I really didn't talk to a lot of people that were not also Exhibitors.  I joked that the same $20 traveled around the con each person selling to the next.  I would still do it in a heartbeat, I just kind of wish I didn't get so many exclusive SPACE editions of the comic printed.

Here was my brilliant idea, I would offer a special pre-release version of the comic that you could only get at SPACE.  The fact that it was an exclusive would be a selling point. Although to be honest, Kelsea’s art is the best selling point.  It worked for the people I actually got to talk to.  But now I have box of comics I really don’t feel great about selling, because if I did sell these comics elsewhere, I kind of feel like I was lying at SPACE.  But I don’t have any problems giving these away.  If you want a chance to win a copy of the SPACE exclusive edition. Go to the website for the comic and subscribe to the newsletter. You'll see the subscribe button on right hand side of the main page.  I'll pick a winner or winners if we get enough entries once our Kickstarter ends.

Like I was saying I loved SPACE and will absolutely want to do it next year.  I just need to temper my expectations and realize that I'm going for fun more than sales. Hopefully next year I'll have both.

Thing 3 – Day Job

Not to go into too much details, but sufficient to say my plate is super full at work.  I have a tone of stuff that needs to get done and done now. This is sucking up any leftover energy from the Kickstarter. Running low on spoons.

Thing 4 – Health stuff

I’m broken in a ton of ways.  Long time reads know this. I go to the doctors all the time. Some doctor’s office are great for being productive, but most aren't.

Thing 5 – The Writing Group

I love my writing group. They are amazing people. The two times we meet each month are some of the highlights of each and every month. Earlier this year I had the brilliant idea to produce a ‘zine with everyone contributing a short story 7,000 words or less. Wouldn't you know the deadline I set all those month ago would coincide with my Kickstarter perfectly? I've been try to read everyone submission and getting everything organized, but fitting it in with everything else has been a challenge to say the least.  And to top it off the internet at my house died last night. I'll be internet free until Friday night, I hope. Friday morning Verizon is meant to come and fix it. I’m posting this thanks to the free Wi-Fi at Wegmans. I have been getting stuff together for this project slow, but it is moving and I hope to make a big push tonight and this weekend.

Well that enough for now. Remember the Kickstarter can be found at www.tal-nor.com/ks Please donate, even if it’s just $1 every bit helps. Also passing it along to those that you think might like comics is a big help too. We have preview of the first eight pages on our site at www.tal-nor.com

Until next time, keep making things.

T.

Crawling my way back to the light.

Let's start off with some good news.  I received more pages from Kelsea! And of course they look amazing because Kelsea is very good at what she does.  I have already lettered these pages and there awaiting one last round of editorial inspection to make sure I didn’t slip any typos.  Our Day Jobs and other obligation have been acting as an anchor, slowing up down on this project, but head way is being made and like Sophie here, we’re running towards that goal.

I have taken the first five pages and put together a little preview of the comic for our newsletter subscribers.  I plan on sending out the newsletter tomorrow.  If you want to check out the preview, head over to www.Tal-nor.com and sign up before it’s too late or you will just have to wait like everyone else to see Kelsea’s amazing art.

While things have been going great on this project, emotionally things have been less than stellar.  I’ve been feeling over whelming self-doubt and the double whamming of Depression and Anxiety lately.  I’ve been really questioning if I have what it take in both temperament, work ethic and talent to make it as a writer.  Am I just fooling myself? Has anything good that I have done been just blind luck? Am I actually good at anything?  These are the questions that have been running thought my head.  I can hear the depression and the anxiety shouting NO and every negative thing I can come up with.

I’m trying my best to fight through these feelings.  Luckily I’m not fighting alone.  In fact I’m currently typing this draft in the waiting room for my therapist.  I don’t even want to imagine how dark things could get if I didn’t have this as an outlet.  If the thoughts and feeling I have described above sound familiar to you, please look into finding someone to talk to.  It's not a cure all, but it helps.  It will take the edge off these feeling and help you move forward.  The movement might feel like it’s a snail pace, but forward is better than backwards.

