Hello y’all!

I decided to make this journal to serve as a public record of my goals & accomplishments for the year 2023, mostly in my personal life. Topics on this journal may expand (like the ladies) if I think of more things I think I can add. ^.^ This journal will be updated periodically throughout the year.

You are welcome to look at some of these and consider them for yourself in your own personal development!

Read 4-5 times per Week
Reading list (month completed):
1) Atomic Habits by James Clear (November 2022)
2) The Proximity Principle by Ken Coleman (January 2023)
3) Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (March 2023)
4) Take Back You Time by Christy Wright (April 2023)
5) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (June 2023)
6) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (December 2023)
7) Rereading Atomic Habits by James Clear (ongoing)

Learn a New Cooking Recipe Each Month
1) January: Chocolate Cookies https://tasty.co/recipe/the-best-ch.....e-chip-cookies
My results: https://twitter.com/EclipsisStudios.....26031623634944
2) February: Chicken Teriyaki Fried Rice https://tasty.co/recipe/chicken-ter.....aki-fried-rice
My results: https://twitter.com/EclipsisStudios.....70263924637696
3) March: Banana Bread - family recipe
My results: https://twitter.com/EclipsisStudios.....79573426376707
4) April: All-in-One Sausage Dinner - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CS2VpkoQk0
My results: https://twitter.com/EclipsisStudios.....01334142033922
5) May: Chicken Enchiladas - family recipe
My results: https://twitter.com/EclipsisStudios.....17028064235521
6) June: Sweet Potato Chicken Stir-fry With Peanut Sauce - https://tasty.co/recipe/sweet-potat.....h-peanut-sauce
My results: (to show)
7) July: Meat Loaf - family recipe
My results: (to show)
8) August: Tea
(note: I've struggled like tea but finally found a way to do it right that I like; hence why it makes this list)
9) September: Texas Cake - family recipe
My results: (to show)
10) October:
11) November:
12) December:

Exercise by Hitting 25km in Pokemon Go Each Week
Month with weeks met (√)/failed (x):
January: √,√,√,√,√; February: √,√,√,√; March: √,√,√,√; April: √,√,√,√,√; May: √,√,√,√; June: √,√,√,√; July: √,√,√,√,√; August: √,√,√,√; September: √,√,√,√; October: √,√,√,√,√; November: √,√,√,√; December: √√_,_,_,_.

Keep a Daily Journal
My Starting Template: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....4644/image.png

“We were designed for growth. If we aren’t growing, what’s the point?~”

~Eclipsis

Gosh I forgot these things exist. I haven't really seen tagging in journals since my time on DeviantArt.  krashking14 tagged me in some thing to know more about Anniki the Umbreon, so here is that!

You can see Anniki art here: https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery.....Anniki-Umbreon

1) Divine title: "Goddess of Inspiration" She specializes in creating highly visual and inspiring buildings and other architecture. She also likes to be quite fashionable.

2) Anniki was my first officially recognized named Pokemon character of my cast. Others came before but they were not yet recognized as cast characters.

3) Her markings change color based on her mood. Common mood colors:
~Normal: Shiny Umbreon Blue
~Proud/Accomplished: Purple
~Flirty/Horny: Pink
~Sleeping: Normal Umbreon Yellow
~Angry: Red (very rare)
~Ill: Green (only hypothetical and unlikely to ever be seen)

4) She is sister to Yvonnita the Espeon

5) She is normally 480' tall (without pawwear) and unlike most other divine, she does not like being any smaller for any reason.

6) Anniki has a dedicated mate: Apollo the Victini, God of Valor

7) She has been a titan goddess for a longer time than more of her titan peers and has extensive seniority

8) Based on Favorite counts, the pictures I have made of Anniki and posted to FurAffinity rank her as my most popular character here. Among Patreon Patrons, she is near the top and does not often lose polls; she is also asked for by at least one Patron nearly every month.

There you go! Some facts about her as a character in the world and some art facts. ^.^

Hello y'all!

