2018: The anatomy of a lost year.

This journal is going to be quite long, but actually its important because I'll be touching several topics. 

Like every beginning of December, I make a review of the year, I say what I think and what we can expect. This is the first time I feel kind of ashamed to do this, yet I think I have to for the sake of being transparent with everybody.

Most of this year (March to October/early November) was marked for my grandma having health problems, one of them literally almost killing her (we went to the ER in critical condition twice). Coming from two months where I had been quite depressed (for other reasons that don't come to this case) this happened in the worst possible moment, and it set up a deep feeling of despair that I would continue feeling through most of the year. 
During all these months I tried to work, but doing it was not only extremely difficult, but also painful. Think about lack of sleep (the week when my grandma had the issue first for over a whole week I slept less than 2 hours every day. It was literally impossible to focus. Sit down at the screen, try to draw, lines don't come out right, redo, get frustrated, try again, stare at the screen with a wrong line like a dumbass, and only notice you were staring at the screen literally an hour or two later. Try again. Repeat this for several months. 

During May this was becoming unsustainable. I started takign my grandma out to have exams, because she had to get a surgery. Doctor exams, more exams, visiting doctor, hospital, etc. [Fortunately here the situation isn't as terrible as in USA, financially speaking; while I did spend little less than one thousand in total, grandma got a lot of help from the government and from the church too]. During March my tablet stopped working, and even if I had a replacement, I broke. I bought my current video card using savings, in part because I was so desperate to get some joy that I was willing to get in debt (with my grandma) for that. (Yes, I returned that money last month). 

The problem is that this didn't stop. I took a vacation in June. It got extended. It wasnt working. I got in depressed spiral that only got further increased after I got accused of being a pedophile because I drew kids being eaten in some ocassions. I tried, I did try to sit down and work in the stuff I owed, but there was that feeling of desperation that I wouldn't recommend to anybody. That feeling that you were alone, abandoned and left to your own means/luck. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not ignoring all the things that my friends didnt do anything; quite the opposite! If it hadnt been thanks to my friends support, over all the one from Kato, I would've been lost to my own desperation in even worse ways; these friends that I love so much literally made a miracle to happen. What I mean with these feelings is that the feeling of "I'm completely alone here. My friends are unable to help. I'm abandoned in this side of the world because I live so far away from anybody. I have nobody to pass on this problem to just have a break from it". That sort of feeling. 

My grandma got her kidney surgery on July, but she started to finally recover only after August began (and it wasn't done; she had tumors in the nose that she had to take out). The healing for me started there, but there was an overwhelming amount of things to do. October was the first month when I finally could sit down to work, at least until the middle of it when my grandma got her surgery to take out said tumors). My mom visited me in late October/Early November. Then there was my birthday around a week ago. I took the last week free basically as a way to settle everything down. I rested. I started putting order not only physically in my room, but also in my life, regarding my plans, what to do, what I plan, my goals, etc. I also drew things for myself.

For me, 2018 was a horrible year. A year that I feel it was tossed to the garbage. 

I've been told (and its very true) that if I had been in any "normal" job I would've been fired long ago. Not only I agree with that, but I don't have any justifications for my inactivity and slow speed besides the stuff that I explained. Fortunately, I don't have a "normal" job. I work in art, and (as this week you probably have seen)  I've been posting stuff and, while I've said in previous ocassions "I feel better now!" and in part was also a way to try to convince myself of that, this time I can say that I'm feeling pretty fine. There's the bug of "Victor, work in the stuff you owe" lingering, and that's what I'm working in right now. And for the same, this week I've managed to keep a workflow. I'll keep it.

Good things? I'll be honest, it's kind of hard to think in good things that happened this year, because the negative ones took over. I got my video card? I started relearning art (particularly anatomy and maws) and I am learning German? That's it tbh. Ah yes, that I started diversifying and posting in more places than fA, like Inkbunny, Pixiv and Eka's Portal.

What is coming now, then? A lot of things. I'll talk in a general way to explain my goals. 

1. December is starting. I'm going to continue working in the stuff I owe -all of it-. I haven't forgotten about them. 
2. During all of December I'll be busy doing that. I'll only pause the holidays (Dec 24-25 and Dec 31-Jan 1st) but I'll keep working.
3. December 5th and December 6th will be "hard days" similar to the one in October where I managed to finish a ton of pages in a small timeframe. I'll try to repeat it the week after that.
4. Starting in January 7th I'll open for commissions, and I have some YCHs planned. I do need money, a *lot* of it. However, have in mind that the YCHs arent planned to be long comics anymore. I'll opt for shorter YCHs with a much higher quality, that is what I've been aiming for anyways. 
5. During 2018 I'll keep working. I may take small breaks in the middle if I feel that I'm getting burned out, but I'm focusing in work. 
6. During July 2018 I'll stop. Like, I will try to have everything done in June 2018 and I'll only draw Patreon stuff in July. Why that? Because...
7. During August and September I'm going to be gone: I'm visiting Germany again, and I'll be attending the Eurofurence next year. Ich hoffe dich dort zu sehen!
8. October I'll resume work. I have plans that I'll reveal in due time. 

I want to finish this journal thanking not only the people who stood with me, but also everybody who support(ed) me for all their enormous patience. I let things to accumulate, but I'm cleaning them. I hope at some time during the next year being able to do something to thank you all. And to say that I'm definitely going to do all I can so the next months end being the complete opposite to what the last months were. 
Thank you very much for reading. Now I'm going back to work. There's prey out there waiting to be eaten, and I gotta make that a reality.

- Victor 
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