projects

daily progress log

for context, read this.
tldr: i've kinda been stuck in a rut, and this log catalogues my attempts to dig myself out. my goal is to work on my projects (whether it be games, videos, art, or something else entirely) for at least 30 minutes every day.

SEPTEMBER 1 started getting into the swing of things with raylib, although admitedly i wasn't super productive. i also forgot to update the thing of the month but it's late, so i think i will do that tomorrow. i also might try to start on the state of the trash update tomorrow.... idk. i'll just see how im feeling

AUGUST 31 i've been pretty broken today and yesterday as my dog died. i came home from college for the weekend, and it's nice to be back but i can just feel her missing. i keep looking over at the places where she liked to lay and everytime i just remember that i'm never going to see her again. it's depressing. i wish i could have said goodbye to her one last time.
needless to say, i guess i just haven't really been in the mood ro really challenge myself with drawabox or anything like that. so i haven't really done much, other than i started getting into vim again as i need to for college. it's actually been suprisingly pleasant so far. i guess a lot of the config knowledge and muscle memory has just kinda stuck, which is good. i think i'll give it another shot.
but there's something else i've decided i want to do: i want to make one game every month. one thing i've found myself pareting repeatedly in my mind is that i really really REALLY need to get back to making games, so... this is my way to hopefully make that happen. i've had that "start a raylib game in c!!" thing sitting on the future projects list for so long, and i think i want an external goal like this to make me actually want to do it. there's a 'game a month' jam that's been running for 39 months, and i want to submit a game for september. maybe in the future i might move to some other jams, but for now this is perfect because it's long, themeless, and low steaks while still having the motivation of a imovable deadline.
another thing.... i want more flexibility in what i allow myself to work on. while i do try to pride myself on being disciplined, i feel that maybe i've gone a bit too far in forcing myself to work on things i don't want to do just to stick to my plan. so no more weekly plans or anything like that, at least for the time being. i think it's at least worth trying again for a week or two. i still have a 'main' project as well as several 'backburner' ones, but i won't force myself to work X amount of days on the main one or whatever, and it's totally possible that a backburner might become the main project for a bit. anyways, that's all for now.

AUGUST 28 (streak: 1)
hello!!!!!! it's been so long...... also, i actually made some more progress on the gallery a long time ago (i think the 20th) but apparently i just never commited it?? oops. as it turns out i forgot to make a new "gallery" icon for it on the home page. i was also thinking about maybe embedding my youtube videos into the videos section... so i guess it's still not 100% complete yet, but it's close.
but anywho, i should probably address why there's been a huge time gap. in the past week i have undergone some major life changes. i've had a habbit of oversharing, and had a particularly nasty experience quite a long time ago. ever since then, i've been tried to be as careful as i can about what i say about my real life, and if you read some of the previous entries you might notice some awkward and vague wording to skirt around certain details. this was 100% a smart decision but... well, i'm starting to get a little older now, and i'm starting to think that it's proooooobably safe to share a little bit of personal information. i still do wanna be a bit careful, because i know my parents have overshared a LOT so it's definitely not impossible for someone to find out who i am. but ehhhh, i don't think anyone actually cares enough to do that x) so! the one tidbit you're getting right now: i moved away to start college. so that's why i've been a bit busy. there's definitely going to be some adjustments as for how i work but overall i don't think my schedule is too bad at all, at least for this semester. i just needed a bit of time to adjust (seriously giving myself 1 day was kinda stupid). in mid september i'm planning "state of the trash" article update thing that will wrap up everything i've done in the past not-quite-a-full year, and plans moving forward. redundant and slightly self indulgent perhaps, but well... my birthday's coming up, and i thought it would be fun to maybe make a little gift to myself :) i think it'll much nicer than rereading through all these blogs, too. that'll be the thing of the month for september (although i may be able to cook up something else as well).
as for the immediate future, i'm actually planning to go back to drawabox as the main project and delaying getting back to gamedev. kinda sucks but i think it's best for two reasons: i wanna finish this rotated boxes excercises it's been sO LONG, and also my CS class will have us set up a dev environment using WSL soon which i think might be worth trying, so i wanna wait til then. anywho, wish me luck

JULY 28 (streak: 10.5)
so i kinda got distracted working on the website today (updated the links which took FOREVER)..... so i did work but it wasn't THAT much and also it was on the wrong thing. so um, only +0.5 for today. i need to focus tomorrow because i don't have a ton of time left and i wanna finish this chapter so i can have it be the thing of the month!

JULY 27 (streak: 10)
um yep im alive but didn't do anything today, too busy (too much fun)....... might be able to somewhat repair my sleep schedule.

JULY 26 (streak: 9)
sleep schedule still sucks but its starting to suck slightly less. one big oversight is that i am going to be busy tomorrow, so i'm taking it off.... maybe. not sure when i'll be home, so if i feel like it i might try writing a liiiiitttle. anyways.... i did work a good amount today, i just have been having trouble with the prologue again. after some reflection, i decided i didn't like the rewrite i did yesterday (it grabbed your attention, but it was kinda cheap and bad for the overall story), so i'm working on a new newer (and also slightly longer) version. i think it'll take me 1 more day to finish, plus one more day to adjust the opening scene, plus one day to port to hmtl and """publish""". so i'm moving the deadline back as far as possible to the 31st, which should give me just enough time. wish me luck!!!!!!!!!

JULY 25 (streak: 8)
did good work today, made big changes to the prologue that i think make the story significantly more compelling. i was supposed to try and get feedback on it today but........... i stayed up way to late again and also i was kinda scared.. i will tomorrow early in the day and then just not look at it for a bit. i think that'll be easier. all that said though, the chapter is almost done except for one small scene i want to add. however... i also have to port it from my google doc to html (ugh!) so... i think it's a bit ambitious to try and get it all done in one day. so i am doing ANOTHER 1 day extension... but this should be the last one!!

JULY 24 (streak: 7)
i sort of procrastinated today and only worked a tincy tiny bit, so i'm only giving myself +.5 ... i also woke up late because i stayed up too late yesterday. it's going to take several days to fix, but i'm slowly trying to roll it back. because i got less done than i was planning today, i'm pushing the goal back a day.

JULY 23 (streak: 6.5)
today was like yesterday but more extreme, i got even more done but i'm also up 3 hours later than i should be. i took a nap today, which i think might've thrown me off. oof. however, today (or rather tonight lol) was an important milestone: the first chapter is now written from start to finish. now it's not complete, as there's some things that need fixing and i want to make some adjustments to the first scene. currently chapter 1 is a bit over 5000 words... i like long chapters, hehe. it sounds like a small number, but that's around a 40 minute read which blew my mind when i first calculated it. put that way, maybe i'm not writing too slow at all. then again, it has been almost a year of on and off work, but there's no point threating about that. for now, all i can do is finish chapter 1. i delayed it one day to the 26th because i want to adjust and then share the very short prologue, and then try to get some feedback on it because i'm not sure how immediately engaging it is. wish me luck!

JULY 22 (streak: 5.5)
i got back from evo today adn also worked, but i stayed up waaaaaaaaaay too late i need to get some sleep

JULY 17 (streak: 4.5)
i worked a tincy tiny bit so i'm giving myself the +.5 but i was pretty distracted by my upcoming trip not gonna lie lol. can't remember if i mentioned this anywhere, but i'm going to evo!!!! yeah!!!!!!! i am 100% going to not make it past round 1 pools and i'm going to love it :) super excited. but yeah, that made it a little hard to work.......... also, i'm taking the next 4 days off (til the 22nd). i'm not sure if i'll have time to write in here, if not i'll just be gone for a little. anyways i gotta go to bed byebye

JULY 16 (streak: 4)
this is my dilemma rn. i did a decent amount of work today (still very slow obviously but that can't be helped), but i kinda had to push my sleep schedule....... i just need to start earlier. i did procrastinate quite a bit, and whether i like it or not i'm gonna have to learn to work during the day unless i truly become a vampire. regardless, i consider today a decent day. it was actually kinda hard to get myself to stop writing, which is a pretty good sign. despite all my doubts, i do like the story i'm writing... and i have as many drafts as i need to do it justice, so there's really no need to worry about that. all i have to do is work at it :) also while it's very unimpressive, this is technically my highest streak. i'll try to keep it up!!!

JULY 15 (streak: 3)
i did work today, but i got very little done :(( writing is hard. can't blame myself though, all i can do is keep at it. i can do this!!

JULY 14 (streak: 2)
oooooof i got distracted trying to to overhaul nongmotrash.nekoweb.org.... originally i was gonna have it be its own site, but i decided i'd rather just have it redirect back here, so i did that. however!!!!!! i also realized that the site preview was like completely broken....... and getting it to look okay took a reaaaaally long time. so yeah, i was doing real work, just not walk the line. not terrible.

JULY 13 (streak: 1)
hai. i did do a lot of work today, but i've still got a long long way to go before chapter 1 is finished. grrr. still, i did all i can do. using leechblock to block all internet helped me quite a bit i'd say. don't know if i mentioned this anywhere, but i am going to attend evo this year! leaving on the 18th, so i will try to finish on the 17th. gives me 5 days which sounds both like way too much and barely enough. it's hard to estimate my sluggish writing speed. however, i have really been having trouble maintaining a streak greater than like... 3... which honestly just sucks. i will try my hardest to, at the very least, work all 5 of these upcoming days.

JULY 12 (streak: 0)
i was, in fact, busy today. had a bit of time to be fair, but eh. i am going to try to force myself at gunpoint to work on it til i'm done tomorrow, going to try using leechblock to disable every website except google docs, and won't open discord.

JULY 11 (streak: 0)
holy crap i really just do not want to work on walk the line i guess. didn't write anything. i thought about it many many times but i guess i just could not summon the willpower to actually do it. distracted myself with videogames. i messed around in inkscape for a bit today, i was thinking about using it to make designs for the next version of this website but i felt that it would be better to just straight up make the website instead and iterate on the actual design instead of my 'blueprint'. agh. i feel ... idk. idk how to fix this. maybe i'm just lazy?? maybe i just shouldn't be a writer?? i don't know. all i can do is try. extending the deadline to july 13th because i expect to be busy tomorrow, won't have enough time to finish.

JULY 10 (streak: 0)
didn't do anything today. agh. i believe the main reasons are: 1) i completely messed up my sleep schedule yesterday (didn't go to sleep until like 1), and then i no joke slept like 11.5 hours... so my day was pretty dang short. trying to fix my schedule but even now i shoulda gone to bed 30 minutes ago, and it will probably take me another 30 to fall asleep. the second reason is that i had some annoying things to do today so after i was done i didn't wanna work anymore (not an excuse, just an explanation). and third is that... i really don't want to work on walk the line. i gotta be honest. i feel like i've let everything else that i enjoyed more fall by the wayside just to work on this story that i hate writing and, all things considered, won't end up being that good. which is fine, but just... erg. i want to fail, but i want to fail fast not after like a year, im working sooooooooooo slowly. i feel that forcing myself to finish this -- even a first draft -- is ultimately doing more harm than good. so, after i finish chapter 1, i am going to RELEASE IT (that will be july thing of the month), but i am going to let myself take a break. important to note that i 100% will finish it. i've stated before that i want to really buckle down and stop abandoning projects, and i will stand by that. i just don't want to feel like im forcing it because it's soul crushing and will likely make the end product worse anyways. so yeah. not 100% sure what i'll do afterwards, probably drawing. i've also had the idea to overhaul the website and buy a domain for awhile, might do that. i have taken a pretty hefty break from drawabox and honestly i kind of miss it, so i think i best get back to that first. anyways, i still got to finish walk the line. i will try again tomorrow, i have absolutely nothing to do.