On my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/EclipsisStudios ) for September the monthly theme is asking my characters questions and you get a sketch or doodle showing one of them responding to the question.

I figured, why not offer a text version of this here for everyone? If you have a question you'd like to ask my characters, please do so below! I'll try and get to them when I can find some time; probably during my administrative time I do most days.

If you are already a Patron on the $30 tier who already submitted a question, feel free to pick other questions as those request are still coming. $10 Patrons will get their form later this month.

You can ask me a question too if you'd like as well!

Here is an update on the major life change I have going on right now.

As a reminder, I am in the process of purchasing a piece of commercial real estate to preserve the future of my mother's bookstore which I also work at, whom I also live with.

After the enormous fight to get the deal pushed through, it looks like it will finally happen with an expected closing date of Tuesday, June 21. Unless something trips me up again between now and then, it will finally be over and the building will be in my name.

Aftermath
I had to pull a lot of strings and put a substantial amount of hard work into this to make it happen. And once it is mine, sadly, my life isn't going to improve too much in the immediate future.

I'll be badly in debt with personal loans expected to take about 1/4 of my income and the building itself will take another 1/2. To make this agreement happen, I had to pledge putting together a large emergency fund of about 3 months worth of expenses. After that, I need to start putting money aside for income taxes which I've neglected the whole year to make this deal happen. I expect this whole purchase will put me in a higher tax bracket as well.

Also, the building is in need of considerable renovation, and a large amount of it I have to personally do to save money.

How I lived for the last three months on almost nothing and laboring 80% of my waking time 7 days a week looks like it will continue for the rest of the year.

The good thing is that it means you'll see tons of art of all sorts made and posted! The bad thing is that I won't be able to commission at all. I still have a decent amount of commissions I bought to post so hopefully the will tie us over until my income stabilizes.

I have a lot to gain doing this whole process, but it will take a lot of work to get through it. I commented to a few people that it will push me harder than I would have otherwise and should make my overall life better at the end of it.

Thank you for reading y'all! I really appreciate it. I'm trying to catch up on messages/comments and such. I'll get to them eventually!

~Eclipsis

Hello ya'll! I figured I would give an update on the very important IRL thing going on with me.

The Slowdown Reason
Quick recap, I am purchasing a piece of commercial real estate to help secure the future of my mom's business, whom I also live at home with. This is a substantial undertaking with tons of price number in 4-5 figures, with the main purchase itself being 6 figures. Two of the numbers I am working with are well over my annual income. The building has a lot of problems that I am going to be inheriting but I am going to do my best to go into this addressing them.

We are approaching the closing date of me acquiring the property. I am having to do a lot of meetings and calls to make this happen. It not only takes time to do these, but I am mentally and emotionally drained after doing them. Its at the point art is hard to want to do.

I did plan for this at the start of the month. I was expecting a slowdown and planned my work load around it. Now I'm at the point where it is happening.

The Slowdown Will Look Like
What this will look like to you is that for about the next month or so you'll see a larger percentage of sketch quality uploads. Mid to late June I hope to have my productivity return to comparable to April. The slowdown is temporary and not how my art productivity will look in the months following this real estate acquisition! And to be certain, I will not be stopping cold at any point. There will still be stuff being done, just not the 40 or so pictures I was doing per month prior to May.

Social Media Engagement
Also, I will probably be letting my social media engagement start sliding. Don't be alarmed if I don't reply or if you get a reply 2-3 weeks after. Nothing personal against you!

~Eclipsis

As you might know, I create and post a LOT of art. The sheer volume I do and how frequently I post leaves a lot of chances for mess ups like today when I posted a picture twice because of some poor file naming choices.

I post via PostyBirb and have everything automated on a schedule that I set and forget, usually days in advance. If you see a post go up and are awaiting a response from me in some way. Don't be alarmed as I'm likely not on whichever social media and checking messages/responses.

