Happy belated St. Patrick’s Days, or whatever that holiday that just passed was; my brain has been broiled inside my own skull for the past week, so I have no idea…
Unbearably hot weather aside, it’s been a productive first week of 2024 so far; I’m keeping up with a lot of my goals, making significant progress on others, and generally trying to do better in all things compared to last year. I did my traditional New Year’s tarot draw, and this year’s card is the King of Swords.
This card is all about intellectual clarity, decisiveness and discipline, taking the best route based on the most logical choices and holding true. In a year where I plan to better myself creatively, physically and mentally, nothing could be more significant for me right now. I’ve got a lot of things I want to accomplish this year, and shying away from them due to illogical reasons is not going to help. Though I maintain that almost melting from the heat is still a valid excuse for not getting as much stuff done as I want; I’m almost looking forward to going back to the day job next week just to hang out under the aircon.
On that note, I’ve been busy getting the first pages of Fifth Ace Showcase Issue #0 ready for upload; I’ve been putting last year’s practice to good use, rendering the illustrations in greyscale and then layering colour on top. By doing it this way, I can have a print-ready version of the page done at the same time as the digital version; if I ever get this stuff in print, greyscale is the cheaper option. The drawback is that this does take a lot longer to render than just straight colouring, especially since I’m still experimenting with the style; I didn’t get nearly as many pages done today as I would have hoped, and as I said before, the heat wasn’t helping. Despite it all, I’ll still have the first page ready for upload tomorrow, and I want to have the next three pages done before Monday; I want to get a buffer out ahead of time for a change, and this free week before I go back to work is prime real estate for building it up.
Over to the physical side of things, I have started my exercise routines for the year, and so far have no real complaints; my thighs aching is to be expected, I shouldn’t complain about that. The program I picked out is pretty simple, nothing too hectic for the first month or two, and it doesn’t wear me out first thing in the morning when I do it. In the moment when I work out, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing that much, but the fact that my thighs are aching means that something is happening. The routines will get more intense as the year goes on, but I’ll work my way up to that. Similarly, my meal prep is also going well; I currently have a freezer full of premade meals for the upcoming week. It’s mostly stuff like curries and pasta dishes, which are usually quite carb heavy, but they are also smaller portions than I usually eat; I don’t think I could ever cut carbs completely, so this is the compromise. I still feel the need to snack a lot, especially since my main meals are smaller, but once I’m out of the house again, there will be less temptation towards that.
Mentally speaking, I want to maintain a better attitude this year; I want to channel my negative emotions to productivity, and let my positive emotions colour the rest of my life. Hopefully this will result in more art and less angst in my online posting. To aid in this, I’ve started journaling again for the first time in years; it worked when I was still in therapy, so no reason it shouldn’t work now. I keep my journal next to my bed, and every night I fill a page with my thoughts on the day, some positive affirmations about what I’ve accomplished, and what I want to get done the next day; if I happen to have an inspired thought after I get into bed, it’s also on hand for me to jot it down as well. I started the journal a few days before the end of last year, just to see how it felt, and I think it’s already helping a lot; by getting the thoughts out of my head, I can see more plainly where I’m going, and get a better night’s sleep without them weighing on my mind.
So with all that, 2024 has begun on a good note, if not a terribly loud one. I’m going to keep building my momentum as the year goes on (fingers crossed), and will hopefully be all the better for it. Once I’m no longer feeling like a strip of crispy bacon, that is.
Ciao for now.