I told myself that when I started this journal that it was going to be a way for me to give a little bit of perspective to how much I actually accomplish, and to what little joys I can find even in bad or mediocre days. I don’t have to make long journal entries, but touching base and taking stock regularly is a good way to keep me motivated.
So even though today was still a bit uncomfortable feeling, there are some points of success that I can and should note.
I wrote 350 words yesterday and tacked on another 500-ish words today. I still feel like I don’t quite know if I’m doing good work while I’m in the midst of it, but when I showed Tim – and I’m glad I caved and showed Tim – he had only good things to say. The scene itself was an uncomfortable one, but his verdict was that my characters felt real and believable, and he picked up the nuances that I was trying to spell out about their situation while not stating any of it directly. I’m rusty like an old bike at the bottom of the Gorge after a three month stint of not being able to even think about my story, so hearing from him that I’d managed to put people down on the page instead of cardboard cut outs was enough to perk me up and make me want to keep going at it.
I’m not sure if the scene I’m writing really is in the right spot, but I’m also recognizing that I can move stuff around if I need to. As long as I’m writing new words and pushing the story forward at all, then that’s what counts.
I didn’t draw much again, but I did accomplish something. This holiday has been astoundingly bereft of real art, but I did put more effort into the dry-and-boring-as-an-Excel-sheet character reference page for Heinrich that I’ve been working on since late last year, and I think it’s nearly complete. Today’s focus was close-ups of his face and his respirator mask. If I can get the whole kit and kaboodle entirely done before I go back to work on Monday, then so much the better. Still to come are some common facial expressions for my stoic danger noodle and a tidy up of details on the overall costume sheet. Then he’ll be done.
Finally, I put a coat of paint on this website and I made an effort to try to wrap my head around the workings of CSS once again. That took more of the day than I would have liked, but the good thing is that once the upfront effort is done, it should be easy enough to just add new content here. Having a website like this in 2025 feels a touch bit cringe, but, as I remind myself daily: I am free.
And no one can really blame the 40 year old for wanting to return to 2005.