UnbridledMuse

Well, that's a good question. There are a multitude of factors.

1. I'm staying with family (one of whom is terminally ill) and my husband and I are present to help with all the manual labor and daily chores needed and, of course, moral support. I've never had to cope with anything like this before and we're all taking it day by day.

2. I had to leave my drafting table behind and there isn't space for art projects here, particularly paintings and complex portraits. I'm left with my crochet and my 18" dolls who all got dismembered in an effort to flat-pack them. (honestly, though, I'm still pretty burned out. More on that in my next journal.) This means my inventory building for my etsy shop is on hold (perhaps indefinitely due to their stupid subscription shit - say that fives times fast ) as well as my art studies.

3. My laptop is in the shop because it started to randomly power off when on battery and get real fucking fickle about the use of the keys T, U, P, J, the hyphen, etc. I'm using my husband's laptop while mine gets serviced. No idea when that will happen, but I did manage to get it in three weeks before my warranty was up.  

4. The good news is, I started a new job and I'm working with dogs all day long and I fucking love it.

My hope is that I'll find a new groove and make time to complete my many crocheted WIPs, some of which I shipped and some I didn't. I did ship all of my luxury yarns from Turkey, so all my previous plans for stuffed animals and doll outfits are still in the queue.
There is also a good chance of new photography as I explore and learn about my new home in the desert.
I also hope that when my husband and I find a place of our own I'll be able to rebuild my craft room and pick up where I left off.

Thank you, everyone, who has stuck with me and who will stick with me as I get through this new chapter of my life.

Hello fellow internet gremlins.

I posted earlier about being ill, injured and generally having a hard time. Well folks, that was only part of the picture and it hasn't gotten any better. I was encouraged to take a break from even checking dA for at least a week with the plan to do my first art assessment of the year on schedule (today). The first few days were hard and when I hit a week it felt great and today is almost over and went 'oh, yeah, I was supposed to post today...', but I just spent a good long while staring at the blinking cursor on the blank page wondering where the hell I was going to start and how interesting it wasn't going to be because March has been a complete and utter bitch.

So instead, this is what I have:

In the past couple months I've seen artists I watch and online friends bow out of dA (one was so stressed they wanted to gut all their art accounts and wipe the slate clean) and I thought how much of a shame it was, how I'd miss them and how sad it was that they'd gotten to that point, but I understood their need to take care of themselves and recover from a burnout or cope with their stated internet addiction.
At the time I thought my lack of posting was fatigue and I tried to lighten the mood with my Crafter's Fugue, trying to keep in mind that I needed to do something about my state of mind before I reached a burnout myself. It took me a long while to realize that I had already burned out and I had been either fooling myself or so beyond the burnout I'd just missed it and was numb. I haven't drawn a portrait in months, I barely picked up my crochet hook all month and to top it all off, my health is not what it used to be. I've never gone into great lengths to describe my chronic health conditions and I'm not about to now, but I feel the need to explain some things to the people here who have been kind to me.

I thought that when today came, I would put up my meager art assessment and then it would be business as usual. That's obviously not happened. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do now. Things have changed that have made me re-structure the plan of my Etsy shop and because of it, my timeline has changed and that's disappointing.

It did cross my mind that gutting this account wasn't such a ludicrous idea after all, but I've been advised against it. I don't know if I need a longer break or if I just need to shake the etch-a-sketch (a pox on all of you who don't know what that is).

What I do know is that one facet of my troubles has come from trying to monetize my art. I started crocheting for fun, I started drawing again for fun, I started interacting on this site because it was fun. (for those of you that don't know, my account says 10 years but I've only been active for almost the last 2 years) Then I started getting art requests and I was flattered and thought 'how simple this will be...', but in reality it caused a huge amount of stress. I sold my Baby Wyvern and I was over the moon until I realized what I huge mistake that had been. I started getting more and more watchers and its come to the point that I can't remember you all as individual people. I remember not wanting to get to the point of not being able to respond to everyone. I was raised to be a very polite person and I have a compulsion to thank others and the like. I tried to compromise with Llama Love and Star Hug but even that hasn't become a useful solution. I have a difficult time rationalizing ignoring people who take the time to fav or comment and the like. Although, I must admit, its not as noteworthy as it seems. I am not your average internet gremlin. I don't use the internet on my phone, I don't have the dA app with all its notifications and check my phone neurotically while I'm standing in line or while crossing the street (yes that's a bloody daft thing to do). I actually have to take time out of my day and sit down at my laptop. When I do that and I have anywhere from 3,000-6,000 notifications, a hundred are new comments and over 600 in replies, I can't cope and suddenly it becomes all too clear why a lot of the popular people here say they read comments but won't reply, etc. In my naivete, I thought it was cold, but now I've come to understand that as just practicality. Of course everyone can agree that an artist's time is better spent on their art than endless correspondence, but see above with my polite compulsions.

I should probably acknowledge that I do not feel particularly polite right now and it hurts to say that I'm a little jaded at this point and I don't really care. It's rather a strange place to be and I'm not liking it.

Ugh, I feel like I'm rambling too much. The point is, my arts and crafts had begun as a reprieve from my day to day grind and it picked me up when I desperately needed it. That's not the case anymore and it's become painfully clear that I can't keep going like this. Doing art on demand is not something I am capable of at this time and certainly not in the near future. Much advice on this site urges consistency and with my health, consistency is not in the cards. Part of my issue in the past months was trying to build up a stock of deviations that I could release on a schedule to give the illusion of consistency, but even with that it was stressful as hell.

So what does this all mean?

Your guess is as good as mine.

To you, who made it this far: Thank you. I appreciate you for taking real time to read this.

I guess the point of this journal is to not leave anyone hanging, so the best I can do is this. If you are one of my watchers and you happen to stick around until I get my shit together, I'll be happy to see you on the other side. If I one day become one of the many dead but not deactivated accounts, well, so long and thanks for all the fish.

Hey watchers :bademoticon: How have you all been?

You may have noticed I haven’t been very active lately. I’ve missed DA, but the past few weeks have been a bitch of a rollercoaster and I haven’t been coping the best.

I’ve been injured (shoulder and ankle), ill, injured again (RSI sucks) and ill once more. I’ve received terrible news that made me want to scream and cry and surprising news that made me feel pure joy. Changes big and small are coming down the pipe and I have no idea how they're going to turn out.  

In my exhausted, sick state I bumped into a wall, lost the grip on my phone and dropped it to its untimely death, and with it went my last decent camera (my two most recent deviations have utilized my cheap-ass backup phone...it will be the case until further notice).

Through all this, I’m simply overwhelmed with fatigue compounded by a general feeling of malaise. Morale has been stupid low. I’ve had a sore throat for the past couple days and I’m hoping like hell I’m not in for round three.

Speaking of morale, I don’t know what to do about my notifications. I have almost 1,983 in feedback alone, a quarter of them in replies. I feel compelled to communicate with you all individually, but I don’t know if I’m ever going to catch up.  

What I do know is that this will all pass and I want to let you know that I’m still making art (just slowly) and thank you for sticking with me. :bademoticon: 

Muse