JULY 9 (streak: 0)
made it through the day. that is all. i realize this leaves me exactly one day remaining for the deadline -- not 100% sure if i can make it but i believe it to be reasonable so i will earnestly try.

JULY 8 (streak: 0)
nothing today. i have had a lot on my mind (big thing happening tomorrow), so i spent a lot of time preparing which i guess was fair. my day is also cut a bit short as im going to bed early as i have to wake up early tomorrow. but that doesn't change the fact that i definitely could have worked on the story for a bit. going to take tomorrow off because i know i will be busy.

JULY 7 (streak: 3.5)
i've been sick for nearly 2 weeks now, but last night things finally came to a head as i started violently vommiting. no blood or anything thankfully, but y'know. throwing up like 5 times in the middle of the night wasn't the best experience. but it was sort of definitive confirmation that i was, in fact, definitely not getting any better. i went in to the ER, doctor suspected it was probably amonia or some sort of infection so i got prescribed antibiotics. i've only had 2 doses but i think i already feel better, though still not 100%. but uh, i've been a bit preoccupied. not gonna sit here and act like i was physically incapable of sitting down and writing for a bit, but i was just not feeling it. gonna keep the streak as given the circumstances i think it was totally fair to just take a break today to recover. i have some things to do tomorrow but it won't take all day, i'll try again to get back in the swing of things.
PS i just now realized that the latest article had a paragraph from the "i can't get anything done so sad" article... so im like all analytical and then there's a random, very personal paragraph about my life lol. it's just an error from copy and pasting that i didn't catch.. im kinda embarrassed i let it sit for so long. but at least i fixed it now. i'll try to be more careful in the future.

JULY 6 (streak: 3.5)
i'll give myself +.5 as i really did try, but i made very little progress today. i don't know why exactly, i guess i just wasn't feeling it... unfortunately, i know i am going to be a bit busy in the next three days aswell. i should still be able to get things done, just a little short on time. i'm going to extent the deadline to july 10th. i think that should be reasonable.

JULY 5 (streak: 3)
did a decent amount of work today but i need to do more if i wanna make the deadline. i still think i can do it so i'm keeping it where it is. i honestly have been having a uncharacteristicly good time writing, it usually kinda feels like bashing my head against a wall but i've been pleasently suprised by my last few sessions. i just need to stop procrastinating until the very end of the way. speaking of, my sleep schedule is really slipping, so i need to get a hold of that aswell. wish me luck for tomorrow (not that anyones reading this lol)

JULY 4 (streak: 2)
i shoulda put this in the last log but i was hanging out with friends today, so i took it off. i'll get back to work tomorrow!!

JULY 3 (streak: 2)
didn't spend much time writing today but quite honestly i kinda enjoyed what i did write...oh, i should mention what the sprint is (and what i've been doing!!). i've been kinda keeping it in limbo because i was conflcited about the details... basically, i want to try to work on walk the line more. i thought about trying to have some sort of consistent chapter goal like.. every 2 weeks or something? but god, it's taken so many months just to mostly write chapter 1. setting a goal like that really feels unrealistic. with my writing pace so far, a chapter is waaaay to much work to be a single sprint. perhaps i could break it down by scene? as for the time being though, chapter 1 is pretty close to completion so i think i should be able to finish soon. perhaps even.. by sunday? again, there's so many days where i just dread writing so much, and i can 100% tell you right now that after this i am never writing a story again (i neeeeeeeed to work in a visual medium lol), but i know i can do this, and it will be big point of growth for me blah blah blah. btw, i'm STILL COUGHING :((((( even with medication... but it really doesn't affect my ability to work at all so i'm ok on that front. just a bit annoying.

JULY 2 (streak: 1)
did some more work today. as per usual, i feel like i am 200x slower than i just be but all i can do is keep going i suppose.

JULY 1 (streak: 0)
failure. i woke up very late in the afternoon today so my day was a lot shorter than it has been, and i did not adjust accordingly. the main problem just comes down to not having good priorities, it's hard to say no to playing tf2 with friends i guess but i can't let that get in the way of working on my stuff. i will try to be more focused tomorrow.

JUNE 30 (streak: 3.5)
worked a decent amount today on secret thingy. honestly working at a decent rate, i just need to put in more time.

JUNE 29 (streak: 2.5)
i'm realizing that it's really easy to procrastinate when you're sick. and uhh.. thats kinda what i did today? don't get me wrong i did have SOME things to do today (not project related) but ehh i only really worked for like 30 minutes i wanna say. i know i can do better, but its SOMETHING so im giving myself the +.5 to the streak

JUNE 28 (streak: 2)
my coughing is still kinda killing me (sometimes? it like comes in waves) but i was definitely more active today (did some stuff outside, didn't need to rest almost at all, was able to talk a lot more without dying). i sorta just expanded the backrooms a tiiiny tiny bit... tomorrow, i will start on the next sprint i think, since i think i'm feeling better enough.

JUNE 27 (streak: 1)
i'm alive!!! slooooowly getting better -- my sickness has kinda evoluted from a fever to a cold.. i have a super sore throat ;-; but overall it is improving. i'll try to maybe work on something easy for a tiny bit tomorrow

JUNE 26 (streak: 1)
i'm feeling a bit better today but i can still really only function with tylenol. i'm going to extend the break til tomorrow, and then after i will try to get back to working in a limited capacity.

JUNE 25 (streak: 1)
today was tough, i had a 104 degree fever... but i think im getting better?? im not sure tbh. i took a tylenol like an hour ago and i feel alot better, not sure if it'll last though. depending on how.. functional i feel tomorrow, i may or may not extend the break.

JUNE 24 (streak: 1)
i did it!! the article is done!!!!!!! it's definitely a bit rough around the edges... there's some things i wanted to talk about but couldn't figure out how to weave it in to my argument. i could probably also use another pass or two, as i don't think i was quite as articulate as i could have been -- not gonna lie i wrote quite a bit of it today, so its not super heavily edited. but overall i think it's at least good-ish, and i'm proud of myself for rebounding after may. tomorrow, though, there's something kinda urgent that i've been putting off for a long time that i kinda gotta crunch out, so im taking a break just for that day, then afterward i'll unevil my sprint. i gotta get to bed

JUNE 23 (streak: 0)
ummmm im alive still. just writing SOMETHING in here to remain conscious of it -- tomorrow i will finish the article!!

JUNE 22 (streak: 0)
actually went insane today trying to set up an automated way to sort my music library... first, i wanted it to sync between my computer and phone (syncthing, wasn't *too* hard), but then... i decided i wanted metadata and album covers on all the songs................. so i spent like a billion years trying to set up beats, only to discover that 1) u need serveral different plugins for it to really work on songs without existing metadata, 2) it still takes FOREVER to add metadata to everything cus it asks u a ton a questions, and worst of all, 3) you can't add album covers if your songs aren't sorted by album in the file structure (mine are not)..... so i just stopped using that. than i filled around with mp3tags and musicbrainz piscard trying to figure out an easy way to do it before i eventually just decided it was not worth it. metadata doesn't really matter lol. the *one* thing i really did want though is album covers, but i realized that yt-dlp (i download all my music of youtube lol) has a way to embed thumbnails into audio files, so i got that working!! yahoo! now i just need to redownload my entire library of music :') but that's for another day.
regardless, the bottom line is that i made 0 progress on what i was actually supposed to be working on lol. delaying it to the 24th, because i know i am 100% going to be busy tomorrow so im taking it off.

JUNE 21 (streak: 1)
made good progress today. the article is the majority of the way there, just needs a few more paragraphs addressing some smaller points and then i gotta make it html. should be feasible to finish tomorrow.

JUNE 20 (streak: 0)
i was really tired today but bsaically just watched youtube instead of sleeping........ agh i just gotta get some rest

JUNE 19 (streak: 1.5)
gonna increment the streak by .5 as i worked a bit but really not as much as i should have. also, i'm setting a soft deadline of june 22, giving me today and tomorrow which i honestly think is feasible. this article will be pretty short in comparison to my other ones.

JUNE 18 (streak: 1)
i am writing this in post as well... i did work today but i really need to fix my sleep schedule

JUNE 17 (streak: 0)
didn't do anything today, spent too much time playing videogames. i was really tempted to try and stay up late to salvage it, but i think i just need to cut my losses and try to wake up early tomorrow and try again.

JUNE 16 (streak: 2)
i'm writing this the day after (honestly just forgot..... whoops) but this was an okay. i was having a really hard time working on the DaB excercise, i feel like my linework regressed a lot over the past month. it's just something i'll have to work through. anyways, i wanted to sort of refactor how i do my weakly plan. having a different thing that i'm doing for each day of the week is a bit scattered. i feel it might be better if i was just focused on one (reasonablely short) goal that i just work towards until its done. i've found great success in working on videos in just a handful of really productive days, so i think applying that same sort of strategy to other things could be good. i think it's especially nice for when i don't finish what i wanted to do in a given day, because then i don't feel like i'm "behind schedule" for the week. so that's the approach i'm going to try moving forward. as for the first one of these "sprints," i'm gonna try to work on the thing of the month for june: a game design article!! (it's been awhile)

JUNE 15 (streak: 1)
did pretty good today. i didn't quite finish the DaB page, but i was close, and definitely used what little time i had available to the fullest (fun but busy day today.) so im happy.

JUNE 14 (streak: 0)
i didn't work on anything today. i did do a lot of boring, non project related work but that's besides the point. i had time today, just didn't use it cus i spent too much time playing guiltyg gear with friends >.< i think i've made good progress at cramping down on social media but now im getting to the point where im spending too much time on games, which is a better problem to have but still. gotta keep things reasonable. i think i coulda prevented this in two ways: 1) i set out a very unrealistic goal for what i was supposed to get done today, which gave me an excuse to try less because im like "ehh not really possible anyways." want to keep things more reasonable going forward. and 2) i really need to either try to work on stuff FIRST and not put it off, or set a time limit for how long i play a game or whatever and stick to it. so yeah. gonna be somewhat busy tomorrow aswell i think, but i'll see what i can do. i think i'll work on DaB first thing so i actually get it done. also, i have been staying up waaaaaaay too late so i need to work on that also.

JUNE 13 (streak: 1.5??)
i'm not counting this as a streak break since i did at least try but only got like 20% of the DaB exercise done. im pretty rusty, and i procrastinated until wayyy too late so it was hard to focus... i will try again tomorrow i think and also start on the article. i should manage

JUNE 12 (streak: 1)
well, better late than never. so... i could definitely bust out the bag of excuses and say i was busy -- i've definitely been since the last log but 1) i shoulda scheduled around that in advance, ie just take june 7-11 off rather than just deciding "mmm actually i wanna be lazy today :)" like i know those sound like the same thing but i think they are very different. one is being realistic, and the other is telling myself i should work today and then just not doing it. and also 2) i have definitely had some time (especially yesterday which was basically free), so i could have definitely done more than i did.
still though, given the circumstances this big gap isn't nearly as bad as it seems. it's a bit concerning that i'm already more than 1/3rd through june but all i can do is just keep moving forward. one thing i've definitely noticed is that i have sort of been "phoning it in" on these logs when previously i would reflect and try to identify what was causing massive breaks. i tend to procrastinate on these logs until late at night, at which point i'm tired and want to speedrun through them, so that's a habit i'll have to break. i did that today too... additionally, i wanna experiment with keeping a 'streak' tracker to see if that will help motivate me, starting with today. anyways, even though it's already wednesday i want to make a plan for the remainder of the week. i'm going to put more focus on drawabox and the thing of the month project for this week becaus i kinda skipped out on both last month and i want to get back in the groove.
- thursday: drawabox (rough perspective)
- friday: start accessibility article
- saturday: sketch
- sunday: continue accessbility article

JUNE 6
not gonna pretend this was the peak of productivity or anything but today was better. something unexpected came up -- i had to fix the teralite repo because i started porting to godot 4 before i abandoned the idea, leaving it in a super broken state. i, um, kinda suck at using git so getting it to revert back was a pretty tall order, but i figured it out... also, i worked on walk the line, as par the week's plan. yahoo!! i have a big day tomorrow. i'll try my best

JUNE 5
i know i know i know............. aghh im just lazy i guess. didn't do anything today, or the last 3 days, but it's late and i don't wanna ruin my sleep schedule so im just gonna go to bed. tomorrow i guess. i haven't been writing in here because i suppose that's just my way of avoiding how lazy i am... i need to change that: at least writing everyday is a good first step. um. anyways, i will very sincerely try my best tomorrow

JUNE 2
didn't end up working on anything today, but that's okay. TOMORROW and going forward though, i am off my break so i definitely wanna try to do some stuff.. btw, gonna try to do TWO things of the month for june!!
- monday: work on acessibility article
- tuesday: drawabox
- wednesday: finish (?) accessibility article
- thursday: sketching
- friday: walk the line
- saturday: drawabox
- sunday: walk the line

JUNE 1
relaxing day. started a minecraft server with some friends :) i think i might try to draw tomorrow though.

