Today is a Self-Care Day

I woke up around 6:30 this morning, and for the first four or so hours of waking, found myself completely in the wrong frame of mind to get a comic done for Alex’s Guide today, so I decided it was best to take a day off.

Since I don’t have to work again until Monday night, I get to be a Daywalker this weekend!  I’m currently at a coffee shop sipping a latte with cinnamon powder as I write down planning notes for The Hues, my upcoming comic series.  It seemed like a good idea to get myself out of the house, and the change of scenery is doing good things for me.  It was a rough morning full of self-flagellation at not updating A’sG, so I’m trying to remember to be kind to myself and doing something good for myself.

I’m also working to let myself face my current depression and feel my feelings, instead of shoving everything into the back of my mind to let it fester, like I have been doing all this year.

I got lunch at the local Japanese supermarket, which sells bento, sushi, and onigiri; something I’ve been craving lately.  And this particular coffee shop is where the local cartoonist group (Sunday Comix) usually meets on Wednesday nights, so I figured it would be a good idea to go hang out somewhere I associate with being creative.  I have gone to precious few Sunday Comix meetings this year, thanks to my third-shift schedule.  Most of the time, unless I plan my week very carefully, I just can’t wake up early enough to attend meetings (which are from 6pm to 8pm) and still get enough rest to go to work and not feel like crap.

Sunday Comix is something I’ve missed very much this year.  I started going to the meetups about this time a year ago, but then in January, my schedule changed to nights.  I tried to keep up with the group, but my schedule and workload proved to be too demanding to do both, so I haven’t attended a meeting in several months, unfortunately.

BUT ANYWAYS.  Today I’m sitting here in the coffee shop working on the development for The Hues.  I’ve got my notebook of All Things Hues that has a few pages of notes I wrote over a year ago, so I’m going back over it to see what I like and what I don’t like now, and adding other ideas I’ve had since I picked the project back up a few months ago.

Lo and behold, I found a rough plot for volume 1 that I think I can start building from.  What I’m concentrating on today is roughing out some of the character arcs I want to tackle over the series, which will span three “seasons,” as it were.

Alex Heberling

Alex Heberling here. I own the place.