How I manage posting across Patreon, FurAffinity, and Twitter is very complex and is a lot more than just simply going down a list to post. Certain types of pictures are supposed to go up certain days of the week. FurAffinity posts are a certain number of months after its Patreon post and Twitter some time after the FurAffinity post. And then there are special posting days such a Pokemon's day or a person's birthday that I have special posting criteria for.

Also something I want to make sure is known, Tuesday/Wednesday of every week I am almost fully not around on social media due to my Newspaper job (dubbed 'Hellday' because it usually occurs in an intense 24 hour time frame).

Finally, when it comes to responding to comments and such, I try and do that when I have spare time during administrative blocks of the day. On some days I just don't have that spare time.

Thank you for reading this. I've wanted to make a journal on these points for a while and figured today was a good reason to do so.

~Eclipsis

I released my 6th annual July 4th video of my Minecraft modification, Kindred Legacy, staring Firecracker Litten and the return of Vastaya Ninetales.

You can view the video at:
https://youtu.be/1ghZvRwP9JA

~Eclipsis (a.k.a. Spikybum Jolteon)

I have been wondering if I have been underestimating the interest in a particular media technique I use and I want to know if people want to see more of it. It is the technique I use for doing reference pictures such as these:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41629882/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41303899/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40159203/

These are pencil sketches given a flat digital color in Photoshop.

I always assumed the sloppy, unrefined look was too unappealing to really do much with standalone, actual pictures. Am I wrong to think so? What all do you think?

~Eclipsis

In response to some questions I've received about my cast members, I reorganized my character folders in my gallery. Now they are under subsets labeled where they fit in the divine system along with the average height of their rank.

I'm hoping in the coming months to start tossing in little bios in the folder descriptions about their title and actual height, what they do, and other important details.

Also some might notice that some folders contain only Patreon request doodles. The characters' ref sheets may either be in the grace period between posted to Patreon and to the general public. Or in the case of some characters, they have yet to have ref sheets made but are officially accepted/recognized members of my cast; developed enough that art can be made of them via Patreon doodle requests.

~Eclipsis

For those who know, I am developer of the Kindred Legacy, a Pokemon crossover themed Minecraft modification.

For the 5th year in a row, I have released a Fourth of July video based on one of the mobs, Firecracker Litten, who uses firework missiles to attack. Feel free to check it out at: https://youtu.be/rC_oly40vuo

I hope you Americans are enjoying the holiday and I hope this gives you some festive cheer today!

~Eclipsis
(a.k.a. Spikybum Jolteon)

Some have probably noticed I’ve been pretty lousy with keeping up with favoriting, replying, and commenting on pictures.

Now that I have fully embraced art as my primary source of income, I’m going to do what I can to give it the proper attention and respect by doing more of those above.

For example, if you check out my favorites, I did fav bombing so you can see things that I like and am interested in. Also, due to the lack of my special “NSFW” filter where I am as I type this, I was able to see everything in my inbox and went ahead and faved those too.

If you haven’t already, please consider supporting me on my Patreon! It helps a lot and any amount is welcome. $5 might not seem like much, but if many people do, it goes a long ways. My Patreon proclivity has been extremely heavy for a few months now.

Clarifying stance on content, use of a “NSFW” filter
I’m still highly conscious about keeping that filter up, as I don’t want any artists I watch have their reputations damaged with me. I do carry grudges.

If you are curious about what offends me, I can sum them up as: -Pretty much all violence in pictures obviously intended to be fapped to- (this is SIGNIFCANT reason, I can’t stress how much this offends me; I am not adverse to violence beyond that if not used for humor [ex: not South Park; Warframe]); incest; torture; rape; and bodily waste (like wet diapers, belching, farting, digestive vore, and scat).

I am uncomfortable with the depiction of minors in macro obviously intended to be fapped to (and don’t give me that bullshit that “well anything can be fapped to by someone” [ex: pawshots, rampages, way too short skirts]). For personal reasons, I’m not interested in femboys and highly feminine cross-dressing for males but I keep that to myself.

