Adjusted schedule

I am making slow progress on the Pronto page I've been working on. The real difficulty now is finding time. I remember while taking an illustrations class at SVA, a discussion about the difficulty of being and illustrating and working full time. It eats up your time and when you do have time to work on a project your usually tired and don't want to work. This week though is particularly weird though with the many adjustments to my schedule because of the holiday week.

I can certainly relate to this now. That being said, I feel if I look carefully at my schedule and try to adjust accordingly I will more efficient.

That being said, I feel I and my team of writers have been making excellent progress on the war anthology. So where I feel lacking in one area, in other I feel positive. I guess it all balances out.

Working on a page

So the upcoming week will be interesting. The week is always different when a holiday is in the week. Dowling will be closed on Friday and Saturday, so I won't be working there, but I will make up the hours next week.

There will be several other things this week that will come up, which change the normal routine.

The big thing that I need to work on is to finish penciling a page for the Pronto Spectacular and then eventually inking and coloring it as well. Ideally I would like to get this done this week, hopefully before the end of it.

I also have decided to re-work my daily/weekly priorities list. Cause I look at it, with my schedule, the demands that I've put on myself are just no as realistic as I thought. So I need to change my time frame of my goals. Perhaps if I can relax about what I want to get done, I will be able to get more done in the long run, and not feel at creatively blocked/frustrated.

Crossed some things off the list

I've gotten some things done on the list I made last week. That always feels good. However, some personal things as well as illustration stuff is still not coming to the forefront the way I would like.

In a sort of strange ironic circumstance I haven't been able to work on my own illustrations because I've been working on comics. I've been doing sketches for a page in the Pronto Spectacular project. I actually need to have the finished pencils done by tomorrow. A deadline I am not sure if I will make fully, luckily I am moving along and a good enough speed that if I am late, it won't be by much.

Also I am now editing a new Pronto anthology on war. So this is cutting into my time as well. Its strange my goals are getting in the way of my goals....

Anyway I am beginning to wonder if I need to rethink my idea of productivity. If I am indeed just shoveling shit against the tide, when I should in fact be riding the current a bit more. Would it be the end of the world if i only self promote and most of my Internet work on Wednesdays, when I have the most time to do so?

I suppose it wouldn't.

Perhaps instead I should focus on my old strategy of "one project at a time, every project a success." Those projects would be (for myself) new illustrations/drawings, updating my website and putting out a new mailing. If i focus on each of those project one at a time, in that order I might get more done, then trying to do all three at once.

As far as Pronto goes the project are finishing up my page, editing the war anthology, inking. That is in order of due date, roughly.

Everything else in my life, I'll handle when there is free time, or I can make free time to do so, I suppose.

Another thing though, is that i have resigned myself to the fact that if I am not juggling a million things at once, while going at full speed, I don't know what the hell to do with myself.

overwhelmed

Over the last week or so I've been feeling overwhelmed with things to do and the subsequent feeling of failure at not getting enough done. In some ways it feels like my head is filled with too many things at once. The last couple of nights its been hard to get to sleep with thoughts racing around my mind.

So last night I spent a couple of minutes sitting alone in a quiet room with the lights off clearing my head. Then I started writing down everything I needed to do, from the biggest professional project to the most common place task. I filled up a page in one of my legal pads.

However I find things are easier when they are put down on paper and made into a list. It makes it conquerable. Now I feel like I can chip away at this list and actually get things done without feeling overwhelmed, well almost not overwhelmed.

As usual though it would be helpful to have 4 more hours in the day.

Trickling progress

Not sure of what to write today. Chipping away at things little by little. I was sitting downstairs last night in my work space and looking over a list of daily tasks. I put it up to remind me to do certain things every day. In the beginning of the year I was pretty good at getting these "exercises" done every day or almost every day.

As of late not so much.

I suppose to some degree, due to my human failings, I will always strive for an ideal that is unattainable. I will probably never quite get things to the level or a well oiled humming mahcine that I want it to be. It will always be a Sisyphean effort in some regard.

That being said, I believe I should strive for it. One of the best ways to start is to go back to working on my daily, weekly and long term tasks. Particularly while the times are as close to quiet as they can be.

Quiet again/

So hopefully now my life will begin to resemble some small form of calm and normalcy. Who knows if it will though. All I know is this week I am working normal hours and have no special projects pending. So hopefully it will be an easier week.

Last week I got a lot done, whether I wanted to or not. I did my usual work, plus extra hours, put out some blogs and a Times Round Up which became featured content on Redgage, met with the Pronto Comics crew, worked on some bowls and cups for a friend, put out a much overdue food blog and got to meet a visiting artist at Dowling which was quite inspirational.

I feel a little proud that I made it through the week and got so much done. Hopefully I didn't screw anything up too much in the craziness.

Now that there is some kind of calm for the foreseeable future I want to try and take advantage of it. A pronto collaborator has a project he wants me to work on, so I hope to start on that this week. I want to get back to writing articles for helium, I need to start looking through my mailing list and getting ready for a mailing and maybe, just maybe, start cracking on my long back burnered personal illustration projects.

We'll see what I can get done.

A lot going on, on all fronts

I have often told people that I need 4 more hours a day. I need a 28 hour day. There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day. But things seem to be going well professionally, for now.

This week I am catching up on my hours at Dowling, since I lost out last Friday due to the snow day. I am also catching extra hours at the gym since the boos will be away for a long weekend.

On the comics front, the inking and coloring is finished and the pages are being lettered. The overall anthology project is going well and we will have a big meeting this Thursday to discuss future projects and to implement some of the advice we received last Friday from the DC Comics editor Mike Siglain.

Personally the meeting was a good kick in the ass in terms of motivation as well, giving me some realizations. For over a year I haven't been collecting comics due to monetary restraints. He gave me some advice and told me to collect again. Explaining to me that how could he or any editor believe I was really passionate in comics if I wasn't collecting and that I need to be able to hold a conversation about what is current in comics as well as in inking.

It was much needed and welcomed advice. I think the group as whole has done well to listen and reflect on the advice he gave last Friday.

Also once this week is done, I plan on throwing myself back into pursuing my illustration career and promotion. I will begin working on my mailing list again and get cracking on some new illustrations. As well as implementing the advice I received from Mike Siglain. The big thing though is to not, strange as it may sound, let life get in the way of the goals I have for my life.

So anyway, hi ho hi ho back to work I go...