May has been whirl wind of shity luck and shity decisions.  I have mismanaged my time so much.  I can’t help but use myself as punching bag over it.  I should have so much more done.  I also have had to deal with the stress of not one but two car misshapes.  The first was a pot hole deciding to rip up my tire at 1:30 in the morning while I was driving home.  The second was someone deciding to open there car door just as I was pulling into a parking spot.  As we all know breaks are not magic and even a car moving slow can produce a bit of force.  Luckily everyone was fine with the exception of my nerves and bumper.  The damage to one of those things was just cosmetic.  Now I get to field near daily calls for insurance agents asking me to recount what happened.  I think I have told my tale to three people at the other guys insurance company and at least five people at my own insurance company.

I also have my yearly review at the old Day Job.  I have been there going on 12 years now and before every review I’m sure I’m the worst employee ever.  I feel like now that they are taking the time to sit down a look at my performance, they will realize that an untrained bonobo could do a better job than I do and for a lot less money.  These feeling inevitable doom have as of yet been unfounded.  But I feel them every year none the less.

Now it's time to go into the office and work on these feeling.

I feel a little better.  I still have a lot of work to do on me and my anxiety and my depression.  Every day I put in the work, and I hope it gets better.  Sometimes I make progress and sometimes I back slide a little, but I guess the point is to keep trying and keep working at it.

Just like making a comic.  Speaking of comics, my editor posted a little update to the comic book website.  Please give it a read at www.Tal-nor.com

Be well and keep making things

T.

I Hate When They Run page 4 and more

Here it is.  The penultimate page of I Hate When They Run.  I hope you have been enjoying it so far.  Next week not only will we be unavailing the final page, put we will be doing it on the Official Tal Nor website.  That's right www.Tal-Nor.com won't just forward to you to my blog but will go to a real live site.

Creating the website has been a challenge due to not only the fact the last time I created a website I used notepad and was about how I was excited to see Sheryl Crow on her 1999 tour (It was a hell of a show by the way).  It was also a challenge because I've been so busy with everything that goes on during the holiday and things really being really busy at my day.  I've been stealing a bit of time here and there to add a little content at a time.

Luckily Square Space, our web host is super easy to use and even if it doesn't look exactly how I imagined, it still looks great.  There are a few little tweaks that have to happen here and there but for the most part it ready to roll out.  To be honest, part of the reason I announced here is to make me publicly accountable for launching it in time next Wednesday.  Hopefully it will be enough to help me fight of the final anchor that has slowed this all down Depression.

I have written about it here before and it is a constant in my life.  The best analogy I can use is it's like a tide caused by thousands of unseen moon, giving it a maddening unpredictability.  Out of nowhere a wave of sadness will hit me and try to pull me down with its powerful undertow of feeling of inadequacy and anxiety.  Make no bones about it, what I'm attempting to do, become basically a publisher in a few short months is not easy and a hell of a lot of hard work.

Once more I'm lucky.  I have a bunch of supportive people around me.  I have job which will provide some of the funding (more on that in future posts *wink*, *wink*) and provide me with the health insurance so I can seek the help I need to battle these demons.  I have a few friends who don't have this luxury.

The thing that I found that has helped me deal with all of this is working out.  Since December 9^th I have go to the gym everyday it has been open.  This means the only day I missed was Christmas day.  I have been working out off and on, mostly off since I was in college.  I found that if I missed a day, it would spiral out of control and it would take me months to get back into the habit.  What I have come to realize is that if I can make an excuse not to go, I will.  Which is kind of odd because I do like going to the gym, I like working out. Recently I realized the only way to make it stick is to simply not except any excuse for not going.  The gym is open 24 hours a day.  I can find the time. And so far I have.

Now on to what you have all been waiting for, Page Four: (you can read from the beginning HERE)