2014 was good, and when I look back, I got a decent amount done! There were plenty of new stories, and plenty of new art, and I feel like I made a decent contribution to the community's content archives. A lot of that was through commissioning, which, frankly, I love. It doesn't pay that well (or, rather, I'm dreadfully slow), so drawing comes out to about $2/hour, and writing about $.50/hour, but fortunately I don't have to do either for a living! It makes for a bit of spending money for gifts I wouldn't be able to afford for the family otherwise, but most importantly, it lets me create something I *know* somebody is really interested in and will (hopefully) love. Having a guaranteed audience of one fan is often more rewarding than a wider, but very uncertain audience - especially since I sometimes like to experiment when I write for myself. That, combined with the fact that someone has paid, encourages me to actually write and draw in a timely, productive fashion; I feel a sense of responsibility to the commissioner I can't seem to generate for myself.

The only problem with commissions is that the whole time I'm doing it, I'm looking at my to-do list of my own projects continuing to pile up. Enter the world's tiniest record player, I know, but creatively it can be frustrating. Based on some past comments, I'm seriously considering creating a Patreon in the next month to try to bridge that gap. A Patreon will not replace commissioning, and I don't even intend it to be a significant source of spending money, but what I'd like to do is somehow trigger that same motivation that commissioning gives me - to produce, and on a decent timeline - but focus some of that on my own project list. I'm thinking of something minimal - a $1 per project buy-in to vote on which project I should work on next from a specified list, $2 buy-in to be copied on the drafting process, a higher buy-in to be able to suggest your own idea to be added to the voting list?

Admittedly, though I've spent quite a few hours skimming through Patreon trying to figure it out, I don't think I have, and I have a hard time believing something like this would attract more than one or two people at most, so... this blog! For those of you familiar with Patreon, what ideas can you suggest? How do you think I could craft this to focus on my own to-do list, but still appeal to others? What kind of benefits and bonuses could I offer that wouldn't end up taking up more time that I can't spend on the big projects? Are people interested in being beta readers, getting early drafts and concept stages, maybe getting to select scenes for illustrations?

Lay your opinions on me!