Looking to the future
I hope you all are doing well. I look forward to bringing lots of new content.

I’m doing my best to balance the content of macro/paws/destruction with hyper, as I know those two groups don’t always like the other content.

~Eclipsis

As some of you know, I use the program PostyBirb to schedule posts across the Internet, which sometimes lead to rather embarrassing mix ups. ^^;

For example, some posts I do manually to FurAffinity and some automatic via PostyBirb. How tags are handled between the two are different, where if I use the opposite method, it turns the tag into one single massive tag. If you ever see that on a submission, that is what happened!

Also, like what I messed up today was scheduled a Twitter post but accidentally set it up to post to FurAffinity.

If you ever see stuff like that with my gallery, THAT is why it happens. ^^;

~Eclipsis

I've been wanting to put this question out there for a while now, but was hesitant to host a poll due to possibility of ballot stuffing. Here is a journal for those who want to take the time to post a comment!

Who are your favorite characters of my cast?

You can check out the list in my gallery if you need a spelling check or reminder: http://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/eclipsis/

(note: May Sa Muneh the Mightyena is missing from the gallery list but she is a character of mine; Aerisis and Eclipsis I haven't bothered making folders of yet)

~Eclipsis

I've been considering for quite a while now posting pictures done by other artists to my gallery. I am not sure the best way to do this. Should I do it to my main gallery with proper identification of who did it in the title? Or should they go to my scraps?

Artist comments would of course have links to the artist's page, and if I am able to, the actual submission. (most artists post the stuff I get as mature so I can't view them, though it isn't much different than what I already post)

~Eclipsis

Well, its long overdue but I have started making gallery folders of my art!

Now you can easily check out whole subfolders dedicated to my cast members. Feel free to check them out! ^.^

~Eclipsis

(Not to confuse this journal title with a certain insane clown)

I figured I would make a post since the last one was a Foxhole invite for people to play with me. I forced myself to stop playing that game after an extreme heavy addiction and I am still dealing with daily cravings to go back.

Foxhole made last month pretty slow. Gaming tends to do that. I did my taxes tonight and found out my commission income took an enormous hit. Someone pointed out it was also likely because I was introduced to Warframe. (if you play the game, to give an idea of how intensely I played it, I started around February/March and by the end of the year I was eligible for the Mastery 25 test [have not actually taken it yet though])

The good news though is I at least kept the bare minimum every month last year for Patreon (three finished pictures/two sketches).

Speaking of Patreon, I want to say what is happening with posts from there to here on FurAffinity. You may have noticed that ALL submissions for the last few months have been commissions. I have given commissions express priority posting to eventually get their lag down to about two months after their Patreon posting.

As a side effect, this is dragging original art posting to about a year lag between posting to Patreon and eventually FA. In fact, I am looking at the posting order and then glancing at the year summary for 2018. That Anniki drawing for March might not even get released THIS March.

So we are talking a full year before things like new characters finally hit the general public. That’s quite a while before you’ll see the faces for characters like Solerra the Vulpix, Zyxera the Zoroark/Delphox/Ninetales, Ambyrn the Flareon, and Thoryza the Zeraora to name a few of the really popular faces Patrons and people watching me stream have seen.

There isn’t a whole lot I can do about that and it’s not some strategy to get you all on my Patreon. How posting works is I only post on certain days at certain times of day to get maximum visibility per post and no more than two posts per day (unless I am extremely behind), counting Patreon AND FA together in that count. I frequently miss those times either because I am busy, too tired to bother or straight up forget.

I’ll confess that the whole scheduling thing started right after posting this picture: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/28602936/ A well-loved character doing a high appeal activity in a decently detailed sketch shortly after getting lots of new watchers from someone posting commissions of said character, absolutely bombed in getting attention (and yes, I was very attached to that drawing). The timing of the post I was told was bad and since then has made me paranoid to post anything at random times like I used to.

