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it's been a little over three weeks and the first month of the year is almost over. how am i handling this year's goals so far?

OUTPUT

it's been a slow start with creative output, but it could be worse.

• got over the hump of drawing a comic despite not thinking it was all that good. the hardest part of comics for me is thinking of something that i find genuinely funny and that feels uniquely "me" to me. the second hardest part is continuing to like the idea throughout the process of making it. the monkey comic idea was like kinda funny to me as a random thought one night, but it failed on the other points. feels like a basic crass gag anyone could make, and i lost interest quickly. but ya gotta keep going. i need to devote more time to just sitting around and letting my mind wander so i can have more ideas to choose from. anyway, should be posting a second one this coming week.
• haven't touched blender at all yet, but i've read through a bit of the godot documentation and i think i'm going to start the first little "make your first 2d game" lesson it has this week. boy i love to procrastinate! gotta start kicking it into gear.
• i randomly got a wild hair up my ass to attempt developing a pitch for this awful idea i had a couple years ago. i don't know what the hell i would do with it. i don't think i have the patience to talk to executives about it for five years and do a bunch of free work just for the possibility of someone giving me money. but if i'm going to make this a creatively productive year, i gotta let myself follow my whims i guess. the only problem i have is i'm much better at concepts and story structure than i am at making characters, so right now i'm dragging my ass because i've done as much as i can without properly fleshing out and defining who the hell it's actually about. much like with comic ideas, i really just need to force myself to have some time alone with my thoughts so i can sort through it. ohhh but how will i survive for an hour or two without my PODCASTS or my OLD EPISODES OF BRITISH PANEL SHOWS.

INPUT

taking in a broad range of art and gathering inspiration is just as important as making things, i think. so here are some updates on what i've been enjoying this month.

• despite generally claiming to enjoy video games, i don't really play them all that often usually. most of my video game experiencing these days is either watching friends play on discord or keeping up with SuperGreatFriend's youtube channel. but i want to take in more games this year, so here i am. i just beat Chrono Trigger for the first time after giving up on a faulty PS1 copy I had as a kid. it's a good game, if you can believe it. i have a handful of other games i've picked out that i want to finally play all the way through. i found a neat fan-made engine (R.E.L.I.V.E.) to let me play my old steam copies of the Oddworld games. i'm focused on Broken Age at the moment, though.
• last year i made an effort to read more, and i aim to continue that this year. right now i have like three books i'm halfway through but haven't touched in a couple weeks. i need to get back to that. i'm rereading The Hobbit, reading The Gunslinger (never finished it as a teen), and Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In. not sure if i'll jump directly into LOTR and the other Dark Tower books after getting through these or if i'll mix it up.
• i've started cracking into Werner Herzog's filmography. i watched Stroszeck a couple weeks ago and absolutely loved it. that, coupled with generally wanting more good feature documentaries in my life has lead me down this path. i'm going in mostly chronological order, so i have a couple more before i get to what seems like his first big breakout hit, Aguirre. it's been a nice time so far.
• for music, i've been in a bit of a punk mood lately, so i've been digging into some old classics that i never really tried giving a shot in the past. i feel like a lot of the stuff i like tends to fall somewhere in the spectrum of post-punk and no wave. love a groove and love a bunch of noise. i think i should probably listen to Gang of Four's whole discography.

that's all i got for now, so i guess we'll see how i'm doing this time next month. hopefully more progress on more projects.