Beginnings: The Importance of Community in the Self-Publishing Journey

Welcome to the beginning of my self-publishing journey!

I started writing and telling stories in my early childhood and would spend hours and hours telling my sister stories at bedtime. At around age 12, I was writing fantasy fiction stories for fun based on my favourite video-games. As life went on, I continued to write and draw every so often, but creating an online community for my close friends to complete monthly art challenges really helped me back onto the path of creative expression. So here we are, almost a month since I published my first children's book!

​I hope you take some time to explore and indulge in my world, you'll find plenty of joy, love and growth in my stories - whether it be contained in a book or my own life story. If you'd like to follow my journey, please sign up to the newsletter.

A drawing of myself with two of my best friends

"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.” – Moliere

Having an accountability partner (or partners) is possibly the best method for achieving anything in life. At least, that's what I've found anyway. For some reason, knowing you are working on something at the same time as others makes it all that much easier - even if you are working on your own individual projects. And that is exactly what I did on my self-publishing journey.

The Art Discord

I decided one year to set up a Discord server for all my creative friends and their friends and so forth. I set a monthly theme to inspire people to work on and asked for everyone to post their work at the end of the month. In addition to that, one of my dearest friends (as pictured above, on the right), hosted a weekly "art stint" where we could join in and work on any project we liked for roughly an hour. She set it up so well structurally, and I'll admit it's probably the reason I managed to publish a book as soon as I did (it was written, illustrated and published within a year!).

Art Stints

Here's the basic structure of an "art stint"

1. Everyone joins the voice channel at a set time each week.

2. We catch up briefly and then from the top of the list to the bottom, each person says what they would like to work on for the duration of the art stint (once I was so late and out of sorts that my goal for the first ten minutes was to finish my bowl of Saltana Bran).

3. After everyone has declared what they wish to work on, the host starts a ten minute timer. Everyone "mutes" themselves and we have an uninterrupted ten minutes of work.

4. Once the ten minutes ends, the host summons everyone to unmute and from the top of the list to the bottom, each person comments on their progress. Sometimes we post "work in progress" art, or if someone needs help they might post a drawing for others to add bits and pieces to as a way to help with proportions/angles and so on.

5. Once everyone has discussed their progress another timer is set - this time for fifteen minutes.

6. At the end of the fifteen minute stint, everyone returns/unmutes and shares again.

7. Then another timer is set for twenty minutes. This is the final stint and we share our last bit of progress at the end.

Overall, having a creative community and a weekly "art stint" are fantastic ways to create accountability and a sense of community. I highly recommend creating one with your friends!