This is mostly just an informative journal to say how things are working and why. But if you would like to skip ahead in seeing fresh new content, be sure to watch for my streams on Picarto at: https://picarto.tv/Eclipsis or you are more than welcome to support me on Patreon and see the actual finished products right away: https://www.patreon.com/EclipsisStudios

Alright, until next time. ^^

~Eclipsis

My art productivity has kinda suffered in recent weeks because I was introduced to a rather fun war game that is still in Alpha called Foxhole. The game has helped me cope with the family bookstore closing I mentioned in the previous journal.

I figured I might as well toss this out there in case anyone wants to play with me as it is pretty easy to do so. ^^

Foxhole is a MMO game in a fictional world with World War II era weapons. Players control most everything in the game. In addition to fighting on the battlefield, players help the effort by producing the weapons and supplies for the front (which is what I personally do). I’ve seen the game described as “top down Planetside 2 but better” or top down ARMA (neither of which I’ve played or seen played). The game only costs about $22 USD on Steam if you are concerned about your budget.

If you want a video introduction, you can watch the first few minutes of this video by the YouTuber that introduced the game to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w5Yw-XYCaA

The community, at least the faction I play with, the Colonials, is very friendly (though are a bit intolerant of “furries” if you want to be open in that regard). The opposing side, the Wardens, is often said to be more toxic. Playing with a mic is highly encouraged and makes for a wonderful charm to the game as you can even talk to your enemies. A little clip from a stream by same YouTuber shows this rather well: https://www.twitch.tv/davidangel64/.....wberryPoooound

Each war, or game, can last for weeks but do eventually end, so it isn’t like a thing that lasts forever like World of Warcraft for example. There is only one instance of the war, so if you play the game at all with anyone, you will always be together regardless of where you are. Chinese, Koreans, Russians, English, Australians, etc. all play together. I tend to play a lot with someone I think said they are Italian though their English can be pretty hard to understand with their accent. ^^;

If you are interested in playing with me, I play with the Colonial faction and usually play on the Umbral Wildwoods to supply Endless Shores just north of there. As of this writing, our side is winning and makes learning the game less stressful than when I first joined and we were losing badly (but did eventually win).

I play under my proper gamer screen name “SpikybumJolteon” and if you see me, I can try and help you learn the game including a demonstration via Picarto if you wish. The game is best taught by the veterans despite the “tutorial” in the game.

Feel free to reply if you are interested!

~Eclipsis

I probably got two hours of sleep last night. Very upsetting situation is unfolding.

Family Bookstore Closing
My mom, whom I work for, has made the executive decision to close her bookstore that has been in business for about 40 years now.

The store is doing so poorly, we pretty much can't even pay basic utilities and now have to raise money fast just to keep the lights on. I am be tasked with making arrangements and promotions to make it look like we are having great discounts from now until Christmas, and then at that point making the store liquidation officially announced and being fully closed within about two months or so.

The bookstore is upside down and I don't think liquidation will pay for everything my mom owes. Not to mention having to figure out how to address people with trade in credit for having brought books into the store to help buy other books.

I am very upset right now. Very disturbed and sick to my stomach over how we are to make this all happen.

Angry At Mom
Personally I am very angry with my mom. She became very unfit to be a business owner and she ran the store into the ground. She made terrible decisions. Made expensive trips to see family she couldn't afford. Sometimes didn't show up to work because she had headaches. Or late to work with stupid, lame excuses. Lots of things a normal person would get fired over if they were an employee.

A few weeks ago, she asked me to put together a business plan, because I spent thousands of dollars to become learned-ed in business in college. It was to help decide what we needed to do to help turn the business around. So I did, spent hours of my own time at home putting it together. A friend of hers, my boss from my other job saw the plan, said it was very good, made sense and was a great way to go.

And my mom did absolutely none of it. NONE of it.

