I feel like I’m progressing so slowly man -_*
Yesterday was a slog and today is looking like the same. The thing is, I’ve been doing a lot more doing than procrastinating, but progress is still slow. Maybe I need to work even harder? Maybe its because this is my first time actually trying to edit a video, I don’t know. I have also heard advice that you should take the amount of time you imagine it will take to complete something, then double it. Shit man, I need to complete this quicker, I think the biggest time sink is just cobbling together all of the elements I need for the video, but on the bright side I could reuse some of the elements for future videos, upping the overall speed and quality. I guess all I can do is hunker down and get to it. :/
Be your best boss
Might turn this concept/mental tip into a video. I feel like I’ve been slacking hard on my tasks. There is a video and comic I want to be done with already and my mind is split. On one side its telling me “GO GO GO! WORK WORK WORK!”. And on the other side it’s saying, “It’s alright go at your own pace :)”. I would really like a compromise of the two, but I have no idea where to place that like. At times like these it is important to ask yourself: what would my ideal boss tell me? I think what my ideal boss is telling me right now is: “You have plenty of time today, just focus on one task at a time. Either start with the easiest task or the hardest task and work it out from there”. Thank you inner boss, I’ll try my best! On some schizoid type shit.
I just heard my cat sneeze for the first time!
By the way this cat isn’t really MY cat, he’s just a stray cat that likes to come into my living quarters because I give him the best pets. Anyways, for the first time ever I heard a cat sneeze, and it was the most adorable thing ever! did not expect him to sneeze like a child, that caught me so off guard, but it was also the cutest thing I have hear over this entire year. Anyways, trying to sink more time into this manga I’m working on I just want to get it over with already not because I don’t like it (I actually do really like it), but there are other comics I really want to start. I’m so close to being done with this manga, hopefully I complete over the course of a few days, I’ve been dragging this one out for way too long.
Went outside yesterday
I haven’t been in the sun for a while now (for reasons both in and out of my control), so I decided to go get some vitamin D in my system. It was nice. I went to a local park, sat on a bridge post, and made a decent sketch of some puddles and trees. I was famished the entire time, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to do some drawing and reading in the sun. I’ve also been doing more reading out loud to help improve my clarity and inflection because I’ve noticed that’s a slight problem I have with my videos. Been trying to do more reading in general, youtube and movies are starting to bore me but I do have some anime I want to complete. I’ve also been reading and note taking for this book about visual composition in comics. I would really like to use its techniques in future comics; it’s taught me some valuable things.
My consistency has improved ^*
I have this file that I use to calculate how often I draw, with the goal being to draw a total of 5,000 hours. But I would also like to see improvement in how often I draw last time I updated it was back in February; I would draw on average 0.73 hours per week. I’ve plugged in the numbers for today, and I’ve been drawing on average 1.54 hours per week! And that’s not even including the drawings I do for YouTube or in my sketchbook! I know compared to people who draw for a living that’s not a lot, but that’s much greater improvement than what I expected of myself! Good job me!
I’ve got so many books to read -_*;
I force my mom to go with me to the library every 2 or 3 weeks. I love reading non-fiction books and art books and manga, those kinds of things, but I feel like I have so many tasks that I can’t find the time to read. Actually, now that I think about it that’s a lie, I actually do have a lot of time to read. I’ve just been filling in a lot of my free time with video games and youtube consumption. Maybe the problem is that the path of resistance is much greater for grabbing a book than the resistance to spend consumption time on my computer. Maybe what I actually need is to place my books in a more convenient spot within eye shot of my work area! Wow, did I seriously come to a revelation from writing a blog post? Guess so.
Deadline micromanaging
I’ve made some raw recordings for Youtube and I have a comic I really want to complete already. I’m feeling reinvigorated with a want to do more. I have a lot planned for May and I hope to follow through with all of it. What is vital is setting proper deadlines for all of my projects, which is something I was gravely lacking in these past few months (not so much with my higher priority projects, but more so the medium and small projects/posts which have been slowly accumulating). I’ll get all of that set up once I wake up. Through better deadline management, I’ll be able to get more done, at least I hope so (I am a grade A procrastinator after all).
The more effort I put in, the more I cringe.
I’m working on this video of Youtube with a lot of editing and effort put into it, but the more I work on it, the more I dislike it. The video itself isn’t bad, but more so because making it feels disingenuous. The video is scripted with some IRL footage and has a decent structure with a sappy heart felt message at the end. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got the largest number of views on my channel, but the more I edit it, the less it feels like me. Adding little edits into my crappy videos felt fun, but this feels so much like a slog, so I think I’ll just scrap the entire thing in favor of a lower quality video. I would’ve liked to prove to myself that I can make good videos, but I don’t want to sacrifice my enjoyment of the process for this. Besides, I’ve told myself in the past that I don’t want my time spent making videos to cut into time I could spend making comics. It’s important for me to learn when I should set boundaries for myself, it’s something that I struggle with and the biggest contributor to wasting my time, no matter if the task is “productive” or unproductive. I still plan on making a video for Altoo, but I’m starting from scratch and doing it in a style that I actually enjoy. Video production is a form of art, and if I’m not having fun making art then I’m not making art; that’s merely a product.
(I’m still going to use a bit of IRL footage in my new video so not all of my effort was in vain.)
I have sooo much to do for my next video
Been slacking more than I’d like to today, and I think it’s because I subconsciously find this next video I’m working on to be too daunting. I’ve already done all the voiceovers and cleaned them up, but I still gotta record the live stuff, record some music, draw character sprites, create a stimulating background, find sound effects, DRAW A WHOLEASS ANIMATIC, and compile aaaall of that into a video. Not to mention the high-quality thumbnail I have to draw. Listing all of this out loud, now it makes sense why my subconscious is fighting against me. I really need to break things down into more manageable chunks.
