It's no secret that I have a hard time staying on top of this place.

I made it a tip jar last August with monthly high res packs as the only guaranteed reward, and frankly, the only reason I was able to stay on top of that is because I scheduled all 12 high res posts in January. I just did the same for this year, so that's taken care of.

I think the main reason I struggle with this is the lack of engagement here. Of course I'm not implying that your money isn't "enough" or that I'm demanding more than that. But the objective truth is that it's hard for my neurospicy ass to pay attention to platforms where I don't really get to interact with anybody. The same thing happens to Pillowfort, Deviantart, etc, but at least for those I have the benefits of a) posting the same thing there I do everywhere else as opposed to exclusive content, and b) Postybirb. I can't really do either of those here.

But I also feel...different, this year. In a good way, I think. I feel like I'm tired of being complacent and riding coattails. This month has been a whirlwind of getting my shit in line. So far I:

handled two serious family crises smoothly and picked myself back up quickly from both
called my health insurance (phone calls have historically been an hours-long meltdown-inducing debacle for me) twice to switch my PCP because the previous one was consistently booked 3-6 months out and she just forgot to mention the inhaler I pulled out of my bag to show her at my first appointment so I couldn't get a refill on it or my nebulizer when I had COVID; that's been getting put off since August of last year
made an appointment with said new PCP for Feb 1, and I'm hoping they'll be able to refer me to a dentist and optometrist because I desperately need both
got back into therapy with an autism/ADHD specialist who can help me manage those specifically after my previous therapist didn't understand why I couldn't just Do It™; also have assessments lined up for both to get diagnoses
pay more attention to my health in general, including diet and exercise. I'm already down about 10 lb
restructured my planner to include a mood tracker and sleep tracker, and have been better about staying on top of it
got Trello up and running and so far it's working really well for me
have been doing my house chores more consistently, namely cleaning litter boxes and taking care of my snakes and tarantulas (roommates have been picking up my slack but they shouldn't have to, they're my animals)
am able to work more consistently on my designated work days; before it was a lot of chipping away and putting things off rather than sitting down and making actually decent progress
am finally starting a tattoo sleeve I've wanted for a very, very long time as a belated birthday gift to myself
am consistently filling stream sketch slots, which means I can actually make money and pay my bills on-time (and a huge, huge thank you to everyone who signs up, I'm pretty sure this is the primary reason I've been able to pull myself out of the hole. Financial stability is a hell of a drug)

This year I wanna try really hard to keep the train moving along this track. If things keep going the way they are, I could potentially make some pretty big changes in the not so distant future. Some things I'm brainstorming:

UnholyFans
merch other than stickers (seriously I have so many designs in mind, I just haven't had the drive to work on them or the upfront capital to order inventory)
more monster/demon adoptables
I would really like to collab with some other artists, it's been too fuckin long
website restructure
picking up my side business (I did literally zero pieces for it last year oof), ideally with a rebrand
get back into conventions and try some new crowds: reptile/exotic expos, tattoo conventions, oddities expos, sex conventions, BDSM groups...
push the stream setup to be more professional
rekindling the spark for my personal stories and headworld projects
more I have written down somewhere but can't think of off the top of my head

And to be clear, I'm optimistic, but also a realist. I know from experience that shit changes and I could hit a massive depressive slump in a month or two and be back to where I was for most of last year. I'm still not going to promise anything I'm not confident I can deliver. However, that doesn't mean I shouldn't try.

I already got sidetracked with this post, so I'm gonna make a second to get to my original point and I'll come back and add a link to this one when I do. But suffice to say I want to try - again - to breathe some kind of life back into this place. I have some ideas in mind, but I want to hear yall's opinions on it too.

Watch this space ♥

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