MAY 31
i feel much much better today :) don't really wanna go into detail because it's a) kinda personal and b) kinda insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but im just trying to enjoy myself. i might even end up drawing or something over the weekend, but we'll see.

MAY 30
i am taking today and the entire upcoming weekend off. my mental health is in the gutter

MAY 29
um, i didn't do anything today because im... agh wahtever!! tomorrow, i will have a ton of time so i'll get it done!!

MAY 28

hi. this is going to be a bit of a longer post because.... well.... it's been over a week!! dang. now, i don't regret taking a break for tues-thurs because that i was basically working every spare minute of that time frame anyways and barely sleeping. i can confidently say i did not have the time. even friday was reasonable because i had slept like 9 hours in the previous 3 days combined (im honestly proud of myself for not crashing until like late afternoon), so i needed to rest. but saturday? i still felt like i had done alot, so i just wanted to hang out with friends (fair, but still wish i woulda done something). then sunday, another off day. 🎵then it was a more often than not day. seriously though, i can't believe i let things spiral like this... i've just had a hard week i guess. a hard month, really. i actually forgot that i already took a 6 day break this week.. ouch. i feel like i'm stuck in a loop. i've done this same thing literally 5-10 times by now i think, and it's hard not to judge myself. but the truth im starting to realize more and more is that wheither or not i deserve to scold myself isn't actually that important because it's just not what i need right now. i have been wallowing around in my own dissapointment for so long and it's clear it's not helping me. all i can do is try. wheither or not i feel i tried my best doesn't change the fact that, when it comes down to it, there's only one me. so whoever they are, disciplined or not, creative or not, failed or not, that's my best.
um... that sounds a bit dramatic now that i'm writing it out, now doesn't it? im gonna do the least segway ever into my reevaluation of my future plans. i'm not going to make a commercial game this year. i made this decision both because, being honest, it's simply unrealistic given how things are going so far and i don't want to give myself yet another missed deadline to feel bad about. but also on a more personal level: i fear that i am triyng too hard to commercialize my game development. i'm currently coming up to a bit of a crossroads in life and i want to prove that i can survive doing this. but the reality is that it's simply not viable unless you're capable of making a GREAT game and you market good / get lucky, and i'm nowhere near there yet. don't get me wrong, i will never stop chasing this dream, but i need to be realistic. my worry is that im trying to force this hobby into a career when i'm not really ready yet. i've come to the conclusion that the teralite patch was just an extension of this. i want to get something on steam so why not just slap something i've already made on there? i wouldn't mind making some money, don't get me wrong -- and in the near future i plan open up donations on itch and start a kofi -- but i don't want that to be my motivator because... well, if you're an indie dev, it's a pretty crappy one, and i don't want to lose sight of why i started making games in the first place.
i have greatly mulled over quitting / delaying walk the line, not gonna lie, but i think getting over this hurdle is really important. after all, if i start a new project, i'm just going to have another unforeseen roadblock to get stuck at. i just need to be as patient with myself as i need to be and keep going. i can do this.
one thing i'm going to change though is my aditutde towards deadlines. i know in the past i said my piece that im not really ready for them yet, as they just give me another excuse to fall into dispair and give up. i don't disagree with this, but i also see a lot of value in just setting deadlines and trying (at least at first) to meet them. i think the move going forward is to keep the deadlines, but make them flexible. if it's abundantly clear that i am not going to make the deadline, i will stop and reflect a bit, and then reevaluate and set a new one. this way, i always have something realisitc to strive for. all i've done over these past 6 days is do a tincy tiny bit of work on the website, i think maybe ~2 hours in total. so yeah, definitely not very good but it's okay. only 3 days left in may, and i've still got a thing of the month to deliver. i'm planning on writing an article about accessibility and simplification in multiplayer games. i think i've got something interesting to say and it's been on my mind for a long long while. also, my usual blurb every time i go awhile without working on anything: i should be writing everyday in here even if i don't work on anything, i should be more diligent about making my plan for the week on monday exactly, i gotta stop myself from using leechblock's override (i think using the lockdown to disable override will help me). so! the plan for the rest of this week:
- wednesday: accessibility article
- thursday: accessibility article
- friday: finish accessibility article
- saturday: drawabox
- sunday: more drawabox
i'm taking a bit of a break from walk the line because i feel i've been neglecting my other things. next week, i'll probably try to work on this website a bit since it's been awhile.

MAY 20
i made better progress on walk the line today, but bad news: i have a lot that needs to happen this week! after this, i should be home free for awhile though. BUT!! until then, i am going to give myself a break until friday, so i won't be writing here for a bit. i have a follow up to the "why i suck at getting anything done" post in mind, so i'll probably write them when i return? idk. anyways, wish me luck! im almost at the end!!!

MAY 19
tried to write more today but it was hard. translation: i am lazy

MAY 18
nothing today. ended up going to a friends house for literally the entire day (so i have a good excuse!! kinda...) still, i wanna try to focus tomorrow. also, probably gonna save the thing of the month for next week (im thinking an article)

MAY 17
it was procrastinating hard on that sketch page but i did manage to do it, so im happy. it was easier once i actually started.

MAY 16
i did what had to be done... nervous for tomorrow (not project related), but i'm hoping to get back in the swing of things!

MAY 15
i'm actually shocked its been 6 days, i thought it was only like, 3. i've had a lot happen i guess.. um, busy with real life, but also just lazy. that's not to say i haven't been working on my projects at all over those 6 days though! in fact, i think i've actually worked like 4-5 of those days, i just didn't write here. argh!!! for some reason, it just feels so difficult sometimes.... but i gotta hold myself to it! maybe doing them not right before i go to bed would be better, so i don't feel the temptation to just go to sleep and skip them? either way, plan for the rest of the week:
- thursday: NADA. i got stuff to do... :(
- friday: sketch page
- saturday: walk the line
- sunday: walk the line

MAY 9
i was so happy i made it to friday that i didn't do much. just a bit of walk the line. i need to rest up so i can grind out all my work today and tomorrow.

MAY 8
um... today was sort of similar to yesterday. i did a page of rough perspective (took like 2.5 hours o.o) but nothing else. anyways i need sleep

MAY 7
today was mixed. it started well, i worked on walk the line for three hours as i planned. it was very slow writing, but i can't fault myself for that. all i can expect of myself is to just write to the best of my current ability, and if that means writing like, a few hundred words an hour, than so be it. besides, it's really to be expected. i've hardly had any experience with storytelling in my entire life, so cranking out a novella all the sudden is definitely... ambitious. what im saying, really, is that i should be judging my effort, and on that front, i did pretty good. after that though, i definitely lost focus and didn't make time for some of the other things i should have done today. still, i will congratulate myself on not getting distracted on social media, it was mostly doing more meaningful things like reading. far from ideal, but i think if i can keep this up i'll be making good progress.

MAY 6

look. it was busy today but i can't keep making excuses for getting basically nothing done. the fact that this is almost at 100 hours in 2 months is scaring me. that's not 100 hours of total social media usage. that's 100 hours just with the override, i.e, on a day that isn't friday when i'm not supposed to be using it. i know i can do better. tomorrow, actually, i will make sure im free to do some work. speaking of... the plan:
- tuesday: walk the line -- 3 hours
- wednesday: DaB rough perspective
- thursday: walk the line -- 1 hour
- friday: sketch page; also recount them i think i have like 7-8 now
- saturday: walk the line -- 4 hours
- sunday: walk the line - 2 hours
but also, a challenge: i wanna use less than 1 hour of social media for this entire week. so, the total needs to be 99:13:51 or less by sunday night. i wanna try to spend more time reading / experiencing some more meaningful media rather than just brain rot.

MAY 5
i made SOME progress on DaB today but i got news of something important and it kinda broke my focus. i ended up having a very busy day today aswell so..... agh.. next week?? maybe!?!?!? not gonna make a plan for the rest of the week right now because i'm tired. tomorrow afternoon i will.

MAY 4
not gonna like, the only sort of productive thing i did today was update the links page, but that's not walk the line now is it!?!? i had an unexpectedly busy day in my defence, but i still wish i was more proactive about actually working on stuff... tomorrow will be busy as well, but i'll try my best.

MAY 3
hmmmmm not very productive, kinda a boring day. i tried to work on walk the line but kinda got distracted and only wrote like 1 sentence ._. i'll have more time and energy tomorrow. also, i forgot to update the thing of the month until now!!

MAY 2
focusing has still been a struggle but i did do some drawing today. way behind on irl stuff though, it's hard for me to balance. augh...

MAY 1
im slightly terrified by the fact that it's may already. good thing though: i did work on walk the line again (and in general had a nice day. helped some friends film some things). bad thing: i am super duper behind on my boring irl stuff. tomorrow i wanna try to focus more and grind some of it out

APRIL 30
i worked on walk the line for a bit, but i procrastinated on it (and other things i needed to do) literally the entire day. not good. i want to try to manage my time a lot better heading into tomrrow, and also get more sleep.

APRIL 29
i managed to finish the video today, after much pain. seriously, it was way more work than i thought to get that higher quality footage. im glad it's over hehe.. overall, another good day. although while i was waiting for downloading / rendering, i did waste a ton of time on my phone, so i wanna be more careful of that in the future. also, plan for the rest of this week:
- tuesday: walk the line
- wednesday: walk the line
- thursday: drawing
- friday: walk the line
- saturday: walk the line
- sunday: walk the line + drawabox

APRIL 28
edited the lk masters video literally the entire day today since i woke up. i thought i was done, but i realized after exporting that the quality was pretty poopy due to a problem with how i was downloading the livestream with yt-dlp. i managed to fix it but im not waiting 2+ hours to redownload all the footage and then reexport the video and THEN upload, so im just gonna let the footage download overnight and then i'll finish overnight. regardless though, today was a productive day. also slayer was just revealed for strive!! hype

APRIL 27
i worked on the lk masters highlights video a bit more today, but there's still a LOT more to do, and i think i wanna go through the whole thing again and cut it down to only the best of the clips i picked out. im gonna try really hard to get it done tomorrow

APRIL 26
took it easy today. felt like crap at times, despite nothing bad really happening. just one of those days.. im kinda excited to work on the video tomorrow :)

APRIL 25
after yesterday my willpower was like, 100% depleted so i was a lot less productive today as a result. i still did finish the plotted perspective page, but that's all. im very behind on sleep.

