Moving Forward - October 2026 Update
In This Post
Sharing a commission piece with you all
An update on my upcoming DTIYS challenge
A reminder about the giveaway this month
My next in-person event
And my plans for the future of Deus Ex Machina
Happy October, everybody!
These last 2 months since my last update have been simultaneously busy and not busy at all. Thanks to my personal medical situation, I’ve been taking a bit of a break from all things creative. Between that and the crunch for my first comic con back in August, frankly I had no desire to create, and my mental health was tanked. That said, after stepping away from it all and taking a week-long vacation with my husband, I can confidently say that I’m feeling much better lately, and I’m looking forward to stepping back into creative work in the months ahead.
I haven’t been completely idle though! I have no new Deus Ex Machina stories to share at the moment, but I have been re-evaluating my writing schedule and assessing my project priorities. I’ll go more into my plan for DEM releases later on in this post. I’ve also done a few little sketches and doodles largely for myself, and I’m continuing to chip away at a large, complex piece of Cecily and Dilucos for an upcoming Draw This in Your Style (DTIYS) challenge I’m hoping to run soon. I also did my first ever non-chibi commission piece!
Commission Work
I love drawing chibis, but there was something special about working on something in my standard style for someone else. Many thanks to the person who commissioned me, I hope they enjoyed the piece. With their permission, I’m sharing it here for you to see as well. It features Eddie the Head from Iron Maiden and Hatsune Miku in a noir/gunslinger style! It was such a fun challenge to draw these characters, and though I was in the depths of my burnout at the time, I enjoyed stretching my wings a bit with drawing a couple new faces. It was a refreshing change of pace.
If you’re interested in a commission like this, you can find my commission sheet and price estimates here. This particular piece was purchased under my “Monochrome/Grayscale” tier, currently going for about $30-$60 depending on complexity. If you’ve read the illustrated edition of Promise of Night, you’ll probably recognize this as the same style I did those illustrations in. I love the rough and textured feel to this style, where it’s somewhere between a sketch and a fully-rendered piece, mimicking some of my favorite traditional mediums like charcoal in a digital format. I think any future illustrated books I release will probably utilize this style as well, so expect to see more of it in the future!
My commissions are and continue to stay open, so feel free to send me a request at any time if you’re interested! A reminder that if you have an idea for a piece that’s not listed among my options, you can submit a custom request with your idea and I’ll work with you to negotiate pricing. Please note that I am also available for commercial commissions, read my terms of service if you’re interested in that option. I’m also still offering free chibi doodles with any commission as well, so be sure to toggle that option upon submission request if you’d like one.
The DTIYS Challenge
Some of you who follow my Instagram probably already know about this, but I’ve been trying to get another Draw This In Your Style challenge ready. Naturally, I decided to make the piece ridiculously complicated, ha! So, I’ve been chipping away at it for a few months now. I finally finished the inks on it, check it out:
Now I’m on to color. Keeping in the spirit of “ridiculously complicated,” I decided to change up my coloring approach for this one too, and after playing around with color schemes and thumbnails for several hours, I’ve finally settled on a look. I’ve noticed that I tend to default to pretty simplistic color schemes, drifting to monochromatic or analogous palettes every time. I suppose they feel safe and familiar, and I know they’ll come out nice enough. This time I wanted to challenge myself with a bold, mixed palette (triadic, if you want specifics). It’s not my first attempt at a mixed palette, but I’m convinced that I’ll make this one my first mixed palette that I actually like. The last couple years have been a season of change and growth for me, and I’d like to carry that forward into my art as well. So, I’m going to keep pushing to improve my work and experiment with new things. Lately, I’ve wanted that to be in the form of color variation.
Keep your eyes open for the final version of this piece and the opening of this DTIYS challenge and what the prizes will be. While I’ll probably announce the contest here on my blog, I’ll be accepting submissions to it through my Instagram account, so be sure to follow me there if you aren’t already.
Speaking of Prizes...
The raffle drawing for the handbound, hardcover copy of Promise of Night is fast approaching. If you haven’t signed up for my blog updates yet, make sure you do so before October 17th, that way you’ll be entered for a chance to win a copy! Also a reminder that this raffle is only available to my U.S. readers for now, but I’m hoping to do a few different raffles in the future that will include my international readers as well. I’ll keep you posted.
Another In-Person Event
On Saturday, October 10th I will be attending my public library’s Local Author Celebration. This is a small event, and the book fair portion where I’ll be available to chat and sign/sell books is only from 2-4 PM, but if you happen to live around the Cheyenne, Wyoming area feel free to come and say hi to me or check out any of the other featured authors! It’s a free event, open to anyone, so I’d love to see you there! I’ll be selling illustrated paperback copies of Promise of Night as well handbound booklets of 5 of my short stories.
Here’s the address if you think you can make it:
Laramie County Library
2200 Pioneer Ave Cheyenne, WY
Saturday, October 10 from 2-4 PM
Where DEM is Going from Here...
Phew, now that all that’s out of the way (so sorry about the marketing dump, I would much rather chat about writing, but ya know, I’d like to get my work out there) let’s talk about my plans for Deus Ex Machina!
