Wednesday, January 5, 2022. 10:35 am
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
And we're already at Day 5 into 2022...
I have the day off and I'm trying to get shit done. What else is new?
The New Year is always a mix of Great News and Miserable News.
For me, the Great News is that it's a (totally arbitrary) Brand New Start to life, goals, etc. It's arbitrary because I can start anew any day I want, but emotionally it makes sense because we organize time into various units and a year is one such fabulous unit. Also, "years" tend to take on a persona (rightly or wrongly) and the last couple years have been maligned with Covid, lockdowns, political fighting, social media antagonism, etc., etc., etc. Not that that has changed at all with the changing of a single day by going from December 31, 2021 into January 1, 2022, but there is also the social habit of wanting to change for the better when we go into a New Year, so I'm riding along with that tradition and universal hope.
Having said that, almost every single goddamn January I'm mostly just updating the previous year's resolutions by changing the year at the top of the list from the previous year to the current year and everything else pretty much remains the same. This year is pretty much no different.
Still, I remain hopeful.
Prior to the end of 2021, I started working on a comic book story with the anxious ambition of publishing a comic for the first time ever in 2022.
Unfortunately, I've tried to do this before in
2020 and
2021, working on a story for a quite a bit of time and then getting depressed at being unable to satisfactorily complete the plot or writing aspect to my amorphous, instinctive but inscrutable standards. But, dammit, I'm determined this time around!
But wasn't I also last time and the time before that and...?
So... we'll see.
As of now, the story I'm working on is QUARANDREAMS, "The Plot Sickens."
I'm currently envisioning it to be part of a comic called, A FISTFUL OF THIS, An Impulsive Anthology #1: "Now What??" The QUARANDREAMS story is the main story but there may be additional pages to supplement it or break up the main story between (possible) chapters.
Right now, I have ideas for various comics titles. A FISTFUL OF THIS is my anthology/catch all title for miscellaneous story ideas that may not be part of a continuing title, like my ideas for: a funny animal series featuring a core group of cat characters plus additional members of an ensemble; a comic with stories of luchadors and luchadoras; and maybe others. but QUARANDREAMS itself a possible series of stories anchored in a dream setting, and that's the only consistent aspect from story to story, not necessarily having a single character anchoring the series.
A FISTFUL OF THIS is also my attempt to "expunge" my fascination with 60s/70s underground comics. Expunge or, perhaps, more accurately, tap into my fascination. We'll see.
Anyway, that's what I'm working on today, that and doing domestic chores, plus waiting for my car to be fixed/inspected...
More to come.
11:27 am
Oh!
I also need to really shore up my blogging efforts.
Not only write and publish more posts regularly (or at all, the hell!), I was at work and during lunch, I impulsively decided t check out one of my own blogs and I was reading one of my posts, and holy crap! Did it need editing! It was unbelievably redundant within the single post. I mean, I tend to be repetitive as it is from post to post because I never seem to progress forward but that's another problem!
Meanwhile: OMG! I just looked up some past posts on my comics/art blog to link to the above paragraph and holy hell, my posts are just a rambling mess. This idea of editing my blog posts is going to be a nightmare if I follow through on it. Well, I'll try to write more clearly at least with newer posts... I mean, one can hope..!
So, anyway, starting this month I hope to also address that blogging issue...
Ugh.
Too much crap to do.
Alright, I gotta eat breakfast and feed the birds, dammit.
Oh! And ALSO:
37 DAYS UNTIL I'M 62! (February 11)
CRIPES.
Oh, considering it's January of a New Year,I suppose I should talk a bit about my actual 2022 Resolutions.
Well, let's see what I intended to work on in 2021, shall we?:
Color legend: 2021 / January 2022 commentary
Blogging:
1. 50,000 words and/or 6 posts per blog for the year.
Okay, I "achieved" the latter part of this goal - 6 posts per blog - but not really. Oh, no... in fact it's a TOTAL LIE.
On the last day of 2021, I pretty much fudged enough posts per each of my three main blogs to SAY I had at least 6 posts each in 2021. Some posts didn't even have content, just a temporary title, like "Post 3", "Post 4," etc.
So, I'm trying to at least flesh out these bogus posts this month. If I manage to do that, I'll actually have done more blogging this month than I did all last year. And even this post is one for the new year, so... yay!
Meanwhile, the cumulative 50,000 word goal is a shout-out to NaNoWriMo. I figure I'd try to make word goal in a year, because I know I won't make it in a month. I've still yet to do that.
