The end of web side projects
I still love working on the web. I still love building stuff that people can use but after 16 years building digital products, I'm finding the last thing I want to do when I get home is spend more time at a computer...
When I was younger, I used to spend most of my free time doing shit on the web. I'd spend weekends designing and redesigning my personal blog just to play around. I'd think nothing of staring at a computer from 9-5 then head home and spend another 5 hours doing the same.
These days I can't, and I mean literally can't. I just don't have that sort of free time anymore with a young family. More importantly than can't is the fact that I don't want to do it.
I'm still in my early 30s so I say this with full knowledge of how ridiculous the phrase is but as I get older, I think more and more about the intangibility of working on digital products. About 90% of everything I've ever worked on is gone - poof! Never to be seen again.
I think I'm yearning for something more tangible in exchange for my free time. It's why I'm focusing a lot on making comics and still drawing with pencils and ink.
As such, I've decided I'm going to stop saying "yes" to digital side-projects. I've got one I'm working on right now but after this I'm focusing on comics and making things you can hold in your hands.