APRIL 24
today was rough. i don't blame myself for not working on anything (of my own) today. it's 2:41, i need to sleep

APRIL 23
bit of a struggle staying focused today, i spent too much time on newgrounds. adding that to the blocklist! all i did today was 2/3rds of a plotted perspective page. granted, that is pretty time consuming still (~2 hours i think???? was very hard for me) but i definitely should and could have done more today. i'll try to clean things up tomorrow

APRIL 22
there's still a lot to do, but i worked hard today. i sort of stupidly forgot i was supposed to be working on walk the line today and just kept cranking out the video for like 4 hours hehe... so that wasn't the best, but work is work so im happy. i definitely didn't get to everything i wanted to get done today, but i did really try. that's all i can ask of myself. i hope to keep it up tomorrow :)

APRIL 21
i did some good stuff today (more work on the video, about 33% done?) but i procrastinated wayy too much on some other stuff and i have been staying up way too late, including today. gotta do better next week. anyways, the plan:
- monday: walk the line
- tuesday: walk the line + drawabox
- wednesday: walk the line
- thursday: walk the line + sketching
- friday: website; backrooms, update music, add portal to nekoweb
- saturday: video
- sunday: video

APRIL 20
i did a TON of work today on the video, but its still far from done. i also ended up staying up later than i should have because i was so absorbed, ahhh!!! im happy that im actually, like, WORKING though :) had a lot of fun aswell, so overall was a great day

APRIL 19
i feel better today!! guess it wasn't that bad, huh? didn't get any work on the site down though, that's okay. i had a lot to do today so i don't blame myself. tomorrow, i think i'll start on the lordknight masters video (hopefully i can finish it in 2 days?)

APRIL 18
i kinda just rotted in bed and procrastinated for most of the day ;-; literally all i did was play spelunky and clash royale. but im feeling a bit better now, played tf2 and gartic phone with some friends and it cheered me up. procrastinated waaaaaaaaay too much today though. i just need to survive tomorrow, ima try to work in the site a bit but im gonna take it easy.

APRIL 17
i still feel like crap today, definitely sick. im hoping to just rest up tomorrow.

APRIL 16
today was even worse than yesterday. my alergies are absolutely killing me and i can barely get anything done. very stressed. im gonna take wednesday and thursday off because to be frank i feel like i can barely function as is

APRIL 15
horrible day today, although i did manage to read through a lot of the intructional material on drawing boxes. but i didn't actually get to the assignment, or walk the line for that matter, it was a lot to take in and there was a personal problem nagging at me so it was hard to focus. i just wanna sleep

APRIL 14
i actually wrote a little today. yippee!! it's very little admitedly (~200 words + rewrote a few paragraphs) but im happy i got out of my rut and did SOMETHING. idk, i felt like i sorta overcame a bit of a mental block i guess? at least partically. anyways, i wanna try to write every day next week, even if it's literally just opening up the document and writing like 3 sentences. i wanna build up the habit of thinking about my own story and wanting to work on it, so i can get excited about it again rather than building it up in my head to some impossible burden that i just don't want to think about. ALSO! i wanna start workiing on drawabox more because i've kind of neglected it this month. trying to focus on the story is good, but i think working on other stuff is a necessary pace breaker and ive actually been making pretty decent progress on my drawing ability in my opinion so i wanna continue that. also also, i wanna start work on the 'thing of the month' for april (the april 1st vid doesn't count, that's really for march). im thinking a highlight video for the lord knight masters invitational, but its not 100% locked in so i might change my mind. thats just what im gonna write on my plan for now. speaking of:
- monday: drawabox + walk the line
- tuesday: focused on walk the line
- wednesday: sketching + walk the line
- thursday: focused on walk the line
- friday: fav comics manga page + walk the line
- saturday: start lord knight masters highlight video
- sunday: walk the line focus
wish me luck :P

APRIL 13
i ended up being more busy than i expected today so i didn't actually end up working on walk the line, just the website. this is becoming a problem. so, from here forward im gonna try harder to ONLY work on the website if its friday, even if i didn't get much done on friday! realistically the website should be very low on my priorities so i wanna work on other stuff...... erg!! i really dont wanna work on walk the line tbh but i just gotta push through and do it. i'll try again tomorrow!!!

APRIL 12
did a LITTLE bit of work on the website today. i kinda forgot yesterday that friday is website day, so i think its fine i didn't write anything. tomorrow, though, i gotta stop saying "tomorrow" and do it NOW!!! i honestly think if i just sat down and really tried i could write a chapter in 1 day. maybe. i want to try that at least, see how much i could write if i did it like all day. um... that sounds kinda weird... but you know what i mean.

APRIL 11
i did have a bit of time today but agh. i was really tired, so i was feeling especially lazy. excuses excuses i know... grr. i need to just kinda push through and write at least a BIT even though im tired. just 30 mins. but eh. ill try tomorrow. i need sleep

APRIL 10
i ate too much and now i have a stomach ache. hopefully it'll go away by tomorrow morning.. >.< also im realizing i thought it was thursday yesterday when i was writing but whatever!! i think i might actually have a bit of time tomorrow so i'll try to write a little. little bit behind on sleep again, time to zzzzzzzz

APRIL 9
im going to bed early today in attempt to repair my sleep schedule. i feel asleep when i got home cus i was so tired... but yeah, still nothing today. i've been kinda overloaded. i think i'll take tomorrow off also, but FRIDAY should be good. in fact, i'll try to make a schedule for the days i can work:
- friday: work on favorite media page!!! fav shows + comics
- saturday: try to actually write.
- sunday: moar

APRIL 8
ummmmmmmmmmm so my laziness has caught up with me. it's midnight but there's a ton more i need to do still... agh!!!!!!!!!!!! i hate ruining my sleep schedule but i kinda gotta. i'll try to go to bed ~2-3 hours earlier tomorrow to maybe try and fix it but for now i just gotta roll with it. no work on walk the line, i have bigger problems right now.

APRIL 7
nothing today. well, almost. i did technically manage to fix something on the new favorite media page (the heart), but it doesn't really count. wasn't a great day for me, i neglected a lot of things that i needed to take care of.

APRIL 6
i spent so much time working on the favorite media page that i ended up neglecting to work on walk the line, ahh!!! i did, by coincidene, end up thinking of some good (i think) ideas though for the story, so i guess that's kinda an accidental win. regardless, i wanna try to actually write tomorrow. letting the masses know about my inferior taste in media can wait!

APRIL 5
dgjhsjdhgsdjg the website thingy stuff i was trying to do is really hard for some reason!!!!! grr.. its okay though. im just gonna leave the favorite media page in its half baked state for tonight... maybe tomorrow i'll try to work on it more? idk. was a pretty good day today though

APRIL 4
today was a really good day. i did spend quite a bit of time not working, but it was doing good stuff (playing cute indie games) instead of scrolling on youtube or something dumb, so i actually got soemthing good out of it. and that's not to say i didn't do work either, i was fairly productive i think!! i did some drawing, and like, it wasn't good but it's good for me. i'm feelin' good about it, i think i am actually improving... but i need to do moar! (it is never enough) looking forward to it though. i did end up staying up like 30 mins past midnight which isn't ideal... ack! sleep schedules are hard.... i'll try to fix it tomorrow. but yeah. this is the best day i think in a really long time. im happy :)

APRIL 3
didn't do anything today, but im trying to keep my sleep schedule intact so im not gonna stay up or anything. i did have a moderate amount of work to do + i feel asleep for like 3 hours, but i definitely could have fit in some drawing. tomorrow i wanna try to procrastinate less so this doesn't happen again.

APRIL 2
ok. okokokokokokokok... it's not time for slopping! it's time for... um... planning!! a little late, sure, but better late than never!
- today: drawabox... idk whatevers next, i forget.
- wednesday: walk the line
- thursday: drawing
- friday: website; overhawl fav media page. make the page itself a little more unique looking, and also make the pages for games and shows
- saturday: walk the line
- sunday: walk the line
...i also wanted to write a bit about how i'm doing now, a quarter of the way into the year. i think i just want to sort of take things a little easier, in a sense. i want to state upfront that i really don't want to give the impression that i am going insane / deserve abuncha sympathy or whatever. don't get my wrong, i am often pretty dissapointed / frusterated, but realistically i have a pretty good life. i'm stressed sometimes, but it's me bringing it on myself. when i first started writing these logs i said that i needed pressure, and i still stand by that. but i feel i'm not really putting pressure on myself so much as just tormenting myself. i'm glad that i've found something i really, really care about, but there's comes a point where its just too much. having all of these goals and estimates and things is its not necessarily bad, but it really hurts me when i don't live up to them, and i almost never do. this isn't just a thing in the last 2 years -- it's always been like this. even when i was making teralite, that game took literally 8-10x longer than i was expecting, and at the time i felt pretty bad about it even though i look at that era now with envy. infact, the things i've been most successful with this past week, drawabox, the website, and small coding projects were the things i didn't have long term deadlines for. i think that speaks volumes. going forward, i want to try to be more fair with myself. on a day to day scale, i want to try to focus more on effort rather than just what i did or didn't get done. for larger goals, i want to be much more realistic and adjust them when it's clear things aren't going the way i thought they would. i also wanna stick to shorter deadlines, i.e. individual chapters instead of an entire story. speaking of... i'm going to try and wrap up chapter 1 of walk the line by the end of this week. not a hard deadline, but i want to try.
~~
writing this part later!!! i did drawabox today... funnels! was kinda hard, the i feel like a got a bit worse at drawing elipses over the break but ahdhasd. its okay. um.. another thing i wanted to talk about.. i still wanna do a project this month, but i am going to hold off until next week. still want to do it earlier rather than.. like, the last day this time though. might be a game design article, but i was thinking it might be good to take a break from writing so ehhhhhhhh idk. i think there was something else i wanted to add but i forgot (about it in 2 seconds). so, uhhh, byebye

APRIL 1
honestly, i've just been triyng not to think about this for the past... almost week. i felt like i needed to sort of vent, so i made this abomination. glad i got something done today. i'll make a plan for the week and how to maybe bounce back tomorrow, i think.

MARCH 26
i had another fun day, but i didn't do anything. really didn't feel like it. in fact, i haven't even made a plan for this week... gosh. im gonna take tomorrow off. i think i want just a a guilt-free break so i can take some time to kinda think things over. im really dissapointed i've been working on this story for 6 months and i've barely made any progress. idk. just wanna slow things down for a bit.

MARCH 25
had a lot happen today. it was alotta fun, but i'm really feeling pretty... awful right now, to be honest. i don't think i have it in me today. i will try to get back into the swing of things tomorrow.

MARCH 24
barely got anything done today, but i had very little time because i was hanging out with friends all day. unproductive, but worth it!!! tomorrow i'm going skiing again.. probably won't be the best day either, but i'll try.

MARCH 23
i did work today, but didn't follow through with my plan at all. i wanted to sorta do some more work on the website because i didn't get much done yesterday.... but then i never actually got to walk the line, AND i didn't even remotely finish the favorite media page! it's ok though... i just don't wanna repeat this tomorrow.

MARCH 22
pretty unproductive like last friday, but i did do some backrooms expansion and JUST started making the favorite media page.. i'll do more later!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

MARCH 21
felt good about today! did some drawing -- with reference, this time. i was really worried about using reference for awhile because drawabox cautioned against using it to avoid drawing something poorly, which felt EXACTLY like what i was reaching to it for. but after going without reference for a bit, i think i can safely say that's not the problem anymore. i just really struggle with drawing a lot of things - especially like body proportions and faces and stuff. so having reference is good. however, im still being careful to 1) try to draw things without reference first and 2) not copy a reference image exactly. maintaining my sleep schedule still, too. yahoo! anyways, tomorrow im probably gonna be more chilled out watching arcrevo and stuff... but i'll try to be more productive than i was last friday. im way behind on walk the line at this point but i don't wanna "punish" myself for it so im just gonna maintain my schedule for the remainder of the week.

