2013 New Year Resolutions

Now for my New Year Resolutions! It's pretty much a carry-over from last year, but more compact and urgent. This year has to work out somehow!

Goal #1: Use up as much stuff as possible. Meaning art and office supplies, coloring and puzzle books, magazines, and the like. I need to have less stuff to worry about.

Goal #2: Get my Bare Minimum Planner done. I wouldn't make "progress" with entertainment (i.e. television, game, etc. goals.) I wouldn't color anything except commissions and a few traditional arts. I wouldn't even blog, except for The Dark Writers. But I'd get art, writing, and comics done. The important and prioritized stuff. I'd like to get the other Planners done, too, but the Bare Minimum is a start.

Goal #3: Get a job/helpful wage. If I don't get enough to take care of my share of living expenses and help my family out, I am screwed.

Goal #4: Be able to read the media I own in Japanese. I'm still sticking to this goal, but the books, magazines, pamphlets, and cards I own aren't that complex, so the goal this year is much more realistic.

Goal #5: Get happier. Again, this hinges on success. And getting enough sleep (no more past midnighters unless necessary!) And maybe meditation exercises. And plush therapy (caring for them really helps!) But I hate, hate, HATE being told I'll have to go on pills if my mood continues. I have reasons for being sad and upset and happiness from pills does not sound real.

I think that's it.

Happy New Year, everybody! Let's make our hopes real!!

Reflections of 2012 - The Year That Wasn't

I'm splitting this post into two posts. I want to get the depressing reflections out of the way and keep them separate from my bold hope. This is going to sound eerily like last year's New Year's post, just like the deja-vu posts I make to Studio Derrot every month...

The previous year feels like such a waste.

I shouldn't say that, though. I did get some things done. I just didn't get everything done. There is a disproportionate amount of work I didn't get done to the amount that was done.

This has plagued me ever since I began making lists in earnest, about eight years ago. I'm sure before my list-phase started I still didn't get everything done that I wanted to... it's just that seeing it on paper makes it more palpable. More depressing.

See, I've really come to enjoy making lists. At first it was just to keep track of art projects for school or count down pages in a book for school or levels in a video game while grinding. But it soon blossomed into multi-page lists and then eventually evolved into where I stand now: lists devoted to entire projects, big and small; grid-paper for word counts and comic pages and book and video game progress; a schedule for my blogs; and even allotments for the shows I watch (among other media.) It takes but a moment to write down a task, but much more time to complete the task. Soon I've made a list that requires a whole workshop of people to complete on time.

My lesson here should be that I shouldn't make lists anymore. But lists give me hope. And I don't fail in doing the things that need to be done, like commissions. Only something happening beyond my control, like technical issues or incapacitation, could get in the way of my stubbornness in that regard.

I wish that stubbornness would apply to my own work, too! Sometimes it seems like the stuff I anticipate doing the most, I hold myself back on. Like I'm scared of not doing it properly. Or I'll do it and the moment will end.

It's not just in creative projects. It took me over ten months to start my Pokemon SoulSilver game, even though I put monthly goals down for it.

I have to overcome this trepidation in the coming year!

So I did not:

#1) Update regularly. I updated in almost unpredictable spurts. The only predictable thing was my monthly post saying I accomplished nothing (or nearly nothing.)

#2) Get a graphic novel published. It's very hard to publish one when the few pages in existence don't  have their panels' contents fully drawn out.

#3) Finish Minervellas. I didn't even finish my 2012 NaNo, The Fart Eaters.

#4) Make decent money on my artwork. Except toward the end, where the pay got a lot better. But the rest of the year before things got better, I was a spineless creature that took a severe pay-cut after shooting itself in the foot. I still didn't make enough to require filing taxes.

#5) Get a real job. I'm a deadbeat and horrible person and I've hated myself many times this last year for that. Do I have a future?

#6) Clean my room. Clean? Yes. Organized? Pretty much. But I didn't use up a lot of the stuff I wanted to. I did throw out a lot of papers, but my mom still says I "don't throw anything away."

#7) Understand Japanese. I'm not much farther in reading kanji or speaking (forming sentences) than I was a year ago. And now I have recurring day-mares of an embarrassing incident at a seafood/sushi counter. I'm not confident yet.