The bookstore isn't really failing because of e-books or Amazon (they are less of an impact than you would think). I know the business well, I worked it hard and understand it. We could have made it work, but my mom was stupid. Her financial irresponsibility is what did us in. She "spent money like she was in Congress" to use the financial coach Dave Ramsey expression.

To put this more in perspective, another bookstore opened in town recently and this hurt us pretty bad too. (personally I think they will go out of business too due to having an expensive despite more visible location and not having a good selection of things to sell)

What That Means For Me Beyond This
The biggest thing that has me upset is the whole process of closing the store and everything it will take to close it.

There is a high chance I won't get the 3-4 months wages my mom is behind on paying me. And to be honest, that doesn't really bother me like it probably ought to. I live at home and don't really pay rent outside of the Internet bill for home and the bookstore. (this is also why I am committed to this problem)

I may be losing a job but I can easily get another. At least A job. Unemployment is low and lots of employers are struggling to find good employees, which I am such. But I will try and pursue a field in some IT area, preferably with software development or management. Our town is infested with banks and one of the biggest employers in town is the largest hospital in this half of the state.

Getting a job isn't a problem, so don't worry about me over that. Worst comes to worst, I can take on more hours at the newspaper that is my other job and become more disciplined in taking commission art.

Possible Slowdown In Art
Obviously, this dilemma may cause a harsh slowdown in my art and I do have a lot of concern for Patreon over that. I do know there is an option for freeze my Patreon account and I may call upon that if it gets really bad.

Though I could easily see myself doing art to some degree as therapy over this.

---

I think that is about all I can think of for this. I figured I best share this for how upset and moody I might be for a while. Try not to take it to personal if I snap at you or seem a bit unresponsive.

Thank you for reading this, I appreciate it. ^^

~Eclipsis

What do you all feel about someone like me doing holiday themed art throughout the year? Do holiday themed pictures for the likes of Christmas, Easter, July 4th or such mean much to you?

I've been considering putting up holiday themed polls on Patreons to let them help pick an idea, have the picture drawn up, and then posted in time for the actual holiday.

Or would you all prefer I stick to just making any sort of content?

~Eclipsis

I have wanted to get rid of the last journal from the front of my page for a while now and I think I found something.

I have been trying to come up with some ways to expands my Patreon as a means of Passive Income. At least more constructive ways than just "make more content!"

A little background on how it is run. There are 3 tiers:

$2.50 Sketch Access tier

$5.00 Finished Early Access along with full resolutions of original pieces tier

$10.00 Voting for new content tier

Right now the early access benefit is seeing pictures roughly 9 months before they hit FurAffinity/Twitter. Sketches on the other hand rarely ever get posted at all, because I make them with the mindset of wanting to finish them (which in reality is unlikely)(this is also the closest thing I have to "paywalled" content but it isn't intended).

Voting is where people get to vote on two polls I present every month on some topic I feel like working on (such as picking a sketch to make a finished version of or some new sketch to make). Right now that is basically it and I really want to improve this tier. My Patreon is set to increase the poll count to 3 when my Patreon amount exceeds $150 and keep increasing the number every milestone.

So with that in mind, I want to figure out how to improve the $10 tier because the polls create some frustrations. I have two different followings and one tends to not like the content of the other. That is: Paws vs. Hyper. Sometimes this makes one whole poll not of much interest to a person and it is even more disappointing if what they did vote for in their one relevant poll loses.

Now, here are some limits to finding considerations:

1) I am not interested in anything paywalled (with the exception mention below). Early access yes, but I do want everything to be seen in their entirety eventually.

2) No individualized rewards. If I wanted to do this, I'd just take commissions.

3) No "Black Market" content. As some may know, I for a short stint did adult content, the REAL stuff, not the laughable stuff you see on this account, but I did it under a different name. I did for a while consider putting this content as a Patreon reward and it is also the closest I came to truly considering a paywall. The biggest reason this didn't happen is that I didn't want to produce this stuff regularly. Yes, I do still do dabble in it here and there privately but not regularly. Also, lately I've seen rumors of Patreon perhaps wanting to crack down on adult content accounts because of legal obligations, giving me another reason not to pursue this.