MARCH 20
sufficive to say, i did NOT finish chapter 1 today. i did work a bit though. still writing very slowly, but i think it might be getting a bit better, just a bit. still though, i am definitely behind. i also wasted a LOT of time today, i basically just had so much free time that i still had some left over to work on the story. not ideal, i'll try to work on it. one thing that is going well is my sleep schedule... i actually did feel quite a bit better and more rested today. it's 5 mins before midnight right now and i wanna keep it up, so goodnight!!!!!! looking forward to taking a break from the story tomorrow.

MARCH 19
well, its 1:00... today was a weird day. i felt more drousy despite the fact i slept more, although maybe it was just because the lack of sleep from the previous day finally caught up with me. regardless, by the evening i was so tired i feel asleep reading a book and woke up 2 hours later. so, technically im not behind on sleep going to bed 1 hour late but it's really not the best to have my sleep segmented like this. ill try to fix it tomorrow. one good thing about last night though: i actually had a dream for the first time in forever. wowiee! HOWEVER, i didn't ever get to working on walk the line today. this was a time management problem - the nap was kinda enivitable, but i wasted like 1:30 before that playing guilty gear. shoulda used atleast 30 minutes of that to work on the story. i could work on it right now but again, im trying to prioritize sleep more. i'll try to be more careful going forward.

MARCH 18
alrighty. first and foremost, i think it's become clear that i need to make sleep more of a priority. so from here forward, im gonna really try to go to bed by midnight, no matter what -- even if it means i don't do anything that day! the i think my lack of sleep is sorta getting to the point where it's putting too much strain on me, and it might be why i feel so slow in the head. it's just not worth it. today, i didn't really have a plan so i kinda just did some updating to the site, like the music page and whatnot... really not what needed to be done, but that's a consequence of staying up so late yesterday that i couldn't make my plan for the week!!! see what im sayin?? anyways, im gonna make that plan now:
TUESDAY - walk the line. won't have much time, but a start on the final scene of chapter 1 would be good.
WEDNESDAY - really try to finish chapter 1, even if its rough and crappy.
THURSDAY - sketch page; start using reference! (i'll explain this more the day of)
FRIDAY - site work; backrooms expansion + favorite media page. try to be a liiitle more focused, but still keepin it as an easyish day
SATURDAY - start on chapter 2. should be the easiest chapter since much of it is already written
SUNDAY - finish chapter 2 with the cafe scene. i know you have no idea what that is, but i do!!!!!
there's more i could write, but it's time to zzzzzzzzzzzzz

MARCH 17
there's alotta things i need to write about, such as the plan for next week, but its way too late. i need to sleep

MARCH 16
i procrastinated on walk the line until rediculously late at night, but i did work on it for a good 2 hours. it's almost 3 though so i really need to go to bed...

MARCH 15
not a super productive day today but that's okay :) just did some backrooms expansion while chillin on a gokanaru stream

MARCH 14
ummm... well im not too good at this, am i? i don't know. i just felt like crap this week i guess. could barely fufill like the bare minimum of stuff i needed to do, so working on walk the line on top of that just sounded like a lot... to be clear, i have TIME, it's a time management problem. i just need to get better at doing things i don't wanna do (in the moment). i don't wanna dwell on it too much because i don't think there's a whole lot to be learned honestly. i just need to be more commited. also, i notice that once the ball of negativity gets rollin (i skip a day), it becomes very easy to justify skipping again. this journal helps keep that in check a little cus i don't wanna look bad, but i still wanna be more aware of that. from now on, i wanna WRITE in this everyday even if i didn't actually do anything. i think just having that conversation with myself will help prevent that sort of doom spiral in the future. um, as for today... im obviously very behind, so im not sure chapter 2 is happening this week, but i actually did pretty good today! worked on walk the line for a good 2ish hours i wanna say, and did two pages of the ellipses in planes excercise. feelin' good! i still want to stick sort of to the plan, so tomorrow im gonna work on this site for a bit while i watch videos and stuff (friday is the only day i'll allow myself to watch youtube)

MARCH 10
another very unproductive day. was fun (hung out with friends), but unproductive nevertheless. all i did was update nongmotrash.nekoweb.org and added like 1 page to the backrooms. i wanted to "touch up the homepage" a bit but idk. don't really have it in me today. also, i failed to write the first chapter of walk the line this week, so next week im kinda gonna be doin' catchup. i gotta think about what i'm going to put out this month, but given im already behind, this week just isn't it. im gonna try to allocate more time to walk the line this week in order to catch back up.
- monday: walk the line chapter 1: scenes 2 & 3
- tuesday: walk the line chapter 1: start writing scene 4
- wednesday: walk the line chapter 1: finish scene 4 (first chapter complete!)
- thursday: drawabox exercise (idk whatever the next one is)
- friday: new backroom, update links, restyle side parts & webrings of homepage
- saturday: walk the line chapter 2: rewrite polish existing scenes from 1st draft
- sunday: walk the line chapter 2: write cafe scene (second chapter complete!)

MARCH 9
i'm not gonna pretend to have written anything close to enough, but i did write. kinda procrastinated on it fofr almost the entire day, but once i started it wasn't that bad. my plan is to speedrun the website work tomorrow and finish chapter 1... maybe. atleast the first three scenes.

MARCH 8
wasn't terriblely productive but it's a friday so it okay :) did some sketchin late at night

MARCH 7
i finished the first scene of chapter 1 today! however, i've outlined 4 scenes for that chapter, so i definitely got some work to do. i'm gonna hope for the best on saturday (should have plenty of time provided i can stay focused), but i'm gonna stick to the plan and do a sketch page tomorrow. perhaps i'll work on the story a liiiiitle bit if i have time.

MARCH 6
im very slowly trying to fix my sleep schedule, it's 15 past midnight right now which is really not great but my work took way longer than expected today so it's not unreasonable. still gotta work on it though, i wanna start sleeping at least 1-1.5 hours earlier. i worked on walk the line today but unfortunately i was unable to fully nail down the chapter 4 outline... endings are hard. however, i do have a much better (if a bit vague) idea of what's going to happen, so i have a destination to move towards. i've decided that for the rest of the week i'm just going to focus on writing chapter 1 because it's wednesday and i haven't i barely have anything. also, i've been thinking about what i might do for the "thing of the month" in march (walk the line won't work because i will probably do a 3rd draft after march before i release it)... one idea in my head has been "can big brother youtube save my wicked soul?" video... i think it would be really funny. perhaps kinda weak without VO though... not sure. regardless, i'll probably work on that next week because i want to stick to my plan for this week. anywho, cya (i wonder, do people actually read these??)

MARCH 5
i'm writing this on the 6th becasue it was 2 am and i was tired lol. i still kinda stuck in a malaise during the morning and felt awful, but i eventually snapped out of it and actually had a really productive day. i did have a lot on my plate though as i didn't do anything the previous day, so i was busy, pretty much working all day save for a 2 hour nap (and a break for dinner of course). i did another table of elipses for ~1.5 hours in the dead of night. i was reaaaaaaaally tempted to just be like nope - i need sleep, but im really happy that i pushed through and got it done. it wasn't as bad as the last time, and i think i got quite a bit better at the execution, too. still, i don't wanna ignore the fact that yesterday i kinda just died. i kinda had bouts of depression like this last year too (though much more intense), so i don't wanna fall into that trap again. i think the main thing i wanna work on is my sleep schedule.. actually going to be like 1-2 hours BEFORE midnight rather than after would really make a big difference for my focus and i think it would definitely be worth the time spent. i should be able to easily get everything done before then anyways if i just manage my time better. anyways, i gotta get to work for today! got lots to do, and i'm hoping to finish outlining chapter 4 of walk the line like i was planning to do on the 4th. i still wanna try to finish the first chapter by the end of this week. it'll be tough, but i think i can do it if i really try. wish me luck!

MARCH 4
i did literally nothing today. i feel like garbage... it's late, i don't wanna wake up tomorrow

MARCH 3
stayed home today to try and get a lot of work done, but it was only semi successful. i did finally finish the tunes page on the sitw which took foreeeeeeeeeeeeever and im really glad its done, but i was planning to also do a page of elipses :( but its too late now. it was really hard for me to focus because doing the tunes page involves a lot of going to youtube, which means is veeeeery easy to get distracted so i worked a lot slower than i should have been. im happy its finally done though (at least for the time being) as it was soooooooooooooo tedius. anyhow, for next week:
- monday: walk the line chapter 4 outline
- tuesday: drawabox, table of elipses
- wednesday: work on walk the line chapter 1
- thursday: work on walk the line chapter 1
- friday: sketch page
- saturday: finish walk the line chapter 1
- sunday: fix nekoweb site, expand backrooms, touch up home page a lil
i stayed up way later than i should have this weekend but today's a bit more reasonable, only 20 mins til midnight (_　_)。゜zｚＺ

MARCH 2
um... so i KINDA failed again... let me explain. technically, i didn't ever go a day without doing anything, but the last two days have been extremely unproductive and it was definitely less than 30 minutes. the main reason i didn't write anything was because i was working extremely late at night and was super tired (which is my fault, bad time management), and also because i felt like it was disingenious to be like "yeah i worked on walk the line today :)))" when realistically i just opened it for 5-10 minutes and barely wrote anything. so im marking this as... gosh, the THIRD time i broke my resolution!!! i'm pretty dissapointed in myself, but i don't wanna wallow in it. so i'm gonna do the usual thing and try to reflect on it a little... i think my main problem has stemmed from walk the line itself. i've said this before but i find it EXTREMELY difficult to just, like, write. i'm very perfectionist in the sense that i can't just let go from and write a draft that i know is probably crappy just to get something onto the page, it's gotta be the best thing i can possibly write, even if it's literally an OUTLINE, and that makes things extremely hard. looking back and realizing that i've been "working on my second draft" for literal months now has been... disparaging. i feel so stupid. i know it's very common to experience writer's block, but it honestly feels like i'm not even trying even though i know i am. and every day i waste on this, i feel like i'm falling further and further behind on my gamedev, and it's really biting away at me. i've seriously contemplating just putting walk the line on a hiatus for the forseeable future. but i've made up my mind; i want to see this thing through to atleast the 2nd draft. no half measures. i've delayed / canceled WAAAAAY too many projects in the past 2 years, and i gotta break the cycle. i felt this way on teralite too, but i pushed through and i'm soooo glad i did. i gotta have that same mindset here, too. so. i'm working until it's done, no matter how long it takes. however! i would like to have a goal to aim for: march 31. sounds far away but that gives me ~1 week per chapter, which is pretty reasonable in my opinion. in fact, i also wanna have deadlines for each individual chapter: saturday of each week. i hope having smaller, more "bite sized" goals to work towards will keep me on track better for the big ones. um... as for what i actually did TODAY - i didn't do drawabox because i was feeling like crap about the story and wanted to work on it, so i'll probably do that table of elipses tomorrow. i did make some good progress on walk the line though, finally outlining the third chapter and touching up the first two!! i'm happy, it was very hard to write for some reason but i feel like i'm finally hitting my stride. tomorrow though, i'm taking a break to do that drawabox and to work on the website some.

FEBURARY 28
worked on walk the line for an hour or so. still tough, but i think the ideas are flowing a bit more now.. sorry im being brief, just tired.

