State ‘o the Wombat

This month had been goin’ pretty slow–it was looking like a rather down month in terms of cash flow, which I was chalking up to having spent the vast majority of it hammering out happy frogs and the occasional mercenary. But then, lo! A cover payment came through, and it was an average month, and then I sold a slew of originals in the last two days (most of them small, but a medium in there too) and it was suddenly a rather good month–perhaps not a staggering, earthshaking what-the-hell-has-Money-Frog-been-smoking month like July, but still a respectable month. Money Frog, perhaps having been slacking around smokin’ weed for several weeks, evidentally suddenly realized that it was nearly the end of the month and went nuts, like a college student burning the midnight oil to get a big paper done by 8 AM the next day. (I don’t know what exactly he does, mind you. I have a vague mental image that it involves wearing a little headband of coins with square holes in the middle and doing a little dance around the stack of loose change that he has acquired. Whether his dancing is hindered by only having three legs is anybody’s guess.)

While there’s still a few hours yet to go in the month, and another payment could yet come through and throw my numbers off, it looks tentatively as if it’s 3:1 for sales over commissions, which squares with the usual numbers, and reaffirms my desire to stop spending the majority of my time on commissions. (Of course, I just sent off an invoice which, if/when it’s paid, will nuke my averages completely, but I’ll worry about that when it actually happens–one of the Great Laws of Freelancing is “The money isn’t real until you’ve actually cashed the check.” This is almost as important as “You will have no other god above the deadline.”)

So things are going well, making major inroads on the taxes, slowly whittling down the bills. Compared to where we were a year ago, when the wolf was not just at the door but sitting in the living room, taking his shoes off and making himself comfy, it’s a vast improvement. I am grateful, and being non-religious, I am mostly grateful to my friends, family, and fan base, without whom none of it would be possible. It’s not even the buying art (although that helps a lot!) but the constant encouragement and enthusiasm I get from y’all is greatly appreciated. It’s easy to get jaded–it’d take a better woman than I not to glaze over after the 500th “OMG u r liek so c00l!” Elfwood comment–but I really do appreciate it, gang. I have not yet gotten over the belief (and may never get over it) that looking at my work is a sort of personal favor undertaken at some personal cost, rather like reading a manuscript, and the fact that so many people keep doing it (and will come back to yell at me to raise my prices, to boot) always makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

But I’m sure you don’t come here for the sentimentality, so I’ll shut up now. *grin*