I don't suffer from short-term commitment loss. I'm a graphic artist!

For the past, oh, six months or so I've been balancing -- and when I say balancing I mean juggling, and why I say juggling what I really mean to say is working on several short stories (one a candidate for an anthology) and a few others an ongoing project with a few friends of mine, an iPhone video game app (with all the art done by yours truly), and an RPG game setting that if all goes well on that front will be publishing sometime next year.

But as will all projects, a deadline isn't a deadline until it's broken.

Good thing I don't have newsroom editors anymore, cuz crazy talk like that is just asking for trouble.

I was a newspaper designer for many years, so juggling projects even on deadline isn't really stressful.

Right now, it's finding the time to concentrate.

Designing A1s, Section covers, doubletrucks, you name it, for me like being a flowing river. I can work slowly, gently and find the idea, and then blitz over rocks, and then roar around bends. Design has always been easy to do. Problem is when I'm in the zone, everyone around me notices.

It just happens.

I start by warming myself up. Could be anything from checking Facebook or e-mail to calling a friend I haven't heard from in a while. And if it takes an hour to catch up, so what. Work can wait, because in the end, when I start designing my fingers are flying across the keyboard and holding down those hot keys.

A few hours later, I've got a mock-up, or a shell, as its referred to on the inside. A few rounds of does it work, does it flow, does it make sense, is it the right vision, the right message, the right art, and then its off to the finishing touches--unless its ripped because the news changed. Happens. I've designed an A1 twice in twenty minutes. Sounds monumental, but not really. Only some story packages get reworked.

That's the nature of the biz.

So, with all this experience is it any wonder that I'm always juggling a few projects simultaneously?

Nope.

The goal is to balance them and complete them.

So, here's to completing them, while doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, finding time for a shower and brushing my teeth, oh, and going to grocery store.

Hot keys, my friends and readers. It's all about the hot keys!