January- Unidyllic but We're Trying

Being productive is hard. Doing things is hard. Trying to make forward motion in life is hard, especially when you find yourself back at square one constantly.

That's not to say that there aren't good things about trying to improve and change. There are plenty, but lately I find myself drowning in the negatives. That's just what I seem to do. I focus on the bad and the good stuff disappears into the mix, and I can never seem to sort it out.

I'm trying. Trying to get a hold of something positive that won't fade. Not sure if that is a realistic thing to want or not. I'm just tired of feeling things in extremes, I'm either ecstatic or lying on the floor in a sad cocoon. It's not realistic and it's not fun. It's worse when you're doing all the things your supposed to and your not seeing any progression.

Instead of drowing in my very silly problems. I'm going to focus on all the good things that happened this month. I started collecting happy moments and memories. Things that made me smile, this is a great thing to do if your prone to depression or as just as a way of helping yourself through bad times.

It's one of the best things to do besides blasting sad music and crying. Which is also super therapeutic. I don't know why this is turning into a mental help post, I can't even help myself so....

The first thing that brought me a lot of joy in January, was my relationship with God. He blessed me a lot this month and answered so many prayers. I've been trying to strengthen my faith a bit, and put the focus back on Him and not me. It's a work in progress.

The second is tv shows. Which isn't a surprise. Tv pretty much runs my life, it also gives me a lot of book and art ideas so I can count it as somewhat productive.
A few I've been watching I'm not going to mention just because they're really mature *cough* and I don't want to advertise that kind of content on here. We like to keep this place just shy of PG-13 thank you very much!


Tv and Fandoms

I know I've mentioned this one a lot, but it has been a huge part of my life lately. It also has a super nice and supportive fandom. Which I wasn't expecting, I usually avoid fandoms like the plague. I've met so many artists and such through this show. It also helped my Instagram account grow like crazy.

It was nice to be able to share my love for something with a bunch of like-minded people. It was also amazing to know that some of the actors saw my work.

One of the first actors to like and comment on one of my posts was Roger Bart. He plays vice principal Nero, and his interactions with Olaf kill me.  He is so nice! He constantly shares fanart, and reposts things. You gotta love an actor who appreciates his fans!

After him was Kitana Turnbull, she plays Carmelita. She's the Nellie Olsen character in this show, I thought she was hilarious. Especially when she becomes Esme's and Count Olaf's adopted daughter, the dysfunctional family dynamics are my jam. Kitana is a sweetheart, she liked, commented, and shared my art. Which got one of my pictures over 200 likes. Which may sound dumb to some people, but I am working on growing my Instagram account.

I love that it was the picture I finished in the car, and one that I accidentally placed at the end of the page. Anyway, this was one of my favorite parts in season 3. She is amazing and an absolute sweetheart.

Usman Alley, who plays the Fernald (Hooky) liked it too, so 2/4 ain't bad. Just knowing that they saw it was enough for me. I almost forgot, Cynthia Summer's who was the costume designer also liked a few and I died. Her designs are masterpieces. I'm in awe of her skill.

All of that was pretty overwhelming for me. I've been trying to work on building my confidence with my art, and all of this really helped.

I took a break from ASOUE fanart to draw some other characters from a show I had been enjoying.
(I'm not recommending this one, it's super dark.)

I love this guy. He's an amazing actor  He liked and commented on this picture, and I actually screamed and woke my sister up. She's used to my outbursts by now, but was still slightly annoyed.

I still can't believe he saw it!!!! I mean look at him.

I love this character, but I hate this picture I did. She liked it though, so I will get over it.

She is a goth Queen!


I was pretty productive on the art front in January. Which was a nice change for me.


Writing and Falling Snow

I didn't do very much writing in January, I'm not sure why. It's been awhile since Nano, and I have no clue why it's so hard to just pick up a pen. I was working on a contest entry for The Master's Review, and about halfway through the month I gave up on it. About three days before the contest ended, I decided to shorten it a 1,000 words and after sending it off to Maddie for a last second edit. She is amazing! I entered it, I also threw together a quick snippet from a story, I thought up years ago and entered that too.

I'm not super confident about my entries, and I would be shocked if anything were actually to happen with them. I feel like I only gave them about 80%  but it felt good to try. I also like to always have something that creates a bit of anticipation. Having something to look forward to is key.

I also submitted some flash fiction to Havok, that one was fun. I used some character's from my fairytale mash up story. My awesome, beta team helped me whip it into shape. Not sure if anything will come of that either, but it made me enjoy writing again. That's priceless in my opinion.

I plan on doing some work on Fool's Bet this month though. It's time to get back to it.

One of the things, that completely overwhelmed me this month, was reviews. Book reviews of my story. People read Falling Snow!!! I don't even think I can explain the euphoric feeling that came with that. This has always been something I wanted, but had long convinced myself would never happen. So to have it happen, was just baffling.

I got interesting feedback too, it seems to be one of those story's that people either love or hate. Which I'm happy about, because I read that you want your story to make people feel something whether it's good or bad, anything is better than indifference. I got some critiques and now I know what to improve on, I also really want to expand the story one day. There is a lot I would like to add.

My favorite negative review goes to Anabelle Cas. He review was short, to the point, and made me laugh out loud.
She said, The first one, set in a circus was the one I liked the least. 
I love her bluntness.

As for positive reviews I got some amazing ones, I want to shout out all my favorites but that would make this post too long, so I am going to do that in a separate post. I appreciate everyone who read it and reviewed it. Whether you liked it or not, just having readers means the absolute world to me. Having feedback to work with is amazing! 

Life stuff

Drives with my Dad, I always tag along when he goes to do little things at jobs, or to get supplies. We listen to music, talk, and  get coffee. My younger sister has started coming too, we make a day of it. 

Watching random stuff with my Mom. We watch anything from diet videos to bigfoot shows. It's always fun. I love it when we find similar interests, like X-Files, she watched it long before I even knew it existed.

Watching Anime and Elementary with my younger sister. I'm slowly getting her into all of my shows. 

Playing Breath of the Wild, with my younger brother, he's better at video games then I am. So having him around is always useful. 

One of my older brother's showed up with a coffee for me one day, it was dairy-free and everything. Little things like that keep me going. 

I feel like I'm forgetting some things. Probably a lot of things.

All in all, I had a good month. 2019 is looking pretty great so far.