FA+
Shop
Grymm? Where the Bloody Hell Are You?
12 years ago
I've been sitting on making this journal for a while. Namely due to time restraints. After all, writing takes time and that's time that can continued to be used to get drawing done. But I'm currently taking a littler breather after getting a few things done and sent off, so it feels like it's a good time to broadcast why my attendance here has been lacking for a while.
THE GOOD NEWS:
Obviously I am not dead. Nor have I "OHNOEZ QUITZ TEH FURRIEZ/ARTS WORLD. Nor am I intending to. There is no doom or gloomsaying here. No threats of leaving. No proclamations of LIFE TO HARD ME CRAWL IN HOLE.
No my friends. I'm still here. I've just been very busy, and very stressed, and so on. Which leads into the next part.
Since September, things have kind of been shit. Partly because life and circumstances heaping themselves on top of me one after the other, or through my own poor planning/decision making. It's really about half and half.
September through November I got dragged too far in to the local haunted hayride thing I work for every year. Having to spend entirely more time involved in that than I should have. Not even realizing it until November hit and I was left feeling like worn out as the zombie clothes hanging in tatters in the costuming cabinet.
November through December opted to chew me up and spit me out from the holiday and family angle. For the first time since I was a child, my family decided the holidays were very important this year. I have no questions about why this was. My parents are getting up their in age. They know they only have so much time left. They wanted to make sure they got quality holiday happiness time in and I won't begrudge them that.
All of this kept stalling out art production. I'd make progress here, than lose a week a other matters and non-commission duties. Some more progress there, and something would happen that would absolutely require my attention outside the studio for a few days.
But Christmas wrapped up and it looked like I was finally going to be able to get back in the groove. The first part of January was pretty good. I managed to go through about FOUR THOUSAND emails that piled up in my two business inboxes other the past few months (two-thirds of those easily being automated notices and such).
I got back on track with a lot of backlogged commissions and made progress there and then the last stint of January hit and the bottom fell out.
My mom fell rather grievously ill. Debilitating pain and bodily functions no longer functioning as they should type of ill. This of course led to an emergency room visit and lots of baffled, unknowing doctors and specialists and lots and lots and LOTS of tests and X-rays.
A week spent with tubes of all kinds hooked up to her led to the reveal that she had contracted that super hyper Australian ultra stomach flu. Okay. That can be dealt with. She seemed to be doing slightly better after that first week and talked her way into being released.
Bad idea. It hit her even worse than before and her digestive system more or less just stopped working. Back to the hospital, back to more tests, back to more X-rays and they find an abdominal mass.
Colon cancer. Malignant.
She went under the knife about a week ago now, and the entire unwelcome freeloader did get thoroughly evicted. But it left some mess that'll need mopping up with chemo. As of me writing this, she's still in the hospital and slowly recuperating.
I'm broadcasting all this to help explain limited activity here. All of these things, have worked together to throw me pretty completely off any kind of productions schedule I use to have. But things are slowly getting done. Slowly.
There is a metric ton of art that I have done that needs posting here, comics, commissions, personal art, fun stuff, design stuff. I just haven't had the time. I've been splitting my time between visiting mom, taking care of domestic stuff for her, seeing to my own daily business, and making art.
Amongst all this, I also lost my proper record keeping skills at some point too apparently. So that's something I need to get back to work on. I know almost for certain that there's commission that I owe that I've let fall through the cracks at this point. I'm going to do my best to get back on track and dig them back out of the cracks while working on others, but I'm also going to put this out there:
"If I owe you a commission, and you've been waiting a while, do not hesitate to send me a note here, or email me at either thebadgergrymm[at]gmail.com or grymm[at]voodoowalrus.com and remind me about it. It's tremendously unprofessional on my part and I hate to do it (it should be up to me to keep track of this stuff and contact you with updates) but it's the best course of action I can think of right now to maybe remind me of what I may have forgotten.
So... yeah. I think I've covered everything here. Maybe. I'm not sure. Right now my mom's health, and getting my commissioners what they're owed to them are my top priorities. An odd dichotomy. A parent's well being and smut/fan service/etc.
I'm going to start uploading again tonight or tomorrow after getting home from the hospital.
Folks, I adore you all. And I'm sorry for this.