#8) Catch up on media. I abandoned a lot of online stuff when my computer had to be re-imaged. I'm impossibly behind on streaming shows and didn't check out all the music groups I wanted to. I didn't watch my DVDs (except one) or play much of video games. And then I get frustrated by suggestions for shows I can't watch legally. Morals aside, if I don't have enough time to watch the shows I'm allowed to watch (i.e. shows on Crunchyroll, hulu, etc.)... why would I watch something illegally? I have other things to spend my computer time on. :P

#9) Get in shape. Still the same after more than a decade. At least I'm consistent?

#10) Get happier. Nah, I just got more and more stressed out and I wouldn't be surprised if the statistics for me breaking out in tears was at least once a day.

Okay, now with those dreary statements out of the way, I can truly begin the New Year with hope!

2012 Re-Assessment of Goals

So today marks the half way point of the year. Or close to it. Time to have a checkpoint where I see how far I've gone with those goals since the beginning of the year...

Goal #1: Update my blogs once a week, and The Dark Writers blog once a month. I've failed so far in that endeavor. Some weeks were actually full of updates. Some weeks were dry. My blogs lost the carefully planned structure in the first week and became out of control wild cards.

Re-Goal: Try to catch up, but mostly focus on having weekly or bi-weekly updates to the blogs, with the exception of my idol blog (small posts can potentially be made daily) and my deviantART journal (once a month is probably all it needs as long as I'm maintaining the other blogs.)

Goal #2: Get at least one graphic novel published this year. With part of a Hellhoney panel currently drawn and some more blocked in, I'm going to have to dedicate more energy to that one comic.

Re-Goal: I still plan to work some on the other comics, but only if I meet weekly goals for Hellhoney. I need to get that comic finished soon if I want it self-published by the end of the year. Unless by some miracle it gets picked up by a publisher.

Goal #3: Finish Minervellas. I've only touched it art-wise this year.

Re-Goal: Finish writing it. Get as much editing done as possible, but if it still needs work in 2013, so be it. I want to participate in NaNo 2012! (But with a new story.)

Goal #4: Make reasonable money off my art. Oops, nope. Still making the equivalent of 50 cents to a $1.50 an hour for my work and only one person has wanted to commission me this entire year (and I'm grateful they've been commissioning me often, though I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep that up. I'll get to that in a moment.) I actually need to be able to sell prints and copies of my comics to make any kind of decent "wage" from my art. Commissions just aren't cutting it right now (with the current prices, being commissioned for just lineart might be more fair? Since I can actually do those in an hour or so?)

Re-Goal: Consider stopping commissions until my services are actually worth minimum wage or more and focus on illustrations and promotion of my own personal brands. But I'll need something else if I do that...

Goal #5: Get a real job. I wouldn't have time for both commissions and my art anyway if I got a real job, so the freelance work would have to be put on hold while I power up and spend my free time with projects I hope to develop more. But jobs are scarce.

Re-Goal: Seriously, I need to get a job. I want to prove I can make it on my art, because that's what I got a degree in and it makes me sad that loved ones don't have faith in me anymore when it comes to working in the art field (art seems to have become a tense topic now.) But I also need enough money to help pay bills instead of being a poster (adult-)child for Generation Failure. I need a balance of paying to live and enjoy making art, and "real job" plus "working with my own projects" would be the best balance until I can actually work in the industry (my dream!) Besides, I need to afford a new computer because I hate being unreliable in my commissions. I never know when my laptop will go completely kaput.

Goal #6: Clean up my room. I was doing that, but entropy took effect when I laid out all I need to get done. So back to the stacks of books, notebooks, papers, and sketchbooks.

Re-Goal: Get stuff on my to-do list done, eating through the stacks one by one until my room is clean. Seems to be working so far.

Goal #7: Learn Japanese. I've gotten better at reading some characters thanks to reading Japanese Twitter feeds.

Re-Goal: Continue with more intensity. I'm still not at the level I want, but that's because I have't been reading the books and dictionaries as I had planned. I need to show more initiative than just listening to music and reading Twitter.