Health:
1. Don't eat after midnight.
Uh, I forgot I made this an actual goal. I can't really say I stuck to it, although, I don't think I really broke this simple "Gremlins" rule... well, not a lot... well, not... oh, never mind.
2. Try to sleep 5 hours a night.
My sleeping habits blow. They totally, TOTALLY suck. But, I think I've slept a little better since Covid has happened. Partly because I worked less hours sometimes, so I slept in more on my days off, but in the last quarter of the year, I started getting more shifts where I started work at 9:30 am, so by default, i slept a little longer on days i worked. Comparatively longer to what i was doing before when I was starting a lot of shifts at 7:00 or 7:30 am. Having said that, i still need to improve my sleep routine: make it more consistent and not go to bed as late.
3. Try to reach my daily step goal.
I wasn't able to consistently reach my step goal daily, specifically on days I wasn't working. But I usually killed it on those days I did work. So, according to my Vivofit watch and Garmin, my highest daily goal was like 15,500, but my average actual steps daily for the year was over 24,000 steps, from that perspective, I did okay. Having said that, I'm going to try and reach my daily step goal on those days I'm off.
4. Lumosity every day.
I really didn't play Lumosity that much for long stretches of the year, so I was very inconsistent. But I think I've done much better in the last quarter of the year.
Self-improvement:
1. Read a book a month.
God, I don't think I read ANY books in 2021. I read a couple books in 2020 (seriously, just 2-3), but I guess the "habit" didn't take...
2. Try to learn Spanish.
That's a big NO.
3. Learn more American history.
Also, a big NO.
4. Try to volunteer for something.
No. I really suck. Okay, in December I helped a friend ONE day who's been spending her year emptying the crap from the house of her mom - who was a serious hoarder - and I hope to help her again soon.
5. Try my hand at writing essays.
NO on that, too.
Maintenance:
1. Try to get down to 100 e-mails in my inbox by the end of January 2022.
So, in February 2021, I had 54,000+ e-mails. Yeah, I know, I know! I'm just bad news all the way around. For about a month, I was deleting 1000 e-mails a week, and I got to under 50,000 but that habit did not last and as of 1/6/22, I'm back up to: 53,751 e-mails. Also, I set my deadline for the end of January 2022 because I think I was figuring a goal of deleting 1000 e-mails a week and the math took me to the end of Jan. '22.
Creative goals:
1. Start my website.
NO, but I really plan to do it this year.
2. Earn $100/month through my art.
NO, and by my own accounting, expenses vs, earning money doing art, and there really weren't many transactions either way, I wound up at ($ -16.26) for the year
Be better about keeping in touch with people.
NO. I should be doing MUCH better at this. This is a permanent NYResolution. I did see a couple high school classmates in October. Haven't seen them since 2018. Occasionally e-mailed one of them, but really need to be more regular about this in general. Anyway, that was the GOOD news.
Thursday, January 6, 3:01 pm
NOTE: Man, everything takes forever!
I've been slowly editing and updating this post after I decided to add my 2021 New year's Resolutions to it and that turned out to be more work than I expected. I'm still not done, but I have other crap I really need to get to, so, I guess i'm working on my new habit of working on projects and chipping away at them every day until they're finally done.
ADDITIONAL 2021 GOALS/RESOLUTIONS:
Yeah! I was wondering where all my CREATIVE goals, etc. were! Not that I actually DID any of them..! Anyway, there's some repetition here, so I'll delete what we've covered already.
1. JANUARY 2022:
A. By JANUARY 31, 2022, reduce my e-mail inbox to under a 100.
NOTE: (2/7/21) Well, like THIS is going to happen. As of today, I'm at 54,000+ e-mails in my inbox.
2. HEALTHY CRAP:
A. Drink a bottle of water a day.
Not really.
3. BRAIN CRAP:
A. Learn the word a day from dictionary.com:
i. Write a flash short story using the words (once a week?) (50-100 words).
BIG NO.
4. WRITING GOALS:
A. Write a public blog post every week.
"Public" because I also have a private blog that sort of acts as my diary. I actually manage to keep up with that pretty well. The public blog, not so much.
B. Publish 50,000 words total (at least).
I think I did pretty well in 2020, and even then, I only managed 20,746 words. In 2018, I think I fared the best, over 29,000 words. But, I think i'm going to drop this resolution for 2022 and focus on 6 posts per blog, because that seems to be more practical and I'm still having trouble accomplishing that one.