With those limits in mind, is there perhaps something you could think of I could do to the $10 tier?

One idea I am playing with is to let people submit ideas or suggestions for little ACEO (trading card sized) sketches of members of my vast cast to be made. They submit to a pool and I would pick 3 each month. Ideas could be carried over, especially if I know I like some unused ideas. The number picked each month I could have scale with the total pledged amount like the polls.

It is also possible I would make an auxiliary poll to have one of those finished each month (not necessarily those from that or previous month). The big drawback for this is that it could create another "Paws vs. Hyper" instance and paws almost always win.

So feel free to leave a comment if you have any suggestions. ^^

~Eclipsis

Some may have noticed I've been acting rather odd or highly irritable the last week or two. I figured I best explain that.

For a few months, I'd been hearing an unusual amount of activity from squirrels, since I live on the second floor; may have even mentioned them on voice calls or livestreams. I always thought it was odd as they had never been that active on my side of the house because there are no trees on this side.

About two weeks ago, we finally realized why I was hearing so much noise. It wasn't coming from outside but rather INSIDE the house. I'd call it an attic but we don't really have an attic due to how this house was built. And the noises have been getting progressively worse; louder and more frequent. Keeping me from sleeping and having the peace I usually have being in my room.

Last night we plugged the hole they've been getting in and out of. We are hoping one of the at least 3 up there will go into a trap we've tried laying. I think at this point its either hope they go to the trap or we'll just leave them up there to starve to death.

So today, its almost like listening to a hailstorm every few minutes with them running around, or scratching, sounding like a deeper pitched version of fingernails on a chalkboard. I feel like my eyes are twitching hearing that, sometimes over my headphones I have on.

For those who don't know, I have very sensitive hearing. Going to a music concert for example would be agonizingly painful.

Hopefully this only lasts one more week as I'm going out of my mind. T_T

~Eclipsis

Its well known among my friends but may come as quite a surprise to other people...

I confess. Drawing is very boring to me, especially shading and coloring.

I know shading and coloring is very important to why people like my work (such as paw pad textures). I do love the end product but not the process of making it.

Drawing this month has been a terrible struggle. I'm at work typing this, bored out of my mind. So I stopped to ask myself, "Why am I so bored?" "Why am I almost always so bored doing any of my jobs."

Compare that to something like Minecraft modding. That could be considered work. I absolutely loved it. I had to stop modding because it consumed me so much to the point of neglecting drawing, which DOES make me money.

It came to me why I get so bored. Its not just because I've done this stuff hundreds of times over the course of 6-8 years. Its because the work is not intellectually challenging; There is no problem solving involved. And not just any problem solving, but no problem solving with numbers and equations. (I know if I didn't clarify that, people would simply suggest trying to learn new things or find ways to improve my speed) To do the animation quality I did in Minecraft modding required excellent skill in math.

The closest I've come to motivating myself to draw is listening to business and motivational podcasts. It kinda works but I'm still restless.

(Yesterday, though, I had rather bad experience with what I was listening to. The podcasts I listen to are about people getting help to find purpose in their work and to find ways to get a better job or starting a business. And one guy in the one podcast I listen to yesterday wanted to open a gun shop. I try to avoid politics in the public eye but you can probably guess that set me off because of things I keep seeing on Twitter [I am very sure the host of the show was not too thrilled with the timing of that topic coming up either].)

Does anyone perhaps have a suggestion to make the drawing process more interesting to me?

Part of this journal is also just thinking aloud, to impress on me things to listen/watch for that may help.

~Eclipsis

A big thanks to  monocle for taking the time to share personal experiences and concerns for what was going on with my house lease dilemma on my last journal. I spent some time meditating on the comments for a few days. Overall, it confirms what I feared I was getting myself into and for the whole reason for "venting" in that journal as another person accurately called it.