I’ve had a couple spinning plates for a while for DEM. Okay, actually, a lot of spinning plates. While I’m pretty good about keeping my attention on DEM-related content, I do tend to jump from project to project within that. For example, writing multiple short stories at one time, or brainstorming books and artwork that I can’t release for a long while. I didn’t used to be that way, in fact for many years I was working almost exclusively on The Book of Luna, the core novel series that all my work stems from. Lately, however, I’ve allowed myself to get distracted. Some good things came out of it, like the publication of my first ever print book, or dozens of short stories and art pieces that allowed me to attend events and open a shop. But… I still haven’t finished The Book of Luna, which is the only reason that DEM exists at all. In some ways, while I’m proud of my achievements to this point, it feels a little hollow that I still haven’t completed the one thing I set out to do 10 years ago.
A few weeks back, I set myself down and took a hard look at all of my current WIPs for DEM. The list was longer than I care to admit. So I cut it back to three things that I really wanted to see done sooner rather than later:
The audiobook version of Promise of Night
A printed compilation of Tales of Auroris, which would include most of my shorts that are already on my website
Completion of The Book of Luna
I told my husband about my pared down version of my goals.
“The audiobook will only take a couple months of work, since it’s already written.”
“Okay.”
“And the short story collection will take a few more months, since I want to edit and improve them, and add one new story to the collection. Also I want to illustrate them, and that will take some time…”
“Okay… What about your book?”
Because it’s well-known in my close circle that my book, the book, has always been The Book of Luna. This was what he was referring to.
“Well… I’ve been thinking about it. Initially, I wanted to release the book in shorter parts, but then I realized that things were going to change further on down the storyline as I continued my re-writes, and I thought maybe it would be better if I re-wrote the full thing before I start releasing anything, so everything’s ready to release at the same time.”
“I thought you said the first installment was 3 different books.”
“Well, sort of. But it’s kind of still a single book, it’s meant to be read back to back because The Book of Luna is one continuous story. I just can’t release it as a single book because it would be way too long.”
“How long is too long?”
“Probably around 220k words.”
“...”
“So editing the full thing will take me 2.5 years, give or take. But I really, really don’t want to take that long.”
“What’s wrong with releasing it in parts?”
“Well I was going to, but what happens if I finish the early sections and have to completely redo the later sections because of it? What if I write myself into a corner and can’t fix it because it’s already released?”
“Who cares? Just release the first part and worry about the later sections when you get there.”
“I mean, that was my original plan, but-”
“Then do it! How long will it take you to finish only the first part?”
“... Roughly 8 months if that’s all I’m working on.”
“Then just do that!”
“What about the other two projects? The audiobook for Promise and the story collection?”
“I mean, those things are cool and all, and your readers would probably like them, but you keep releasing the DLC before you’ve released the main game, and if you keep doing that you’re eventually going to lose your readers because you still haven’t delivered on the book you promised them.”
“I’ve promised a lot of things that I still haven’t delivered.”
“Exactly. So stop making more promises and just work on the book until it’s done.”
Yeah, it’s not the first time I’ve been told that by him, or even a couple of my friends, but for some reason the idea is actually sticking this time. All of that to say, I believe that starting this month, I’m going to start working exclusively on Act 1 of The Book of Luna until it’s complete. This means you can expect a late summer release in 2027. All other projects will be pushed to the sidelines. I will continue my blog (my first writing tutorial is already out, btw), I will open my shop, I’ll do commission work, and I’ll attend in-person events as I see fit. But when it comes to writing or drawing, most of my attention will be on this. Now, if I incidentally feel like working on something else on the side during my free time, I can do that, but I won’t be scheduling in time exclusively for that anymore, because I don’t want to take away time from the main project.
This feels like a natural progression since stepping back from social media. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been tempted to share or post about a writing snippet I’ve completed, or a sketch I started, and I had to tell myself “no.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sharing your process or looping people into what it looks like to be a writer/artist, but I’ve started to notice that my desire behind the sharing has shifted. It used to be that I shared because I remember what it was like to be a young writer looking for guidance, so I shared what I would have wanted to see at that age. But lately, I’ve been sharing for a different reason: validation. And with that came comparison, perfectionism, and the feeling that I had to perform for an audience. It came with feeling like I was chasing my own tail, scrambling between projects, asking people’s opinions on every little thing, every little decision, indulging every whim while I allowed my self-discipline to fall to the wayside. I’m still surprised I allowed myself to drift so far from the main goal. I’d like to change that. I want to rediscover that unshakeable passion for a single project that I used to have.
There are so many factors that have come into play in recent years that I think led to this drift, so I don’t think I can point the finger at one particular thing. Regardless of how I got in this hole, I know how I can get out of it again. It’s showing up every day and working on the heart of DEM. It’s re-learning how to create art for myself first and everyone else second. It’s learning to be content with leaving some things unfinished until the most important things are done. It’s ignoring the whim to start something different when it gets hard, and sticking to my guns until I work through it. And, it’s knowing when to share and when not to (or when I should wait to share). That’s the hardest part for me. I’m a chronic over-sharer, if you haven’t noticed by now. But I’ve learned that if I share too much too quickly, that’s when I start seeking validation, and that’s when I spiral. Either I get the validation I’m looking for and I start chasing more of it to the detriment of everything else, or I don’t feel validated and I lose motivation until I stop altogether. So, I’m trying to learn the delicate art of balancing my creative wants and needs.
I’m not sure if any of that makes sense. I suppose part of learning this is being okay with it only making sense to me. Although, I suspect I’m not alone in this feeling.
So, where is Deus Ex Machina going from here? Hopefully, only forward. I’ll keep posting here on my blog until we get there.
Happy wanderings, friends. See you in the next post.
~ Puritatem per lunae lumen ~
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