It's Been A Second...

 And I can't say for certain that my hiatus was or was not intentional. More aptly, I suppose that things haven't been going the way I'd hoped they'd go when first starting this blog.

I haven't lost my fire, or my drive, or any of the things that have been pushing me to want to expand my horizons as an artist. But, unfortunately, money is a requirement I cannot ignore. And so I've been working full-time at the tea bistro I formerly moonlighted at. I'm grateful to have a place to work, and income coming in. It's not enough to support my household as well as I had been. But it's something.

It's just that, sadly, going back to working a customer-facing job out of the house again has taken a larger toll on my stores of motivation that I'd originally anticipated.

That being said...

I've got some really exciting things brewing behind the scenes! Hopefully, a recent illustration I did will be for sale as some undefined merchandise for The Dear Hunter relatively soon. The art is done, they have the files, and it's just a matter of seeing if and where they can use them. So that's been huge for me! Here's a cropped preview: (composition not final)

Maybe it'd be prudent for me to take some accountability here, even if it doesn't go anywhere. What's the use in penning a blog post meant for other people's eyes, if I'm not showing all of myself even if that might end in failure, right?

So here's what I want to do by the end of the year:

• I want to put out more frequent and exclusive content for my Patreon
• I want to put together some items for release on my Etsy shop (and focus more on properly advertising my small business, which is something I'm terrible at presently.)
• I want to make more art. Period. I've sort of lost the muse lately, but I don't want to let that stop me.

Will it truly happen? I fully intend to make it so, and that's all I can really do, eh? So, for now, thanks for tuning in.

Back to slinging tea tomorrow,

- Lily Marlene