I decided to do a follow up journal rather than just replying to comments.

After writing that journal, I embolden myself to stand up to this situation with excuses. Like pretending I am busy with my freelance work and do not have time to do house searching. My newspaper boss, who is the one offering the lease scenario, knows not to mess with my freelance drawing work because of how much better it pays than him or my mom's bookstore job.

I also told him that night we went to look at a house for sale, that if I got a house, I'd have to leave his job because I can't afford it otherwise. That shook him up quite a bit and I think he took it seriously. As he knows I know I'm worth a lot more. And getting a better job wouldn't be particularly difficult (low unemployment here and good employees are very difficult for businesses to find but its not 100% assured to risk jumping out on my own without a good deal of money ready).

I stay at home for a very simple reason. It basically costs me $250 a month. Half my meals are paid. Free utilities, stuff like that. Don't have to pay for my flip phone cause I'm on my mom's plan and cost next to nothing. I'm privileged to all this because I work both for my mom and for the other boss's newspaper who also lives with us (my mom's significant other; a lot of reasons to why they don't want the legal commitment to each other). I did some math on how much I actually save by living at home and factored it into my wages from them. It raises my wage rates from $10 an hour to $20 easily.

The only true cons are that work sometimes follows me home (unpaid), personal favors I have to do, my mom's smoking that I am super sensitive and almost allergic to, and a cat that wakes me up sometimes in the middle of the night for literally no reason (not even food). Is that worth saving $750-1,100 a month? I'd say yes.

Contrary to the typical scenario like this, the jobs are not super terrible. The newspaper I don't like and its not what I want to do for a living, but it does feel fulfilling to work for a force of change in our community. Politicians, businesses, and even criminals (besides the previous two) at times do change how they act because of stuff specifically published in our paper (unlike the other Warren Buffet owned paper in town that puts profits in front telling things like they are).

The bookstore I have a lot of idle time because I do the work well and efficiently. In fact, I am writing this whole journal from there. I tend to handle my Patreon and Twitter activity from here too.

All that said, I will still make a significant effort to save up for a new house on my own; make my own destiny. I've set a monthly goal of saving $750 a month specifically for that. That may not sound like much, but I did my taxes already and I grossed $15,000 for last year. I intend to step up my freelance drawing work more this year too. And that's good for you all because the means more boobs and paws among other things. ^^

Again, thanks for all the input people wrote comments on for my last journal. I really appreciate it. ^^

~Eclipsis

So I got myself into a mess.

I've been wanting to move away from my mom's house for a while now. With the hope of getting a new job because I can escape living with both of my employers.

The boss who isn't my parent, offered to buy a house for me and lease it to me. I accepted the proposal without thinking it through several weeks back. I didn't realize at the time, but this was subtly a move to commit me to staying with at LEAST his job.

My current income is unsustainable living on my own I came to fully realize after doing a budget. Right now I live on next to nothing by choice. I do still have "a lot" of money, I just save it. But after moving to be by myself, I will live on next to nothing because I HAVE to.

I mentioned this to him but he basically said, "You just need to work more. Get another job. Do commissions more." I wanted to move out so I could leave YOUR job and get something better. Not work more.

If I leave my mom's job, she goes out of business. Simple as that. Her 35+ year old business goes out of business. That's a lot of weight in my heart to carry around.

Friends know I was going to set aside money each month for a new laptop to afford by Black Friday. Well... if I move on my own, there will be no new laptop. There won't be a lot of most anything. -.-'

Tonight, I've been asked to accompany my boss to look at a house he's been researching. That's about how close we are to this happening now in just a few weeks.

If I seem a bit moody or depressed over the next few weeks, this will be why.

~Eclipsis

I wonder how many people have looked at my own gallery and then looked at my favorites gallery.

Such a sharp contrast, no? I guess I'm just a little more conservative with what I want to associate myself with with other people's work. ^^;

What are perhaps you all's thoughts about it? xD

~Eclipsis