I began setting up my tracking spreadsheet last night. Still trying to get used to it. Still have a lot of work to do, but at least it’s a start.

I feel like I’ve learned a lot today and gotten a lot done, even though it’s just been in small segments. But that’s the plan, right?

I’ve been fighting fear with my painting today. I’m pushing myself into an area I know I need to work on. Yesterday, the fear won and I stopped painting. Okay, in fairness, I did need to give it a moment to dry so I could do a second layer, but fear kept telling me that I should start over on it. I almost did just that as I forced myself to sit down and restart today. I didn’t. I told myself to conquer this, and in order to do that, I had to keep going. I’m glad I did. Although, it did get hard again and I had to remind myself that I’m still working and need to block in extra sections. It’s a work in process. It’s not going to be beautiful 100% of the time. What ever is? But, I told myself when I sat down today that I was just going to practice and it didn’t matter if the painting worked out or not.

I hope that tomorrow I have pictures. I just didn’t get to sizing them tonight.

The drawing for my webcomic is also going along well. So well, in fact, that I’m tempted to go back and see if I’ve already posted a few of the prior page and if I haven’t, I might rework them. It just shows that in the time that I haven’t been regularly working on the comic, I have still been practice. I’m also trying to learn more about the tools I’m using, and just being more efficient with them. I have a long way to go on that, but I can see progress. Not bad since two days ago I was debating if restarting my webcomic again was a good idea. At the moment, at least, I’m glad that I forged ahead.

If nothing else, 2023 is going to be a year where I conquer fear. I don’t know when or why I let anxiety become such a thing in my life. I think it was just a lot of letting other people into my head. I’m done renting out headspace. Which, for the third day in a row, brings me back to Breakfast with Seneca by David Fideler. Today I was reading about how people who study philosophy as well as taken an interest in other things such as art, theater, architecture, music, etc., are expanding their lives by taking in the lives and teachings of those in the past. He comments about how those who can take the lessons of the past, be in present moment, and do not fear the future have full lives. That is something I certainly could understand, but the way I view it today versus how I would have viewed it three weeks ago is entirely different. My whole mental outlook has shifted. Not to say that I’m not still working on it. Obviously, as proven above, I am. But, I feel more stable and like myself right now.

We’ll see how tomorrow hits me. (grin)

Even the book I’m working on right now has taken a turn in a direction I didn’t see, but is definitely revolving around my current thinking. It looks like I might have to loop back through the whole book. That wouldn’t be a bad thing since I could catch up my outline.

So, come back around tomorrow for a couple pictures of this painting I’m working on. It’s just an attempt and a sort of study for a larger piece I want to work on. I’ve already seen that there are a couple changes I’m going to make when I redo it larger. For now, I’ll leave it since it’s a study and something I’m really practicing and overcoming fears on. By the time I do it in a larger size, I hope to have several issues worked out with the painting and with myself.

Every day better.

Cheers!