FEBURARY 27
i was so tired i forgot to write in here because i was just like "finally im free!! time to sleep"... but i did actually do stuff! was very busy but i did a page a drawing, so im happy.

FEBURARY 26
today was not a good day. i... well i did try to write, but again, not much done. it was a bit more than previous days but realistically its still basically nothing. idk. i can't tell if im just lazy or stupid or what.. i don't know what to do. i've gotten back into the habit of bypassing the blocker... this entire day i was kind of just trying to forget about my responsibilities, if i'm being honest. im very dissapointed in myself. i honestly feel like im just going through the motions to just have SOMETHING to write here at the end of the day, which i guess is a start, but man... agh!! idk why i can't just write this stupid thing. although it's not just that, doing any work has felt way harder this past week or so. like even doing that page of elipses 2 days ago, which was only 2 hours of work, took SO much mental energy i felt kinda tired afterward. idk why i can't do anything, it really does feel like im cursed. i don't know what to do. tomorrow, though, i'll have a break from writing so i hope maybe i can refresh my mind or something... crap. im really dreading tomorrow, i neglected so much stuff today.. i need to go to sleep, it's way too late.

FEBURARY 25
this was another one of those days where i was like "i had alotta fun :) but i didn't get much done!! D:" ... all i did was start my nekoweb outpost... um... you can see it here... made it in like 40 mins lol. but yeah, didn't really work on this site as much as i wanted, was supposed to finish the tunes page today... but it can wait. exposing my weird music taste to the world isn't really high priorty. you know what is though!?!??! the GRAND PLAN for next week!!
- monday: finish outlining chapter 3 (or else). this has beenn reaaaaaaaaally hard for some reason, half laziness and half writer's block, and i really considered just giving up or something but.. no!! i gotta push through!!!
- tuesday: 1 page of sketching
- wednesday: outline chapter 4 (final)
- friday: start writing chapter 1, up to the first scene
- saturday: another table of elipses for drawabox (agh!!! really hard for some reason hehe..)
- sunday: finish tunes page + outpost expansion... maybe link on the main site

FEBURARY 24
did a table of elipses for draw a box today - its so much harder than it looks lol. took like 2 hours ;-; i didn't do anything for walk the line, idk just writers block i guess... regardless, im just going to stick to the original plan for tomorrow.

FEBURARY 23
heya. today was pretty dissapointing; and reading back at the past week or so, it hasn't been the only one. i've begun to exploit the overide on leechblock and i've spent waaaaaaay more time than i should have on youtube today. i did some work on drawabox and the teralite patch but it was definitley kinda a struggle today. to counteract this, i've decided to change how i allocate the social media time: instead of 30 minutes every day (or 90 minutes if it's a weekend), i'm switching to 0 time on everyday but it's completely unblocked friday, serving as my "movie night" sorta. i think this method will be a lot better for two reasons. first, it allows me to watch long form content without cheating the timer, which is what i did today (and previous days, to a lesser extent) and has resulted in me spending too much time on youtube. the second reason is because i feel spending any time on youtube makes me want mooooar and makes me more likely to circumvent the timer that day, so having a clear divide between "it's allowed" or "it isn't" will work better for me, i think. i also want to better manage how i allocate my time to my various projects. with everything i got goin' on, i feel my focus is becoming increasing fractured which is making it harder to actually complete anything. to curve this, i'm going to put the teralite patch on hold because i think having 4 simultaneous projects is just too much. from now on i want to keep it as 1 main project + 2 permanent-ish backburner things. so from now on, i wanna kinda plan out what im going to do each day of the week every sunday. i didn't do this last sunday obviously, so i'm just going to do it now for the remaining two days of the week. both days, i'll have irl stuff i need to do but i should still have plenty of time to work on my projects.
- satuday: finish the walk the line outline (seriously im just gonna sit there with it open until its done), do a page of a table of elipses for draw a box
- sunday: finish the tunes page of the website once and for all (it's been really tedius adding all the tracks lol), and add a room or two to the backrooms

FEBURARY 22
skiing was fun :) didn't get much done today though, although i wasn't planning on much. just drawing. tomorrow: MOAR!!!

FEBURARY 21
wasn't a great day, but better. i spend much of the day sleeping since i slept awful last night, aswell as playing undertale yellow which i wouldn't exactly call time "wasted" but it definitely wasn't productive. i did do some good work on the teralite patch though, got the game at least RUNNING (although it crashes once you get to the title screen..). tomorrow im going skiing, so i don't wanna put too much pressure on myself. maybe just some drawing or something?

FEBURARY 20
ok i desperately need to add reddit to the block list (i now have). wasted like... idk a lot of time. in fact, i wasted so much time that i'm writing this the day after the fact (again!!!!!!) because i procrastinated until like 2 in the morning. did a tincy tiny bit of work on walk the line but i really am kinda at a block. i think i'll work on the teralite patch more today instead, give it a bit of a rest?

FEBRUARY 19
didn't do everything i wanted to today, but it wasn't a complete failure either. just kinda scattered. i did a bit more work on the teralite patch - idk why people are having problems building it, it works for me ;-;-;-; but im gonna port it to godot 4. i think it'll only take a few days; i'll just crack it open now and then when i feel like it. i really WANTED to work on walk the line, but idk. just wasn't my day for writing.. also i starting playing undertale yellow today ^(^.^)^

FEBURARY 18
i was absolutely exhausted again today... just worked on a site a bit, which is not the greatest. however, i did greatly reduce my social media usage this week so hopefully i can keep it up!! after this weekend, i decided it would be a good idea to set a timer to saturday sunday aswell, i made it 90 minutes instead of the 30 for week days which i think is reasonable. tomorrow i'll be free though (finally!!), so i wanna make that teralite patch and do some drawing, and also get outline another chapter of walk the line. not sure if i'll make the feb 23 deadline but i'll try to atleast fully write another chapter by then.

FEBURARY 17
worked a little bit on the teralite patch, but mostly on the website. the links are updated & ranked by quality now.. anyways im tiiiired

FEBURARY 16
i'm writing this the day after again aggggghhh!! however, i have a very good excuse: i was sleepy. seriously tho i was downloading something big and i was like "ahh okay im just gonna lay down for a minute while that happens.." and then i woke up at 2:20 in the morning lolol. i love hanging out with friends but my social bandwidth is kinda low so it takes a lot out of me. i did get a little bit of stuff done; mainly, i realized that you can edit videos within youtube to make cuts, which i used to remove a bunch of blank video that i accidentally added to the end of the guilty gear and the calcuator vidoes... really nice that i can do that without reuploading!! i also am considering doing another SMALL patch for teralite. i really don't wanna focus more on making NEW stuff but i do think it could benefit from just a sliiiiiiiiiiight bit of polish, and more importantly, better "documentation" if you wanna call it that. i've had many people tell me they downloaded it on github and can't export it... works on my machineTM!!! seriously though, i wanna try to fix this.

FEBURARY 15
today was a good day! i did some drawing while streaming it to some friends :3 was pretty fun. i did spend too much time playing clash royale i think (i am addicted to playing all goblins) but i set the timer from 45 minutes -> 25, which i think should help curve it. leechblock is also working pretty well i think... i can't just autopilot during my free time anymore!! also also, i worked on walk the line a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitle bit, i coulda done better but overall im feeling pretty happy with today :)

FEBURARY 14
again, i'm a bit dissapointed with what i got done today, although i don't wanna be too harsh because i am getting better. i did, however spend a lot of time playing guilty gear which i kind of regret (just not a great day for it, i needed to get rolling today) and i also spent too much time fiddling with leechblock, because it wasn't working how i intended... but i fixed it (it was just me being an idiot). basically i have it configured to only allow me 30 minutes on youtube / twitter per day. i definitely still felt the pull today, like agggggh what do i do now that content machine is gone??? but i think if i keep this up i can hopefully break my addiction. originally i was going to have everything be unrestricted for weekends, but honestly i might limit it to 90 minutes or something. as for what i actually got done: worked more on the walk the line outline. still only 2/4 chapters OUTLINED, and i still need to write all of them... :( however, i should have some more time to write soon (i understand the problem is mainly that i need to MAKE more time for it, but still) so im hoping i can still get the 2nd draft done and ready for beta readers by my feburary 23 goal. tomorrow i wanna outline chapter 3 and maybe also do some drawing :3

FEBURARY 13
pretty bad day if i'm being honest. i was feeling extremely tired cus i haven't been getting enough sleep, which i sort of used as an excuse to procrastinate all day. i estimate i probably watched at least 4 hours of youtube... i was so desperate i even played clash royale not with friends. i really wanted to get a chapter or 2 of the outline done today, but i barely did anything. my unproductivity today was the tipping point, though, to finally look into a website blocker thingy that doesn't suck. i've tried an extension in the past, can't remember the name rn, but it kinda sucked and the timeframes were straight up bugged as far as i can tell. this one i found now, leechblock, limits my time on youtube and twitter (the biggest culprits) during mon-fri. basically i only get 15 minutes every 2 hours (can stack though, but i think that's okay), otherwise they redirect me here

FEBURARY 12
did another page of ghosted plains, and i actually improved quite a bit compared to the first time.. but i had a lot of work to do today, so i didn't have time for much else. im sleepy, it's 1:20

FEBURARY 11
i kind of failed again... i don't really have as much to say as last time, i'm just really not the best at this.... but for the 19239th time, i don't wanna strike a balance between apathy and self loathing, so i'm trying to keep my head in it. speaking "positively," i did keep technically keep my streak for 22 days instead of just 15, and i also recovered out of the slump much faster (5 days -> 2)... so i guess i am slowly improving, even if it doesn't feel like it. also i did do some good stuff, such as actually being proactive about finishing my project for feburary early instead of rushing out something at the last minute. so that's good. but you know what's also good? not failing!!!!! so what could i have done better? well last time i sort of talked about how i procrastinated too much, putting off irl work until it was too late which then impacted my ability to work on my own projects. and i will say i think i've gotten a BIT better (keyword: bit), but it's still a problem. however, i've come to realize that this problem exists on a micro-day by day scale aswell. when i get home i usually don't do anything productive for HOURS which is really bad. it tends to put me in difficult situations where i'm like "ok i can either work on my game, work on that important stuff i've been putting off, or sleep good tonight" when realisitcally i could have EASILY done all three. idk. i guess when i get home my brain just wants to deactivate and go social media brainrot; not the best habit to have. so ima curve that. but how?? well, basically in these logs i want to hone in more on when and why i actually did the work that i did, and make a greater effort to notice it and try to improve by habits. so instead of just casually dropping "o yeah i did some ghosted lines at 1:30 lol" i wanna be like, "agh im glad i did something today but i really shouldn't have stayed up so late >:(((" y'know what i mean? so: starting with today, i basically did some work on the website, which i know is kinda like bruh that's easy sauce, but it actually was important as the tunes page has been broken for like 2 weeks lol. so i actually fixed it, and got a youtube music player working (took i think 2ish hours?) which i'm really happy with. previously i was gonna stream it from google drive, but as of like 2 weeks ago they changed it somehow so you can't hotlink stuff (i don't really understand the specifics beyond "it no worky"). i think it was actually kind of a blessing in disguise though, as a youtube player is honestly just better. though, there's one caveot: some videos won't play in the embeded player, only when they're actually on the website! kinda annoying, but i guess i can just find alternate uploads for those songs. but that can wait. oh but yeah, i actually did around when i got home from skiing OH YEAH DID I MENTION I WENT SKIING TODAY?? snow as actually.. present! amazing.. but anyways, i didn't procrastinate until super late at night. yahoo! however.. i am pretty behind on my irl stuff. it's definitely better than before but still bad. im working on it.

