I’m getting a few questions about Rita’s current status. Here’s the rundown:

As winter sets in, my productivity slows to a crawl; these past couple of weeks, I’ve been lucky if I could make myself focus on drawing for a single half hour. I love Seattle for a lot of other things but even with a 2′ square sun lamp I still shut down for a couple months. This year I started making noises about maybe migrating south for the worst of the winter, next year I might actually get together with a friend and do it. “Days” consisting of eight hours of grey skies just don’t work for a girl raised in the tropics like me.

Book 2 is ever so close to being ready for the printer. All I need to do is finish drawing the Kickstarter backers and the map of Rita’s travels through the Skylands that will be at the back of the book, then I can just drop those files in and send it off. Then I have a pile of books to ship. Thankfully I learnt from book 1 and severely limited how many I’ll have to draw in!

Book 3… hasn’t been touched at all. It’s in exactly the same state it was when I wrapped up book 2 – I’ve got the blue world all plotted out to the end, and haven’t spent any time thinking about how the red, orange, or green worlds really weave in and out of it. I need to be somewhere sunny with nothing but my notes and a lot of weed for about a week, then I’ll have it ready.

My current best guess for actually getting back to work is February or March; my original estimate of “a couple weeks off to deal with the book and some side projects” was comedically optimistic. Maybe next year I’ll have the sense to say “expect my next project to start sometime in spring 2015” when I finish Rita in winter ’14.

Here’s hoping your winter holidays have been pretty good, whether spent with family, friends, or in solitude.