C. Write the first draft to a screenplay (short or feature).
NO.
D. Write a feature screenplay.
HELL, NO.
5. FREELANCE ART GOALS:
A. Start a website.
B. Overhaul my portfolio.
i. Online version.
ii. Physical version.
C. Start TABLE SCRAPS as a webcomic.
D. Start and Finish my ACC story.
E. Self-publish a 24 page (at least) comic.
F. Learn how to add half-tones to my artwork.
G. Learn how to add color to my line art.
H. Assemble my drawing table.
NOTE: (2/7/21) H should probably be A, you think?
Cutting to the chase, I did NONE OF THESE. They're still excellent goals, though, so I'll move them over to 2022.
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Thursday, January 7, 1:57 am
That's right, I started this post back in November - before Thanksgiving, even! - initially just to write down some ideas for my New Year's Resolutions.
I've updated the list anew in a separate post in my writing blog:
2021 RESOLUTION FODDER:
Blogs:
- 50,000 words total over from the three main blogs.
- 6 new posts per blog.
- Write a really short story a week using at least 5 new words.
Comics:
- Make an 8 page mini-comic.
- 8-page comic remake of "Karen's Dilemma!"
- Do THE CAT'S MEOW.
- ACC comic story (at least 12 pages).
- SWAMP SQUAD OF THE DEAD comic adaptation
- Self-publish a comic book (24 page minimum)
- Start doing a web-comic (TABLE SCRAPS, anything) for my new website.
- Work on a story at least 30 minutes a day. Just keep whacking away at it.
- Do at least a new comics page per month.
Art:
- Do Pete G's painting (this project and THE CAT'S MEOW outdate even my ACC comic story goal: both are from the 80s)
- Draw Every Day:
a. At least 15 minutes!
b. Even a stick figure!
c. Continue working on a WIP. Just do SOMETHING!
- Portfolio/"Fan art" posters/etc.:
a. A CHRISTMAS MONSTROSITY (color version)
b. SNOW SHARK
c. 2 other Sam Qualiana movies/DVD posters/covers
d. 1 Beaver Alley Studios poster.
- "Interior artwork": JOURNEY OF THE AVENGER - 3 pieces.
NOTE: (2/7/21) Thought about this yesterday, but I really should start keeping a regular sketchbook. So, add that to the list.
Filmmaking:
- Write a feature length screenplay.
- Write first draft for PM screenplay.
- Finish editing BLIND DATE WITH THE BEAST
- Director's Cut of I CAME TO BURY DADDY
- Director's Cut of THE CASE OF THE MISPLACED HERRING
- Make a movie, short or feature.
Self-employment goals:
- Set up my website.
- Start posting art on my instagram account (at least monthly)
- Try to earn $100/month via my art, etc. (ie. create product, etc.)
a. Create a T-shirt design, etc./month at Society6
b. Self-publish some comics to sell online or in person at local comic shops
Reading:
- Read a book a month.
- Read a graphic novel/TPB a week.
Self-improvement/Better health:
- Hit my daily steps goal.
- Drink a bottle of water a day.
- Don't eat after midnight.
- Sleep 5 or more hours a night.
- Play Lumosity every day.
Monday, January 24, 12:56 pm
Also, found this in my private diary, from July 25, 2021, while finally getting around to proofreading my July posts:
Meanwhile, idle thoughts:
Habits to get into:
1. Post a new drawing on Deviant Art account weekly.
2. Fan Art Fridays, Instagram.
3. Work on THE CAT'S MEOW.
A. Layout page 1 and 2.
B. Pencil those two pages before seeing Steve?
C. Rough layout of whole story before seeing Steve?
4. Read and review/give feedback on:
A. TOMB OF DRACULA
B. SAVAGE DRAGON
C. FEARLESS DAWN
D. Warren magazines.
E. Skywald magazines.
F. Warrant magazines.
Comics I want to create - 1 or more issues:
1. SUPER SHLUMP
2. TABLOID TOWN:
A. Jheena the Jungle Fury
B. El Masko
C. Rumble at the Day Care
3. STELLARA ULTRANOVA
4. (COUNTESSA) DEMONIKA
5. ULKRYNN, PREHISTORIC CYBORG
6. TABLE SCRAPS
7. A FISTFUL OF THIS
8. ACCC COMIC
9. (DARK) DIMENSIONS ANTHOLOGY (inc. THE CAT'S MEOW)
