2024 Update

Well, it’s been a minute. I don’t really have an excuse for my absence the last few months. I haven’t been doing much of anything to post, though. Not a lot of illustration or a lot of writing. What I have been doing, I’ve been too ashamed to share.

It feels like every update I make is an explanation of how great I’m Not Doing, with details more granular than I think is appropriate. I’m writing this post because I want to not do that, and because I want to break the radio silence I’ve held for a while because of shame.

I had this realization shortly after I turned 30 last year, and it hit full force the other day. The realization being that I was keeping myself in a prison of my own making and that no one was coming to “save me” from myself or my responsibilities. I don’t even think I wanted literal saving—I just wanted things to be easier. Less stress, less anxiety, less guilt and shame.

I felt nothing but anxiety every time I tried to draw or write, and I know a huge part of that is because of my outstanding commission queue. But, because of trauma related to creating art itself, repairing my relationship with commissions had to come after I repaired my relationship with the process of creating art—any art.

I think I’m making a lot of progress in getting unstuck from where I was last year, though. I’m working on one of my outstanding commissions now and I’m enjoying the process, which I can’t say I’ve done in a very long time. I’ve committed myself to doing little rendered sketches/”doodles” that don’t need to be anything more than what they are. I somehow wrote 1k yesterday AND did a tiny bit of art all in the same day! Which is a huge accomplishment for me, I think.

Seeking support from family and friends has also been helping, and the more I do the better I feel. I’ve also gotten a lot of my daily routine in order, so I have a foundation to fall back on now that I definitely didn’t have before. I think the things that I really need to work on boil down to:

- Make an admin day explicitly for scheduling posts here
- Make more of an effort to share things in general in my discord server
- Continue to work through my anxiety and my shame by being more direct and communicative
- In general, keep learning to love art again and learning how to share it more

I guess in the grand scheme of things, this post isn’t exactly groundbreaking haha. But I wanted to write it, so I did, and I wanted to post it, so I am.

I’m not sure what day is going to be my admin day yet, but I’ve somehow committed to walking 2-5 miles almost every day for five months. I think I can push myself to commit to an admin day to keep y’all updated on my going-ons every week. >__>; It's the least I can do.

Thank you for being here, everyone. I know things have been dead on my end, but the support really does mean the world to me. I’ll have art to post soon, I promise. ♥