THE GOOD NEWS:
Obviously I am not dead. Nor have I "OHNOEZ QUITZ TEH FURRIEZ/ARTS WORLD. Nor am I intending to. There is no doom or gloomsaying here. No threats of leaving. No proclamations of LIFE TO HARD ME CRAWL IN HOLE.
No my friends. I'm still here. I've just been very busy, and very stressed, and so on. Which leads into the next part.
Since September, things have kind of been shit. Partly because life and circumstances heaping themselves on top of me one after the other, or through my own poor planning/decision making. It's really about half and half.
September through November I got dragged too far in to the local haunted hayride thing I work for every year. Having to spend entirely more time involved in that than I should have. Not even realizing it until November hit and I was left feeling like worn out as the zombie clothes hanging in tatters in the costuming cabinet.
November through December opted to chew me up and spit me out from the holiday and family angle. For the first time since I was a child, my family decided the holidays were very important this year. I have no questions about why this was. My parents are getting up their in age. They know they only have so much time left. They wanted to make sure they got quality holiday happiness time in and I won't begrudge them that.
All of this kept stalling out art production. I'd make progress here, than lose a week a other matters and non-commission duties. Some more progress there, and something would happen that would absolutely require my attention outside the studio for a few days.
But Christmas wrapped up and it looked like I was finally going to be able to get back in the groove. The first part of January was pretty good. I managed to go through about FOUR THOUSAND emails that piled up in my two business inboxes other the past few months (two-thirds of those easily being automated notices and such).
I got back on track with a lot of backlogged commissions and made progress there and then the last stint of January hit and the bottom fell out.
My mom fell rather grievously ill. Debilitating pain and bodily functions no longer functioning as they should type of ill. This of course led to an emergency room visit and lots of baffled, unknowing doctors and specialists and lots and lots and LOTS of tests and X-rays.
A week spent with tubes of all kinds hooked up to her led to the reveal that she had contracted that super hyper Australian ultra stomach flu. Okay. That can be dealt with. She seemed to be doing slightly better after that first week and talked her way into being released.
Bad idea. It hit her even worse than before and her digestive system more or less just stopped working. Back to the hospital, back to more tests, back to more X-rays and they find an abdominal mass.
Colon cancer. Malignant.
She went under the knife about a week ago now, and the entire unwelcome freeloader did get thoroughly evicted. But it left some mess that'll need mopping up with chemo. As of me writing this, she's still in the hospital and slowly recuperating.
I'm broadcasting all this to help explain limited activity here. All of these things, have worked together to throw me pretty completely off any kind of productions schedule I use to have. But things are slowly getting done. Slowly.
There is a metric ton of art that I have done that needs posting here, comics, commissions, personal art, fun stuff, design stuff. I just haven't had the time. I've been splitting my time between visiting mom, taking care of domestic stuff for her, seeing to my own daily business, and making art.
Amongst all this, I also lost my proper record keeping skills at some point too apparently. So that's something I need to get back to work on. I know almost for certain that there's commission that I owe that I've let fall through the cracks at this point. I'm going to do my best to get back on track and dig them back out of the cracks while working on others, but I'm also going to put this out there:
"If I owe you a commission, and you've been waiting a while, do not hesitate to send me a note here, or email me at either thebadgergrymm[at]gmail.com or grymm[at]voodoowalrus.com and remind me about it. It's tremendously unprofessional on my part and I hate to do it (it should be up to me to keep track of this stuff and contact you with updates) but it's the best course of action I can think of right now to maybe remind me of what I may have forgotten.
So... yeah. I think I've covered everything here. Maybe. I'm not sure. Right now my mom's health, and getting my commissioners what they're owed to them are my top priorities. An odd dichotomy. A parent's well being and smut/fan service/etc.
I'm going to start uploading again tonight or tomorrow after getting home from the hospital.
Folks, I adore you all. And I'm sorry for this.
My best wishes to your and your mother. <3 It's great that things eventually got caught, but it's true it's a really painful, difficult situation. Hoping that she has a swift recovery, as easy as possible.
And I'd say this is the kind of thing people can understand. It's not like ya completely disappeared either; what with the actively faving things and whatnot. Although I won't lie that I was getting a little nervous with email reply time. XD
Good to hear that your mother is getting better. Just take your time, get things organised in a manner that suits you, and get back to the swing of things once you really feel like it. None of your watchers here or in other places and sites are going anywhere who understand.