{"id":650,"date":"2016-04-18T19:51:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T19:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katrina.effexhost.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/18\/the-struggle-is-real\/"},"modified":"2025-01-09T04:24:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T04:24:25","slug":"the-struggle-is-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/18\/the-struggle-is-real\/","title":{"rendered":"The Struggle is Real"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’m tired and not the normal kind of tired. I call this depression tired..this unnatural need\/desire to sleep all of the time. I feel as if I only have the energy to be up for tiny pockets of time and then I want to sleep again. It’s hard to function when all you want to do is sleep and even though you battle, there’s no real winning the war.<\/p>\n

I know what triggered this, but like the battle for energy, there’s nothing I can do to change the cause. I went to a convention last weekend and it was good. It was wonderful being back out among people and not just any people, but people who love indie comics as much as I do. I even helped do a panel which was amazing. It felt so good to talk about things that I knew and to have zero doubt that I knew what I was talking about.<\/p>\n

I have to admit just remembering that experience has put a smile on my face. You see..I had planned on writing a personal post about my time in Columbus, but this wasn’t it. It is now. You never know where things are going to go when you sit down to write, or at least I don’t.<\/p>\n

So, here’s the thing…Columbus was a test for me. For the past year, I’ve shut myself off more and more. Some have noticed, most haven’t. It’s easy to hide when you don’t live near anyone and everyone is so busy with their lives that they don’t notice when you quietly slip away. Very few reach out and say hey, where did you go? I’m lucky that very few doesn’t equal zero. Still, I needed some answers.<\/p>\n

As I shut myself away, I slowly convinced myself that my other site would be better off without me. I wasn’t sure if I still had the passion to do what needed to be doing. After all, the best person to run a site is someone who feels passionate about what the site does. With the struggles I’ve had over the past year, I wasn’t sure if that person was me anymore. So, I decided that I needed to either find out or hand the site over to my second in command.<\/p>\n

The test? Take myself off to a convention that is strictly 100% tiny indie comics..no vendors, no larger indie publishers that we already work with, just tiny indie guys. I figured that by the end of the weekend, I would know just how I felt about the industry and my future with Geek-o-Rama<\/a>. Turns out that I was right. By the time I got back to the hotel room Sunday night and had a chance to reflect, I had my answers. I still love what I do. I love meeting new people and hearing about their passion for an industry that isn’t the easiest to break into. I love being able to give bits of advice (though seriously, I may need to start charging consulting fees) and being able to share what I (and my amazing staff) do with them. Don’t get me wrong, I still love working with the bigger indie publishers, but my heart will always lie with the underdog.<\/p>\n

Honestly, it came as an incredible relief. I was afraid that this was one more thing that had been taken from me. It wasn’t though and over the summer, I plan on diving back into the pool and working harder than ever.<\/p>\n

To close out this post, how about a Top 5 list of random things from SPACE 2016?<\/p>\n

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  1. Spending $5 to purchase an 11 year old’s first comic and an art print from her is something that will never stop bringing a smile to my face. It’s important to support our children’s passions.<\/li>\n
  2. Having towels in your hotel room is really a good thing and hotels should be on top of that.<\/li>\n
  3. There’s something great about making random connections on the road with people you’ll never see again, but in that moment, you connected.<\/li>\n
  4. Waffle House post con with two really fun people is an experience that I hope to have again. One of the toughest parts of conventions is the sitting alone in a hotel room with takeout afterwards.<\/li>\n
  5. I really do love what I do and I need to stop letting anxiety get in the way of getting out there.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    I’m tired and not the normal kind of tired. I call this depression tired..this unnatural need\/desire to sleep all of the time. I feel as if I only have the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2245,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/2245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}