Joi Massat

Life Keeps Moving

I haven’t been making much time to write lately. Some of it is familial obligations; some of it is me deliberately pushing it aside.

5 Things I Learned from Cartoon Pitch Bibles

Lately I’ve been interested in the “foundational texts” of cartoons, so much so that I’ve compiled a list of just about every one I could find online. In reading a bunch, I’ve learned some fascinating things about them—and about creative work in general. Like…

Every Cartoon Pitch and Writer’s Bible on Archive.org

Here’s a collection of every document I could find on the website that I am reasonably sure was actually used to pitch, or write episodes for, a network-produced animated series. If you find another document, comment below!

Oh, and I encourage you to download any documents you really don’t want to lose track of. It’s quick, free, and easy! Things have been taken down from Archive.org before—including pitches.

Your Audience Wants to Like You

You are an artist. You are afraid of heckling on the internet. But if you’re gonna overcome the block and put anything out there, you either have to throw all caution to the wind or hold strong in the conviction that your audience wants to like you.

5 Things I Regret About “The Demon Lord is Apathetic”

In honor of me finally troubleshooting all the problems out of this paperback edition of The Demon Lord is Apathetic, I have made this post…criticizing it?

Look, I did put a lot of work into this story and I do think it’s enjoyable enough to warrant a spot on the shelf. But I did make some poor decisions with it. So let’s take a look and move from small-scale stuff that possibly nobody but me noticed to the big picture.

You don’t need to have read the story to read this post. Extremely minor spoilers ahead!

Don’t Keep Going for the Easy Win

Lately I’ve fallen into the trap of sacrificing harder creative work for tedious-but-predictable busywork. How to crawl out of the trap?

New Ebook Live (and FREE, for a limited time): The Demon Lord is Apathetic

All members of my Patreon (INCLUDING the free members who are basically just using it like a monthly newsletter) can download the EPUB and PDF of this illustrated action-comedy from now until June 23rd. (Offer now expired, but here’s the page for history’s sake. The ebook, and soon the paperback, can be found for sale here.)

And/or read on. This is a quick little post about a not-so-quick, not-that-little story. Seriously, this PDF is 780 pages and everything had to be finely massaged to fit Amazon’s paperback printing regulations. (It’s still too long for hardback. Needs more massaging. Maybe someday.)

The Downward Spiral of Self-Deprecation

So I’m going through life, and something innocuous hits me wrong. I don’t feel like being specific, so…let’s pretend it’s an umbrella. Sure. Maybe umbrellas have never bothered me a single moment in my life, until now, this day, when my subconscious mind makes a connection between umbrellas and my deepest fears. A truly unhelpful one.

I spot an umbrella on the ground and for some reason, just seeing it sends a pang through my nerves. A Downward Spiral of Self-Deprecation begins:

Do I Even Have Time for All My Hobbies?

What happened to all that random fun crap I used to do?!

I guess I just got older and busier. Boo-hoo, that’s what happens to pretty much everyone. And yet I’m gonna talk more about it, and how I subconsciously vetted my hobbies to make the most of them.

The 5 Secret Rules of Catgirl System

It’s an old rusty crusty maxim by this point that limitation breeds creativity. Well, with Catgirl System, I started out knowing many things I wanted to include, but many many more things I didn’t. I gave myself limitations—on what characters could say, where they could go, and even the thinks I allowed them to think.

Some of them will make immediate sense to you while others seem a little more arbitrary. There are reasons behind them all.

So these are the five heretofore-unwritten laws of the Catgirl universe…!