Goal #8: Catch up on media. Ahaha, nope. I haven't watched shows on the Internet since February, unless you count Nerdist YouTube shows and other random videos. But no Crunchyroll or hulu. Pretty much anything I watch these days are DVR'd cartoons from Saturday mornings or YouTube videos during breaks. The last time I actually sat down and played video games was January, then I turned on my DS last month to make sure it still worked. Music has also just been listening to music videos while working (unless I like the group, then I watch the video.)

Re-Goal: Forget the Internet shows for now, and focus on art and typing. Any computer day could be my last. Just watch Pokemon on Cartoon Network every weekend and wait for the new seasons of cartoons in the Fall (and Doctor Who.) Start playing video games again, but as a way to unwind before bed, to de-stress and encourage me with my projects. Probably won't finish any this year, since I play more than I finish. Keep doing what I'm doing with stalking official YouTube channels for stuff to listen to. Eventually I'll have a list of stuff to buy when I actually have disposable income.

Goal #9: Get in shape. I stay same. It's what my body is good at, I guess. Stubborn just like my mind. But this is a good thing since I'm healthy and not losing health.

Re-Goal: Just keep working out, like I have been. Keep taking breaks to stand when sitting down for awhile (I've been watching YouTube videos and reading magazines and books while standing.) Getting the "perfect" figure would probably mean starving myself anyway (because I have unrealistic expectations. Look at idols and you'll see what I mean.)

Goal #10: Get happier. On the contrary, there have been a lot of times I've felt like crap this year. Again, my happiness hinges on success of my other goals.

Re-Goal: Get the other goals done, and happiness will follow.

It's only the half-way mark of the year, so I still have time to make my goals pan out... I'll just have to work harder from here on out!

Opinions - The Telephone

I freely admit that I'm not a very social person, often to the point of being avoidant. I haven't been on Facebook in over two months (and the next time I actually do log in, I'm thinking of deactivating it.) I am so terrified of random conversations, that back when I did use Instant Messengers, I went invisible and only talked to the people I already planned to talk to. I'm a member of a forum, yet I mostly lurk, posting a handful of posts in a "good" year. And I don't answer the phone unless I know the caller.

Ah, the phone. I hate phones. If I had a choice in the matter, I wouldn't even have one. "But what if there's an emergency?" "The Internet can be unreliable or nonexistent for one or both parties." I understand these concerns. But right now it just seems like a waste. I hardly ever use my phone. At least not for its main purpose. I use my phone to take pictures, listen to music, or as an alarm. Communicating? Not so much.

Phone calls are just too awkward for me. Speaking is not one of my strong points, and my mouth often has trouble keeping up with my mind. I will lose my train of thought, mess up words, or everything will come out a mess that needs to be repeated. Which is horrifying after all that effort and humiliation. When I listen to recordings of my voice, I sound like a little boy with a tongue piercing. All of this is avoided with e-mail and other Internet messages (as for text messages, I'll get to that later.) It's embarrassing to have people watch me type in real time, since I have the same issues with speech, just with tons of typos. But most text based communication allows for proofreading, which really helps with communicating exactly what one wants to communicate. Okay, not perfect. But better.

Even talking face to face is more ideal, since at least through body language and facial expressions, I can see when there might be a misunderstanding. Or hopefully whomever I'm talking to can better understand me (I talk with my hands a lot.) Or maybe they just think I'm retarded and nod politely. But the point is, phone calls make me feel uncomfortable. Only talking in front of a bunch of people (mostly strangers) gives me more communication anxiety. In university, I would walk to people I needed to speak to, when e-mail wasn't an option. Just please don't make me pick up the phone!

Friends and family are the big exception to my phone phobia, as long as they are close. If I trust them enough not to be judgmental and I can speak my mind, along with my funny spacing out, then it doesn't matter how I'm communicating with them. E-mail, phone, ESP, whatever. But my first time talking on a phone with someone is always going to be awkward, at least for the first minute or two. And then there are three issues with phone calls that can even leave me running from friends...

