Horrible Drudgery Update

Over the past five months I've been verrrrry slowly moving forward with getting my 100 Day Project from 2020 printed up into a physical object. It's so different doing something like this without the pressure and visibility of a Kickstarter—not to mention working around the stress and complexity of caregiving.

It feels urgent and endless all at once. 

---

Given that the project involves 100 different card designs, there's a lot of boring pre-press work that needs to happen before we can go to print. To try and help my brain understand why "Send files to printer" kept getting pushed from week to week on my to do list, I started tracking all the fiddly individual things that went into making that goal happen. (This extremely cute capybara notepaper was a gift from Vero, who has a new zine out featuring a comic by yours truly.)

It's a fool's errand to explain all these line items (especially because a lot of the things I did ended up being misunderstandings or dead ends), but I will say that I learned some cool things about implementing Scripts in InDesign during the process and made a new local designer friend. Two wins!

I mean, that and the fact that I finally did send off the files to the printer this morning. I can't quite believe that part.

---

It's hard right now.

It's hard keeping the pressure low on something I've been wanting to make happen for the last three years. It's hard trying to find the kind of uninterrupted brain space I used to have in spades. It's hard feeling like any of it matters when I don't have the usual validation that comes from sharing the whole thing on social media before moving into production.

But I really do believe keeping it to myself has been important! And figuring out a way to share it without relying on Instagram is important, too.

I know I'm going to release it this year. I know it's going to be magical. I know it's going to be worth it.

---

Speaking of which: Shing is (as usual) modeling some wonderful stuff around this right now. They gave Patrons, members of their Discord community, and subscribers to their email list first crack at pledging to the Strange Beast Tarot Deck Crowdfundr campaign. They did share to social media more broadly, but only after the folks nearest and dearest to the work had gotten their chance to pledge. I think this is so good. It retains accessibility, but values the people responsible for making this work possible in the first place.

I just went and spent some time with Roget's Thesaurus trying to figure out how I'd classify that distinction. Community vs. audience? Supporter vs. spectator? I'm still chewing on it. And the "support" I'm referencing isn't always material! It's just "people with a more pronounced interest in being close to the work," and I'm trying to remember how to put them first in everything I do.

---

Okay, enough rambling. Time for lunch!

L