---The Life and Times---

I have returned! (Although technically I never really left but you know what I mean.)

My last journal entry is dated December 2011. It talks about how happy I was to get a job.
Well that job has now turned sour. I can't stand it anymore. Without going into detail suffice to say the work place is really dysfunctional.

I suppose in these dark times I should be happy that I have even have a job but the thing is I am not merely trying to hold down a job. I am trying to build a career. The money may be good now but in the long run I don't see myself growing as a professional if I stay with my current company.

Sooner or later I've gotta leave if I wanna go anywhere with my career.

Unfortunately I've got nowhere to go. So far I haven't been able to find another company to jump to. It doesn't help that my portfolio is in shambles. I really need to set some time to build it up, but having to sit in an office all week kind leaves me tired at the end of the day and on weekends.

Still I've gotta try. I'm trying to do little things here and there, whenever I can muster up the mojo to move forward which brings me to...

---The Arts---

So the other week, asks me to beta read for her and tells me that I should really update my journal.
Beta reading her work inspired me to get back on the horse in regards to pursuing my artistic side projects and I had this burning urge to update my journal and tell Deviant Art I was active again and doing stuff.

I would have done so to except that I still had an unfulfilled request from last year. It would have nagged at me to make such a bombastic proclamation when I still had unfinished business. So I sat around for about two weeks until I finally set aside some time just to sit down and get stuff done. And get it done I did. Aleyxs is finally up for viewing and after more than a year my request slot is open again, but more on that in a moment.

Beta reading for got me thinking about writing and pictures. As someone who's written stuff before I know how hard it is for writers to get eyeballs on their work as opposed to artists. It's easy to just open up a picture, look at it then mash that fav button but reading something takes more effort.

In the past I've tried giving some love back to the writers out there but browsing written deviations quickly becomes a chore whereas breezing through the pretty pictures is easy in comparison. That's why I think beta reading is the best way for me to give back to the writing community. Someone else already goes through the trouble of pushing stuff under my nose and the fact that they are waiting on me specifically to give them feedback helps keep me motivated.

Now I'm trying to cultivate both my artistic and writing skills and I can't help but notice a difference between the way I react to failure in the two mediums.

When my writing is bad I look at it and I'm like:
"Well this sucks. I better go over it again and see what I can do to improve it."

When my drawing is bad I look at it and I'm like:
"OMG! It's sooo UGLY! For the good of everyone's eyeballs I must never draw again!"

For some reason I take a bad drawing harder than I do a bad piece of writing. Oh well.

So I'm back and I'm feeling a fresh burst of motivation to start practicing my drawing skills again. I don't know how long it will last but it means that my request slot is open again.

Terms and Conditions apply:
-No asking for anything that violate's DA's policies
-No >30% Furries
-No sex or full frontal nudity
-Other than that tell me what you want and I'll see what I can do. Bear in mind the more complicated the thing you ask for is the longer it'll take me to do and the more likely it is to look horrible. (But that's okay. I'm doing this to learn.)
-Request slot is filled on a first come first served basis. If you were the last person to have a request fulfilled then you can't ask again until someone else has had a go.
-You may have to wait a veeeeery long time for your request to be granted. I'm a busy (and lazy) man.