I FINALLY RESTRINGED MY GUITAR LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
I haven’t played my guitar for over half a year because I couldn’t restring it properly and I ended up break the strings 3 times. 3 FUCKING TIMES! What the hell is wrong with me!? I’ve restringed my guitar just fine before but I guess I missed a step somewhere. Every time I’d break the top strings around the nut, but this time I paid very close attention to multiple tutorial videos. It took me an hour and a lot of anxiety and I almost broke the G string, BUT I FUCKING DID IT!! Songsterr tabs of extremely niche artists I adore here I come! Oh yeah, and I’m also going to use my guitar in future videos as well 🙂
Getting around to it
Been slow on working on videos and comics. I promised that I would post a video every week bare minimum and that’s what I’ll do. Sorry this daily blog is so short. There isn’t really anything interesting that I’ve done today, so I’m going to make the effort to do at least one unique or interesting thing done every day so that I can give my blogs and videos more pep. Gotta use my free will to its fullest potential! Let’s get to it!
Been self-learning piano
I have this old CASIO keyboard that a friend gave me. I’ve had it for around 2 or 3 years by now and I’ve barely used it until recently. I have never taken any piano lessons ever, but I do know a lot of music theory and a bit of piano fingering from observation so I’m able to play some actually decent voicings, but it basically boils down to me key mashing with style. I only really know how to play spicy C major and spicy A minor, but it still sounds nice. Through experimentation and pattern recognition, I should become slightly better at playing the piano. I’m looking forward to that version of myself.
Working on a high-quality video ig
I’ve recorded some low effort videos yesterday, should be posting at least one this week. I would like to post my higher quality video about my Altoo comic strip (the video thumbnail will be outlined in pink instead of yellow it’s going to look so good!) hopefully completed before May, but I have a bad habit of submitting projects past my deadlines. Let’s see if that habit holds up this time around. Oh yeah, I was thinking of having my low effort videos be me talking while working on comics in the background and maybe create some background music for my videos. The music part might be doing too much, but I think that talking while drawing would double my productivity as well as make for better promotion rather than just saying it.
Library boomer brainrotters
I went to the library yesterday and there was something there that filled me with hatred. I was checking out some non-fiction books and graphic novels as I normally do, but I noticed something at the public computer section of the library. There were two guys on the computers looking at instagram making grunting sounds like they’re cavemen with papers and drinks strewn about the desk space… AND THESE GUYS WERE BOOMERS?! I don’t have a problem with people who mindlessly scroll social media in their free time (I do it sometimes too, its addicting -_*) but doing that on a public library computer is a new low I never expected to see. Wow, I didn’t realize I held the library in such a high regard until now, good job me. But yeah, seeing that spawned a visceral reaction out of me. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they likely got distracted while doing some important work, but that might be even worse. If social media has that strong of a grasp, overall productivity is so screwed. Man, I hate humanity.
Carl Jung and how intelligence doesn’t dictate choice.
I was reading some of Carl Jung’s work (cuz ima pretentious asshole) and he was talking about an experience he had with Sigmund Freud, a mentor of his. He talked about his theory on symbolism in dreams and when bringing it up with his mentor, Freud, he was hesitant to reveal anything that would go against the theories and teachings that Freud gave. So, he talked about his dream in a way that Freud would agree with, something about a shaken mental state and something about having sexual desires for his relatives (typical Freudian shit), when in reality Jung knew that the dream was actually about his life up to that point.
He uses a lot of flowery and pretentious phrasing, but basically Jung had regrets about not truly speaking his mind with Sigmund Freud in fear that he would fracture their relationship. This really widened my perspective. Despite Carl Jung being renowned as a brilliant psychologist with all these crazy theories about the human mind, he still struggled to say what he wanted in the moment. I don’t need to study all this philosophy and psychology to become a better version of myself, that’s not how growth works. It’s about action. I won’t fall prey to social pressures when it comes to what I want to talk about, even if it bites me in the ass. I’ve followed the grain long enough; I’ll do what I want now. Might turn this into a video, might not, but it really opened my eyes.
TLDR: This doodle
Carl Jung would hate me so much for drawing this, but I thought it was so funny lol.
Rumination
“Ruminate” is a word I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. Ruminating in thoughts, what a lack of rumination does for you, how much should I ruminate? I suppose it’s my new linguistic fixation, and I feel like I’ve been ruminating for long enough as I am ruminating on this post. Although I have posted two YouTube videos, posting videos shouldn’t be my main objective right now. I should be making strides towards working on the comics I’ve been wanting to make. There’s no better time to do so, so let’s get to it!
Man, I feel like the weight of the world right now.
Normally, I would get these depressive mood swings every so often (not actually depression, just stuck in sad thoughts that usually last a day or two). Now it seems like they’re replaced with this sense of pressure on everything I do, almost like it’s a feeling of existential dread, but I prefer it to the sadness. The reason for this change is because I have a newly found sense of direction. In short, my foreseeable future is entirely dependent on me (unless we enter another war but by that point I’m dippin). I’ll have a video about it up very soon. I have a good feeling about the views on this one but saying that might jinx it. 6 _6 But there’s no need to worry about this sudden shift in mood, this feeling will soon pass.
Hello for realzies this time.
By the way sometimes it might look like I posted an entry every other day or twice a day, that’s because my clock and the site’s clock aren’t in sync so that might happen sometimes. But ye, hello world. I’ll do my best to keep you guys updated on the progress of my comics and some of the little things in life that make it worth living even during these shitty times. ^*