FEBURARY 8
i finally started getting back to work on walk the line again today! a week or so ago, i was telling a friend about my struggles with writing, well, anything... and they asked me "do you know roughly how the story is gonna go?" at the time i said yes, but thinking about it more, i realized i really only had a very vague outline in my head, so i decided to start making an outline. i wanted to do it all today, but as is to be expected at this point, it was unexpectedly difficult to write. i did tackle some interesting challenges such as coming up with some more place names and such and sort of planning out the 4 chapters on a VERY basic level, but only chapter 1 is really properly outlined. like all in all i only wrote ~500 words which... agh!! i just think a lot i guess. will try to finish the outline tomorrow!

FEBURARY 7
spent all day working on irl stuff...... it's 2 in the morning now. i also spent like 30 minutes trying to figure out how to play music from google drive only to realize you CAN'T as of like january 11th... bruh. anyways i really need to sleep bye

FEBURARY 6
im so tired my vision is a bit blurry... i was already behind on sleep so i probably shouldn't have stayed up late. but i finished the video!! worked onn it ALL day lolol... problem is im behind on irl stuff.... crappp. it'll be fine :) i do need some time for it though. so TOMORROW: only 30 minutes of drawing or something easier, and spend the rest of the day on real life (big sad) and then after that i go back to walk the line (big happy)

FEBURARY 5
didn't get a ton done today! it was a combination of procrastination and some less than ideal irl circumstances... but i still did work on the video a bit! i think i can still finish by tomorrow..

FEBURARY 4
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh im writing a day late again.. but i have a good excuse!!! internet was out :( although in hinesight i realized i coulda just written it offline and then pushed it to the repo later. but it's okay, i made up for it by actually being productive for once! worked on the video all day for like 5-6 hours i think hehe.. it's not done yet, but it's close. i think i'll be able to finish it today (on the 5th). and to top it off, i also did a page of ghosted plains for drawabox (at like 1:30 in the morning). anyways i need to go and get SERIOUS!!

FEBURARY 3
can't believe it's already the 3rd! though i guess that isn't that long. did good work on the video today, although it's taking longer than i expected, only ~1/3rd done. so, i'm gonna extend the release window to feb 5-6. i also wanna do a little work on this website, mainly fixing the music page (scm player -> streaming thru google drive [against tos lol]) and updating the links page, along with some irl stuff. i look forward to it!

FEBURARY 2
i feel asleep reading a book and woke up at 2:30 in the morning... whoops! i did work on the video some though. not a lot, but some. i want to finnish it tomorrow, procrastinated a little too much today

FEBURARY 1
i didn't write yesterday AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!! (it's feb 2 now) i've got to stop this. it's occured to me that the value of these entries deminishes quite a bit if i write them the day after because i can only really write about what i'm feeling when i'm feeling it. the days i have been skipped are usually becasue im very busy with other irl stuff and don't finish until past midnight, so im like, "hmmmmm do i really want to boot up my computer and write this when i could just sleep and do it tomorrow?" yes!! yes i do, you dumb dumb! anyways, on to what i actually did yesterday: i did actually work on my projects (although 99% of the day was taken up by a headache + irl stuff), although it was basically just updating the news section of the website along with the thing of the month (not sure it even took 30 minutes?? whatever). again, i don't want to use easy peasy website work as a crutch to pracrastinate on the hard stuff, but i was pretty busy so i guess it's not the worst. on a day like today though (feb 2), i wanna get back to the gamedev journey video!!

JANUARY 31
i didn't write yesterday (again..) cus i was TIRED and didn't want to stay up even later. spent the day mostly doing IRL stuff, and i also recorded and made the calculator video in like 30 minutes lol. i wanted to get something more substantial out this month but i but it didn't really go as well as i was hoping due to the reasons i described in the jan 21 entry. still though, i did get into a fairly consistent groove for a bit with doing atleast SOMETHING everyday, albeit not as much as i want. my immediete plan is to put more work into my irl business (i don't want to get stuck in a cycle of getting behind), and i wanna crank out the gamedev video by feb 2-3 hopefully, then get back to walk the line and ACTUALLY WRITE. i've found it very difficult to actually get words on the page, i'm very very afraid of writing something bad even though that's the whole point of a first draft. i need to just let go and write something, then fix it later.
as for stuff i wanna change: #1) only work on this website (save for these status updates) on the weekends. i think working on this website, while cool, should be a SIDE PROJECT and i've kinda been using it to procrastinate from the other, harder stuff i wanna do, so it's sort of become a crutch with regardes to the "30 mins a day" promise. #2) i wanna not drop a single day next month. january, while dissapointing, was ultimately the first month i really tried to actually push myself to get things done in quite awhile, and i did okay all things considered (my brain rot) but it's ultimately a learning experience. so to prove that i actually have indeed learned, i need to step it up for feburary and get some things done!! specifically: the game dev journey video, walk the line second draft, then i'll try to start on the rage game. also, i've decided that i just want to finish the 2ND DRAFT of walk the line before getting back to game dev -- i think giving it some time to sit without me looking at it will help me comeback with a fresher perspective (+ the feedback!!) and make it better. i also want to get back to games like nOW!! also, i mentioned in an earlier entry that i wanted to do a "state of the trash" post every month, but i think im gonna make that just once a year instead (prob on my birthday). mainly writing about my work EVERY DAY makes a wrapup like that somewhat redundant, and i'm not really active enough to justify doing one every single month. anywho, back to work!!!

JANUARY 30
so, i spent all of today recording clips for the video -- my gamedev journey so far -- but i've barely even started editing! and considering im gonna cover like 36 games in the video, it's clearly not going to be ready before january is over. not to mention, there's some important irl stuff i've been procrastinating on that i reaaaaaaaally need to do... so plan is: tomorrow, make a quick video (i've got one i can make in like 20 mins lol) and take care of my irl stuff. THEN finish the big gamedev video, THEN get back to walk the line. oh, and i've got to squeeze some drawing in there too.. wish me luck

JANUARY 29
i'm actually writing this on the 30th because today i was super tired and really needed to just get some sleep. literally all i did today (in my own time i mean) was archive a bunch of scratch projects -- with the video coming out soon-ish (see tomorrow) i didn't really wanna have it hanging around anymore, mainly because my username is my real name + my area code, lolol. so i'm going to delete my account, but before i did i wanted to archive everything.

JANUARY 28
started planning the video a tiny bit but its not enough. i have the worst work ethic ever. i need to sleep

JANUARY 27
just did a bit of drawing today. was planning to do more but ehgh. lazy... i did enjoy today though. stayed up super late watching frosty faustings for guilty gear strive.. was really fun to watch. was not expecting that pocket sin from umisho lol. i'm a bit worried about what i'm gonna do for a video: i can't really do a GGST clip dumb because i play on ps4 and the recording quality is pretty bad. im thinking instead i might do a showcase video showing how my games have progressed over the past 7/8 years

JANUARY 26
did some more work on walk the line... writing was extremely slow, as always, but it's coming along. a lot of the """work""" happened in my head, and i think i've got a much better idea of where the story is going now.. but i gotta actually, y'know, write. it's hard :( very good experience though. also, the end of january is coming up soon and i want something cool to showcase for this month. i'm thinking i might make a GGST clip dump or something (recording quality from my ps4 is doodoo though). i also want to do a "state of the trash" wrap-up every month that's a bit more formal, summarizing what i did (and didn't!!) do this month and my plans for next month. i'll probably just put those on this page.

JANUARY 25
i worked a little on walk the line but not as much as i should have. bad work ethic... but i'm - get this - i'm working on it!!! yeah. overall, pretty uneventful day, but it's a good babystep.

JANUARY 24
i spent today struggling with getting music playing for the tunes page... i thought it would be an easy little "extra" i could add real quick, but it's ended up being one of the more complicated pages on the site. however, i gotta get working on walk the line again, i haven't touched it in over a month!!! so for the rest of january, i've decided i'm not gonna work on this site at all! just the story and also a bit of drawabox :3 also, i've noticed myself slowly slipping back into the habbit of youtube binging and twitter scrolling.. wasn't too terrible today, but i definitely want to be more disciplined in the future. i'm stupid enough as is - i don't need more distractions.

JANUARY 23
history repeats: today was another good day, spent time with friends!! but... i didn't start on walk the line like i wnated too >.< spending time with friends is great and i really do cherish it BUT it has kinda ate up my time these past few days, hehe. worth it though. still, i did do the ghosted lines excercise, and i did conjure up some IDEAS for the story. i understand that conjuring is not writing but again, baby steps. i'll work on it.
ALSO: i forgot to commit the changes to the website yesterday, but i did write them at the time.

JANUARY 22
today was a super good day!!!!! but... didn't have much time to work on projects. i feel a little stupid for being all "okay time to fix things!!!" yesterday and then being busy, but realistically, today was just too jam packed to really do all that much. still though, i did work on the music catelogue a little bit. tomorrow should be more free though, so i wanna really delve into the story for a few hours and also do the ghosted lines excercise for drawabox.

JANUARY 21
aw man... i kinda.. failed...it's been 5 days!! oops. i do feel pretty bad that i was only able to stick to my resolution for 16 days (technically i have spent ~25% of this year failing), and i don't wanna downplay it too much. not being able to stay focused on what is, realistically, a fairly easy task for even 1 month is.. not the best. no matter what way you slice it, i'm just not the game dev i used to be. but being all "oooo no i faaaaaaaaaailed :(" is not a good way to look at things either. even if my brain really is just that messed up and i just suck at doing anything, and honestly think that's not far from the truth, i still need to be looking for how to improve. so even though i technically """failed""" i'm not gonna give up.
instead, i'm gonna try to realistically evaluate what went wrong and how i can fix it. firstly, i need to better balance my IRL business and be more proactive with getting it taken care of. specifically, i've often told myself "well im really behind on this thing and that, but i worked on programming today so it's :D" which... is not wrong, but it's not right either. putting off my other work will usually cause it to pile up to a breaking point where i have to crunch and finish a TON of stuff right before a deadline, which ultimately hurts productivity on my personal projects, too. as much as i'd love to just be like "alright, screw this stuff i don't care about, 100% gamedev time >:)," the reality is that's just not in the cards. it might never be. so i just need to learn to balance these things, and maybe try to appreciate the IRL things i get done a little more rather than just being like "ughhhh i coulda been working on the game (or whatever it is) in that time!!!"
the second problem is, i think, the pirate software game jam. not that there's anything wrong with it, i'm the problem really, but i think i have a lot more growing to do before i can do a game jam longer than like 2 days. i'm trying very very hard to turn things around, but it's undeniable that my subconcious is still in the mindset of "i've already failed, so why even try." a (relatively) long, timed game jam is really bad for me right now because it legitimizes that train of thought in my mind - i really have wasted half of my available time already, so i should just give up so i don't have to think about it. i know this is a problem i need to directly face eventually, but i grow in baby steps. i need to learn to work with some softer, self imposed deadlines first.
woah... that's a lot! i have a rough plan for how to move forward, but first: i gotta talk about what i did today! it was actually quite a good day (in terms of productivity. but i legit barely left my room so... yeah. not the best), i worked on the website a lot! looking at it you might be like "really? it kinda looks the same :|" but trust me i did a lot! started cleaning up lots of small problems, rewrote some little things, drew some graphics that were previously just generic gifs, and i started on a page with all my favorite music! i still didn't get nearly as much done as i was hoping (i wanted to FINISH the music page AND revamp the scrapbook -> a gallary..), but i put in a lot of effort so i can't really be mad at myself. just how it is, i'll get more productive with practice. i also did some 50% drawing today... currently at a grand total of 4 pages for drawabox!!! wow... that's kinda sucks! but again, baby steps. speaking of baby steps, my plan moving forward: i wanna try to take a bit of a break from game dev and focus on walk the line. having a big unfinished story sitting around has been bothering me, so i wanna clear it off my plate before i get back to games. when i do, i think i'll make a super simple platforming rage game. i want to make something with charm since all my previous games pretty much have beene extremely dry, like 100% focused on the mechanics, which there's nothing wrong with but.. i really wanna make something with heart, you know? but that's a ways off, i suspect finishing the story will be quite the hurdle. but i will have something really good to show for it once it's done!! and of course, i've also wanna work on drawabox and this website periodically. phew! that was a lot of writing. wish me luck :3

