the process glowup

[kradeelav]

something that's been cool about this year is that i finally have been unfucking my general daily process in some pretty major ways. 

the results have been mostly offline, but the notable evidence y'all may notice is actually staying on top of responses for once (both dreamwidth, physical letters, and emails); if I do take a while to get back to responses it's usually in under 4 weeks or two versus "years" or "never" lol. big difference. sending zine circle cards .... shipping out zines ... etc.

I've talked a little before about my daily journal that doubles as a to-do list in a monthly cycle ... been slowly introducing "quarterly" goals that are a more chunked-down version of my yearly goals that I've posted on dreamwidth/these journals for a few years now. too early to tell for those,  but that might be a way to start introducing the same cleaner process to my art-specific projects that I've always had for reading lists.

ideally it'll end up as finishing a zine/similar scope of project every quarter as I still get distracted in an unfortunate way about starting new 'ooh shiny' art projects :<  trying to balance the vibe of 'ok get this done for semi-professional reasons for a healthy level of stress' versus 'all art projects are technically a hobby and therefore no stress (but also lol what timeline)'. like i still want to do the 'evil art interviews', it'll still be a thing, but Falke needs to go out first this quarter, etc.

i also notice my style changes (more charitably: improves fast enough?) every quarter that i have to be careful about getting bored with a project for too long because it's very noticeable when the style changes halfway through and then i waste time redoing half the pages :D;;  this is happened with Falke and Fealty at least 3 times each ... first world problems to have to be sure, but a welcome one not always a welcome one LOL

something that's also neat about the process unfuckening is that i've started picking up tech hobbies when in art "winters" -- eg, working on the site, linux shenanigans, pi-hole, game emulation, etc - so even if the quarterly art project isn't the right headspace, the tech thing perfectly slots in there. i don't think i have a fetish for being productive (like some folks have, cough lol) to an unhealthy extent, but i do genuinely like........... the feeling of being focused. I've mentioned that art to me is the act of creation, not even about the end process. i could almost care less about the final graphic other than a yardstick of where I've been and how I could improve. "the zone" feeling is the nicest feeling in the world and it's almost more about dipping in that high and stepping out feeling like you've added a net gain.

I personally find I have a tendency to get too "apathetic", stagnant, stare-at-an-empty-wall-(or scroll) or dream-world-y without some kind of guardrails and small, pleasurable, active, doable fun projects to redirect that energy. active positive energy rather than negative turgid energy.

(come to think about it, it probably dovetails a little with my general life philosophy that your legacy in life is the ripples of your actions. both positive actions and negative actions "ripple on" to affect not only who the people were there in that moment, but how it changes others ... how it changes who other people interact with, and so on. very piscean.)

here's to stickin' the landing with the Q4 projects!