• First, I hope I'm not annoying when I ask what time is good to call. I am not a surprise dialer. I wish I could say it's just because I hate being taken off guard myself and I'm treating the other person how I want to be treated. But it's not just that. I hate answering machines. I end up sounding really stupid or accidentally talking before the beep. And then there are the joke answering machine messages that actually sound like the other person is talking to you. I sputter when it's time to give the message. And for that reason, I often hang up the moment I get an answering machine. If it seems like I get an answering machine every time I call, I just stop calling. Period. Yes, fellow Dark Writers, answering machines can be added to the list of things that I'm afraid of, along with escalators, ceiling fans, and VCRs.

• Second, three-way calling is often an unpleasant experience when two of the three people don't know each other that well. One person will usually be left out while the other two talk about things the third wheel doesn't feel qualified jumping into. Or if the third wheel tries to get back into the conversation, there is silence from the other person instead. Instead of being a three-way conversation, it becomes two people waiting their turn to speak to the person they both know. And then there was the awful experience in middle school when a friend put me on a three-way call with a man many years older than us. The only information I received as to who he was? He was the boyfriend of another person I didn't know. Anyway, scary stranger man proceeded to ask me why I liked Pokemon (in a very condescending way, asking stupid questions and trying not to laugh), while my "friend" tittered in the background. Uggh. The only three-way call with a person I hardly knew that I think actually went completely well involved one of my best friends. (Just in case she's reading this: Pokemon League!) Her friend actually tried to include me in the conversation, and we were even able to have some fun when we discovered we both liked something that irritated our shared friend (Happy Tree Friends.)

• Finally, dead air. I am a person that usually focuses on one thing at a time. I might doodle while listening to someone, but they are still getting my full attention unless there's a good reason for otherwise. And then I ask them to repeat themselves, because I care about what they are saying. I think I'm a good listener with a knack for remembering conversations. So it hurts a bit when it's obvious the same consideration isn't being done for me. Like the TV is loud and the person on the other end is constantly laughing. Or I have to get their attention multiple times and they have no idea what I was talking about. Or I finish talking and there is just silence and it's obvious they are doing something else. Like sleeping. Why call me then?! It's a waste of both our times. And I find that the people who want to talk the most often are the ones with the least amount to say.

(And please, to all this applies to, if you talk to someone, after you finish talking about your life and then you ask about the other person's life, at least make it sound like you are listening. Or just bluntly say you aren't interested. It's a lot better than several dozen "I see"'s, "Uh-huh"'s, and inappropriate laughs. To me, fake copy-paste replies is not polite, but a betrayal of trust. Also, saying you aren't interested will save your time and make me feel less like an idiot. Thank you.)

Finally, finally, I have to touch on text messages. One of my pet peeves. I don't get text messages. They are expensive, and if I had the money to blow on a text message plan or text messages, I would blow it on something I actually care about. Like bills. Toys. Comics. Art supplies. Video Games. Not idiot speak. If how some people talk on the Internet is any indication, text messages bring out the worst in someone's grammar. It's very sad to see people that talk intelligently in person look so dumb in written words. If I didn't know some people except for how they talked online, I would have a very low opinion of them. I'm sure text messages have their uses, but not for me.

I hope I didn't offend anyone by this post. It's not meant to be rude, but an organized rant on why I don't like cell phones, or phones in general. But what do you think? Am I crazy? I know my generation is not very phone happy, but text and social networking happy (two things that I also despise or am not fond of.) I try to think of what the ideal communication aside from the old-fashioned way and letters/e-mails/forums would be, but I can't think of any better ways. Just don't get me started on video conferencing.

New Year Resolutions

As usual, I have a lot of New Year's resolutions that I'll probably break before the end of this month! I was a pretty terrible person last year, not very productive and pretty useless. My parents were nicer to me and spoiled me a lot more that I deserved. I have to be better this year. I always set really high, sometimes impossible goals for myself, but this is the year the world is going to end! I don't have much more time to prove myself. No more lazy days!

Goal #1: Update my four main blogs at least once a week! Whether it's just a piece of art, an essay, or just a little blurb, I really need to start writing more. As for my deviantART, at least three illustrations updated each week, not counting commissions or comic pages (I have to force myself to color, my dreaded nemesis!) There is a shared blog that one of my friends proposed that I'd like to update once a month (actually, two such blogs now!) Same with my dA journal, once a month. The point of this goal is to keep things updated.