JANUARY 18TH
i skipped yesterday because i was feeling extremely anxious... still wish i would have done something but. whatever.
today was productive... just not on the game. was busy with irl stuff. i wanna do better, but i don't wanna beat myself up over it. just being conscience of it is a good first step i think. anyways im sleepy

JANUARY 16TH
aaaaaaaa i'm not doing to good at this! still didn't start on the game......
okay i don't wanna doom and gloom though. #1) did work on the website (restored cbox, i'll never betray you again), and #2) i have an idea. i'm gonna NOT use youtube or twitter during the weekdays AT ALL. gonna get that website blocker extension on my computer and setup stuff on my phone (idk app timers!??! idk)... i neeeeeeeeeeeed it. procrastination will kill me. speaking of.. i wanted to do some more drawabox today and i even read the lesson on ghosting lines, but it's reaaaaaaaaaally late and, um, there's something else i need to do also. so it can wait!! i need sleep

JANUARY 15TH
i was feeling extremely anxious today (sort of oscillating in intensity) and spent way too much time on youtube trying to escape reality... i have calmed down a bit in the last few hours though, and did some work rewriting the about me page on this site, as well as updating some social media profiles (technically ""marketing?"" whatever). i also cleared out 1000+ emails today... really gotta stop letting those pile up. good thing 99% of it is unimportant lol. still, i didn't get too much done today. i don't wanna guilt trip myslef too much but overall this weekend has not been that great, both in terms of productivity and just personal enjoyment. i wanna try to rectify that in the future. tomorrow i'll start on the jam game a little, though i'll be busy with some other stuff. i'm thinking my original concept for a turn based game will be waaaaaaay too ambitious, so i'm thinkin' i'll redesign it into a top down shooter while keeping the core concept. i'll try to get basic moving at least, hopefully shooting.
also, i feel that i'm juggling too many projects at once. i haven't worked on walk the line in a while so i'm gonna put it on hiatus until the game jam is over, and then really focus on it for a week or two.

JANUARY 14TH
i didn't work on the jam game today, but i don't have much of an excuse this time. just wasn't feeling it. i think i'm going to take a sort of "break" from the game for the rest of this weekend (including monday which i have off)... as i talked about in my "why i suck at getting anything done" article, i don't want to feel like im behind and transform this into a source of internal guilt and shame. logically this is a meaningless gesture that just delays the project another day, but contextualizing it in my mind this way will really help me. at least i hope. writing these updates also helps a lot in the sense that i can recognize patterns / pitfalls more easily, and seeing them in front of me so clearly makes it easier to deal with them. but aside from all THAT, i worked on drawabox today! superimposed lines are finished :3 tomorrow i wanna actually draw THREE pages instead of just one. crazy, right?!? i could probably also work on walk the line a bit, i don't wanna leave it sittin' for too long.

JANUARY 13TH
i had an unexpectedly busy day today, so i didn't even start on the game proper ;-; i DID do a lot of thinking and work on the design doc though. anyways im tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired bye

JANUARY 12TH
i made bridget jumper today. yahoo!! really not that amazing as you can tell but its a cute little project. i'm quite happy. next up: i've gotta get rollin on the pirate software game jam!!! it actually started TODAY, not tomorrow, i didn't realize! it's two weeks though so i've got some time. wish me luck :)

JANUARY 11TH
had a very fun day today but i was honestly exhausted by the time i got home, so i didn't end up working on the bridget jumper again. i know i can still finish it (can honestly be made in a couple hours), so that'll wait for tomorrow. i wasn't planning to get too much done today due to fun times, so it's to be expected.
still, i did manage to do a sketch page today! paradoxically it looks bad, but i like looking at it. i drawabox is definitely a side project but i wanna up the anti on it a little bit, especially on days like today where my brain is really not in a problem solving sort of mood.

JANUARY 10TH
i didn't work on bridget jumper at ALL today... and my deadline is friday!!!!!!! ahhhhhh i shouldn't be procrastinating this much but i still think i can do it, it's a VERY simple meme game lol. still, i did work on the website a little today updating the links page and stuff, but i gotta get on it. to accomplish this, im gonna try a new challenge: no twitter, youtube, or reddit until the weekend. wish me luck!

JANUARY 9TH
shoulda done a little more workin and a little less youtube, but it's okay. worked more on bridget jumper... got hung up for a really long time on window scaling, which is all i ended up doing today :/ i remember it took my a while learning the first time, too, so i shouldn't be too harsh on myself. actually now that im looking at the time i did do an okay 1.5 hours so i guess that's not the worst, but i know i can to better!!!! >:)

JANUARY 8TH
i didn't realize until now, but there had been an issue with uploading the changes to git so this hasn't been uploaded for a few days. whoops!!! also... i was a day behind?!?!?! guess i skipped a day..? i can't believe it, i swear i wrote one every day but i can't seem to find anything missing in past commits..... i think what happened is that i accidentally wrote one in the wrong spot (not at the top), and in moving it i accidentally deleted one of the logs. maybe. regardless, i'll be more careful in the future >.<
EDIT: okay the problem was actually just the date on my computer was set one day forward (it messed up from when i booted into linux hehe...). as for what i ACTUALLY did today, i worked on the website for a good few hours! i fixed the chatbox (cbox -> chatango) and expanded the backrooms. yahoo!

JANUARY 7TH
i felt unassually sad today, although i cheered up after going to a friends house c: as is propetually the case, i didn't get quite as much done as i was hoping... whatever!!!!! today i figured out how to "fix" environment variables with an autoexec script for powershell. the documentation is kinda terrible (no mention that i have to set a PATH and the actual variable!?!?!??!), but whatever... i managed, and i also got raylib compiling on windows again! yahoo! i've got a pretty funny (and easy) game idea hehe
but what took up most of my time today was just reorganizing my files (finally banished onedrive), and re-setting up some old applications i used to have on my old computer (im just gonna use notepad++ for a text editor, using vim on windows is a miserable experience i give up)

JANUARY 6TH
okay somethings gotta change. i said i was gonna work on something eles today, but im STILL in the linux mines trying to get things to work. both becasue of how much of a pain it's been and becasue im really not doing as much as i should be. im just gonna bite the bullet and work on windows for at LEAST the rest of this month - i've got an idea to fix environment variables: an autoexec powershell script!! should probably work...
(i technically did do a LITTLE bit of drawabox, but it was just rewatching the 50% rule because i forgot the guidelines. doens't really count).
also, i need to stop playin' guilty gear for a bit. i feel like im slowly becoming more hot-headed over time because im like "im playing a lot, i should be good!!!" kind of like im trying to compensate or something, and its making the game less fun and distracting me from my stuffffffffff. gr. also pirate software gamejam is next week oh god. i am not ready...
plan for tomorrow: make bridget jumper. or else.
(also also i REALLY need to fix my sleep schedule its 1:39 rn aaaaaaaa)

JANUARY 5th
all i worked on today was trying to set up linux mint, and MAN has it been a pain!! booting was pretty easy, but it's stuck in a super low 4:3 resolution and i can't change it ("unknown display"). gahhh! i guess this technically counts as working on a project cus its my "dev environment," but i think tomorrow i should take a break, maybe do some work on this website and walk the line.

JANUARY 4TH
you know my sleep schedule is bad when it's the next day already by that time im writing this lol. didn't get as much done today as i would have liked, i kinda procrastinated until an hour before midnight (played don't starve for the first time)... but anyways, today i restarted on the drawabox lessons! i tried the course like 6 months ago but only did 5 or so pages. im choosing to start over since i did so little it didn't really stick.. it shouldn't take too long to make up, anyways. i did a page of super imposed lines! also, i didn't buy that usb flash drive but i found an old 32gb SD card, so i could probably just boot linux from that. it'll have to wait til tomorrow though.

JANUARY 3RD

i made a lil' game today! the setup was super jank (for some reaosn linux mint wasn't working for awhile (i think i gave the VM too much memory??) AND build-essential still couldn't install. i think the iso i got has a different repository or something.. anyways, i went back to pop os since it's giving me less problems so far (although i prefer the windows style UI of mint. idk). i actually figured out how to build raylib - i was doing everything right except my makefile. i still don't know how to use make for this, but i realized using the "simplest possible build script" from the raylib wiki was pretty easy (just a 1 line bash file), so i did that and it worked!!! then i spent like 20 minutes making a veeeery simple clicker game.
holy crap i forgot how """strings""" and pointers work... but it was still pretty easy thanks to TextFormat(). still, i gotta relearn pointers.
tomorrow i wanna: 1) investigate a 3rd distro. i like the UI of mint but it's givin' me problems so idk (maybe im just an idiot) 2) get a good USB flash drive to boot from and that also has decent capacity (like 128gb or something). 3) start making a jumper game (like the chrome dinosaur game)

JANUARY 2ND
only worked about ~30 minutes today. i spent some more time looking into linux figuring out if i should duelboot on a single drive (i came to the conclusion that it's probably fine with a modern UEFI instead of a BIOS, should prevent windows update from messing up the partitions), but i need a usb drive to boot from. the one i have is only 16gb which isn't enough for linux mint :( (and it's really slow. probably like over 15 years old lol).
as for the work i actually did get done... well i started over since (this time with linux mint) im pretty sure i was doing everything wrong, and... can't fetch build-essential from the server!! im not sure what to do about that, but it didn't happen yesterday so i assume its cus the package servers are down? i could install git and neovim just fine though.. idk i'll try in a bit tomorrow. but yeah, trying to boot linux mint and troubleshooting that was literally all i did today. oh well
also, skiing kinda sucked >.<

JANUARY 1ST
didn't get as much done as i was hoping. there was sort of a shift in plans - i finally cracked and decided to start trying out linux after i tried AGAIN to get environment variables in windows 11 to work for like 1.5 hours, to no avail (seriously i have probably wasted like 5 hours total on this). so for the last hour-ish, i ran pop os in virtualbox and did all my work in there. i accidentally set it to scale mode and couldn't figure out how to unset it, so it was really strecthed lol. i downloaded and compiled raylib, but i couldn't figure out how to compile my c code, it kept saying all the raylib functions were missing so there must have been some issue with linking. i have no idea how c works lol. despite this, im still feeling alright... i'll probably keep working in a VM til' i finish this little game. i should probably duelboot linux and windows, using windows for gaming and linux for everything else, but that'll have to wait.
going skiing tommorrow (the snow season SUCKS this year, nothing til JANUARY!??!?!), so im not sure how much i'll get done... i'll do at least a little bit though!

DECEMBER 31, 2023
the new year technically hasn't started yet, but i wanna start the tradition. today i mainly worked on this website for ~2-3 hours i think, mainly focused on adding the new blog that i wrote yesterday along with the new machinations page (and updating the thing of the month, of course). tomorrow i'm going to try to get a super simple c dev environment setup with raylib + make, and make a super simple game, like a clicker or something. i also need to fix my vim config, syntax highlighting won't work for some reason .-.
wish me luck for the new year!