how I'm doing / work update!

Hey all! I wanted to update you on the status of my work, and how I've been doing in general! This month's bonus pic is late. I'm so sorry about that. It's in the works right now, and I hope you all like it! 🙏 I'll be posting it up as soon as I can!

In the past I've touched on health issues and things that sometimes cause me to be unable to meet my usual deadlines, so you may have known about some of these things already, but I wanted to bring up what I'm dealing with right now.

(If you want to skip it, health/personal life discussion is in the box below)

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I've been struggling with chronic illness the past month that has been more severe and disruptive to daily life than usual. The past year has been worse than usual partially because I've moved away from most routine treatment options that my insurance will cover, and I can't afford to pay the out of pocket costs on my current income. 

I normally make the bulk of my income from commissions to support me and my spouse, and when I'm sick and unable to complete commissions at the rate I normally can, I fall behind and I pull out of our savings to pay bills. We're fortunate to have savings at all, but it still scares me. It scares me because this is a condition I will always have, and while I have been healthier than ever in some ways, my chronic pain can flare up seemingly out of nowhere.

Most of the time, pain is something I can find ways to cope with, but it often coincides with anxiety and panic attacks, stomach problems, and that all kind of makes me feel sick and messed up. It's really hard to make art when it's bad like that. It's not every day, and I eventually start to feel more capable and get back to my normal rhythm. But I feel like it's important to share what I am going through, because I know many people support my art and also want to support me as an individual. Some of my patrons are my friends, too, and I find it hard to be completely honest and tell most people directly when I'm not feeling well.

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I've been considering doing a more goal-based Patreon tier or something like that, so I can share how much I need to make to keep up with our expenses and what my financial goals are. I also have ideas for merch that I'm excited about, which will hopefully help provide a little more passive income to allow for more sick days. Once I'm caught up with my work and am ready to share my merch ideas, I'll post them here!
The main merch ideas I have involve cute and useful goods that are printed with original character art and some text that centers around celebration of queer identities (and also some more "proactive" sentiments, because I've wanted to make my own "trans rights are human rights" merch for a while, anyway).

Commissions will also be opening Soon(TM) to patrons, whenever my queue is down to just a few less projects. It's been a while since I've opened commissions, so I hope to fit in as many folks as I can!

Thanks so much for reading this, and thank you for choosing to support me directly with your money, whatever amount it may be. I also appreciate everything that you do to support me that doesn't involve money - especially now while social media is a huge dumpster fire. If you retweet my art / share links to my art with your friends / tell friends I exist when they're looking for some nice LGBTQ-centric art (and not just NSFW art!), that all helps a ton! 

And thanks for being patient with me. I will have more art up for you soon! :D