Goal #2: Get at least one graphic novel published this year. Not a little one-shot comic (I do want to get Super Popcorn printed finally this year, too, though), but a full 160+ page book. Granted, I'd like to get a whole lot more drawn, but if I can at least get, say, Hellhoney Volume 1 out this year, that would be an accomplishment.

Goal #3: Get Minervellas finished, rewritten and edited, and ready to be taken around to publishers.

Goal #4: Actually make some reasonable money off of my art. One of my goals last year was to make at least enough money off my art to be required to do taxes. I didn't. This isn't the 1930's no matter how much you compare the recessions. I feel like a bum.

Goal #5: Get a real job. This may interfere with all the above goals, but if I can manage to get hired, then I can start helping out my kind parents, who have supported me all my life. I give them the little I get from commissions, but then they spoil me with that money and more, it seems. I have to make enough to think I'm actually helping out. And then I can actually set aside a small allowance for myself so I can import idol CDs! (And I really need a new laptop, tablet, and scanner. The current ones are not doing too hot after being heavily used for five and a half, four and a half, and six and a half years, respectively.)

Goal #6: Clean out my room. It's not that it's not clean. It's actually cleaner than 75% of the rooms out there. But I have a lot of stuff. When my mom gets mad at me, she calls me an "extreme hoarder" with a "a room full of junk that needs to be tossed." Now, obviously, if I was "extreme," my room wouldn't be as neat and organized as it is. But I do admit there is stuff that needs to go. I accumulated a lot of art supplies during college. I need to use up a lot of them. I have unread books on my packed shelves. Instead of going to the library, I should read them and donate or sell the ones I don't want to read again. Notebooks full of references, old stories, etc.? Type them out and chunk them. Old drawings? Toss or give away or sell them. Half-finished drawings that suck? Toss. Old magazines? Read, clip out DIRE references, then toss (better yet, scan the references, then toss those, too.) Coloring and puzzle books? Use them up or donate them. I think I have a little more leeway defending my plush, figurine, comic, card, CD/DVD/Video Game, and favorite book collections. (Gosh, I'm a nerd.) But a lot of that other stuff needs to go. Besides, I need to make room for more comics and CDs and toys, haha!

Goal #7: Get a basic but better understanding of Japanese. I want to be able to read stuff! I'm studying a kanji dictionary currently and reading books. I already listen to and watch Japanese entertainment, and from over a decade of self-study I have a basic grasp. But I want to be able to fully enjoy Japanese tweets, blog posts, livestreams, etc. It would be nice to be able to import games and comics and understand more than half of what is going on. I don't want to look like a complete fool when my dad tells Japanese people I'm learning Japanese and then they try to talk to me and I just freeze and blush. I also want to brush up on my French, German, and Spanish. I just feel like I'm missing out when I limit myself to just English. There's a lot of awesome people and entertainment out there and they don't all use English.

Goal #8: Catch up on media. I want to finish some of my video games (one a month), get my Pokedexes mostly complete, watch my small collection of DVDs over and keep up with the shows I'm following: Pokemon, My Little Pony, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Thundercats, Hello!Pro Time, Toriko, Gintama, Beelzebub, Doctor Who, and soon, Bodacious Space Pirates and AKB0048 (I hope, if the latter is legally streamed on Crunchyroll, hulu, etc.) I also want to try out some of the shows my friends have recommended and hit up the official YouTubes of music artists and groups I've been meaning to check out.

Goal #9: Get in shape. My cliched resolution of the year! I just sit around drawing, reading, and typing. I need to get more toned.

Goal #10: Get happier. My mood has been blah a lot this past year. I've been spazzing out more. I have nightmares often. Sometimes I wouldn't know the difference between the dreams and reality; they were so real, that I would wake up thinking people hated me or I would be amazed (and glad) that something catastrophic hadn't really happened. But to achieve this goal, I have to make good on the other goals, because I feel depressed when I feel useless and unable to get things done.

And thus, I start out this new year full of hope and ambition!