Summary if you don't want or need a big explanation:

I have made a new Trello board that organizes every single comission I currently have in my queue into a month by month layout. This way you all can clearly see at a glance when I will start, and hopefully finish, your commission. They are organized by the date they were ordered, excluding some special case commissions. To find your name easily, simply use ctrl+F to find your card.

If you feel the wait for your commission is too long and you would like a refund, please contact me via Commissio or email (https://malachyte.weebly.com/contact.html) and we will work something out! If details about your commission have changed in the time you've waited, please continue to wait to update info until work begins on your commission; I will be reconfirming all commission details at that time.

For the last half a year, I have been setting aside time to learn more about freelance business, organization, and self-management. Before now it's been almost entirely trial and error, which is how I ended up with an overloaded queue starting about two years ago. I thought if I just kept my nose to the grindstone and worked hard, I'd get through it in no time. But it's very apparent that it's just not physically possible; it's time to work smarter, not harder. I've been making small adjustments to how and when I add to my queue, to balance living needs with queue length, and I think I've more or less arrived at a way to work through this.

My goal is to complete all orders from 2021 by December, 2022.

To make sure this is possible, I've done the math on how many workdays I have available in each month, minus days off, holidays and sick time, and tallied out the amount of work hours I have available to me. Some of those hours are also set aside for streaming and Subscribe Star content. Using that number, I went through each commission and totaled up the estimated hours it would take to complete, and mapped the Trello board you see here. I find I work better with loose, but clear, deadlines, and I think this will play into that natural desire for me very nicely.

Obviously this is not 100% concrete, as I'm sure things will arise that change plans as they always do. But even if things come up, I should be able to loosely stick with this and get through things by the end of December. To make money in the interim, I will be relying almost exclusively on stream commissions and SubscribeStar income. If those two fall short, then my backup plan is opening for small rounds of sketch pages (I'm talking no more than 5 at a time).

As an additional backup plan; if by the end of September things are not on track in a satisfactory way, I will resign myself to finding a temporary job in retail. This is the least ideal situation for me, as time and again I've seen how damaging that sort of job can be for me. But the weight of this queue is just as bad, if not worse, and I want to be able to work freely and confidently again on art, no baggage.

To everyone reading this; thank you for the incredible patience you've shown me. I know this has been a tough few years for everybody, not just myself, and it means a lot to be given that level of understanding and forgiveness as we fight our way through life as it is right now. I look forward to fully righting my business, and creating some beautiful artwork with you all. Despite the anxiety this situation with my queue has caused, there's hardly a day that goes by that I don't still love creating commissioned artwork. I mean it when I say that partnering with someone to bring their idea to life is one of the most beautiful and fulfilling things I can do.

If you have any additional questions, feel free to leave a comment, send a note, or contact me on my website.

Trello Board Link