The Price I’ve Paid For Being Poor

In the winter of 2006, I made a bold decision: I quit a fairly good job and decided to return to college to finish my undergraduate degree.

One of the hardest things about this decision was that my wife and I would effectively cut our income in half so that I could be a full-time student; while we’d been able to afford many things when I’d been working, we had to make the decision to “scale back” on our lifestyle so we could survive on a reduced income.

A year and a half later, as I’m nearly finished with school, things have gotten tough. Like most people in the US, we’re getting hurt by the wildly increasing costs of food and fuel, but since we’re on a reduced income, we feel it even more than a lot of folks. It’s resulted in us cutting back wherever possible — while we ate out regularly when I was working, we can only afford to do so once a month now, and we often try to eat at places where the portions are large so we can take the leftovers home for a second (and sometimes, third!) meal. We avoid fast food altogether, and we’ve started to shop at discount grocery stores like Aldi and the Hostess/Wonder Bread Thrift stores to keep our day-to-day expenses down. We both drive low-frill, fuel-efficient cars, and we’ve tried to reduce our driving as much as possible; this isn’t easy to do, though, since I have a part-time job in St. Louis and have to drive 40 miles to school every day. (Fortunately, my wife’s job is right around the corner, which offsets my driving a bit.)

But all that cost-cutting still isn’t enough, because we’re still struggling to pay our bills. Under the old system, I bought a lot of stuff, whenever I wanted it — books, video games, DVDs and toys. Now, I’m faced with the task of packing a lot of this stuff up and selling it on Half.com, because I’m too busy to get any joy out of it, and too broke to be able to afford to keep it around. And it’s tough, because some of this stuff has sentimental value, while other items are just things I’d like to say I own, even if I never use them. For example, I’m selling off my graphic novel collection because I never read the things, but it bugs me terribly that should I want to read them, I won’t have the option.

All of this has put me into somewhat of a funk, because whether I like to admit it or not, I’m attached to my stuff, and I really hate to get rid of it. Never mind that it just sits around the house, collecting dust; never mind that I often forget that I even have it. It’s my STUFF, darn it, and I hate the fact that I’m so poor that I have to sell it off just so I can buy groceries, pay my bills and put gas in my car.

Now, my situation will improve once I start grad school this fall, so don’t feel sorry for me… hopefully, my suffering is merely temporary. But while I’m feeling sorry for myself and moping about how much it sucks to be poor, I’ve decided to try to learn from this experience and pass on some of the things I’ve realized in the process. Read more »

I’ve finally decided on a title for my educational series…

I’ll save the big news for a press release, but the minor news is worth a post: over the weekend, I finally decided on a title for my series of educational graphic novels featuring two predators that get in each other’s way.

The title will be Code of the Wild, and the first book in the series will be fully titled Code of the Wild: Timber Wolves vs. Wolverines. We’ll follow up with some similar titles, all to be announced as soon as the cover artwork is finished and the company’s financials are fully worked out.

Exciting, huh? I thought so. And don’t think I’ve given up on my other pet project, Minus World… I’ll share more when I’m ready to announce something, but things are looking very good on the MW front…

So I’ve left Dabel Brothers Publishing…

I’ve been receiving several inquiries from friends and colleagues who have heard that I’ve left Dabel Brothers Publishing.

Yes, I have left, for good. Yes, I’m mildly annoyed about it, and yes, it was because I chose to, and not because I was forced to.

I’ve had enough inquiries that I’m going to tell the story. But I’m not one to air dirty laundry, and I won’t be explaining the intricate details of this company. Pretty much everything here is public knowledge already. Instead, I’ll offer a brief survey of the experience, and it will be my final word on the matter.

In August, 2002, my then-friend Mike S. Miller introduced me to Les Dabel, who had just started a small comic book company called Roaring Studios that was already in trouble. It had published two books — The Rift and Waterdogs, and was about to go under. Mike had been hired on as the artist for their licensed project, The Hedge Knight, and I was hired on to handle the book’s PR. My first job — to write a letter to the guys working on the other books to let them know their books were canceled, and to write up a press release about The Hedge Knight. We also had several other projects on the horizon: Marshal, North and South, Fatal Sword, Hymns, Legacy and Roaring Monthly. To show you how idealistic we were in those days, check out this press release I wrote for the Roaring Monthly:

Read more »

[Journal] – I Guess I DO Know What I’m Talking About…

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I’m a member of the American Marketing Association. This year, I entered the annual student case competition with a team from my school. The case involved McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a textbook publisher that’s trying to figure out how to enhance its presence on the web and make more sales directly to students.

My team met weekly, and I was able to put my knowledge of publishing to great use. We shaped a great concept for an online marketplace that would even allow McGraw-Hill to take advantage of used book buying and selling without incurring any inventory costs, and we backed it up with a campus consumer program to make sure the website would be well-used. I took our notes and wrote up the bulk of the proposal, made some corrections with the input from the team, handed it over to our team leader, and went on a cruise, promptly putting the case competition out of my mind.

Read more »