Time Management

There are few things in this world more important for me right now than time management. "But Alex!" You may say, "All you do is write and crafts, why do you need time management?" Ha. Stereotypes are hilarious. Young grasshopper, only with time management may an Artist/Writer Succeed!

Every day you must do projects to strengthen your skills and get your name out there. Every day you must practice, every day you must market. This is why I do my dictionary project every day. I read as fast as I can for a minute and choose one of the words I've read to create a poem or other art piece for. Poems have been the best so far at highlighting the words.

And, actually, I'm also doing freelance work. Sure, it's writing, but it is a job. Jobs have deadlines. Don't finish by a deadline? Have no money. No money? No phone or data plan. No phone or data plan? Less of an ability to get more money. See how that goes? There's also the lack of food and tea and other things that make life worth living. Time management helps me have less anxiety, when I am successful at it, anyways.

Amusingly enough, even though I'm allowing myself extra time to sleep (even though I shouldn't) my mood is instantly boosted by the idea that I've been actually going to bed at the exact time or up to ten minutes early as I had planned. This is great! It's highly encouraging to see some success.

So how am I feeling right now? I am feeling... Okay I guess. Not anxious, perhaps a little stressed, a little bit cheerful. I've been playing some PC games to take breaks. Like right now I'm playing Diamond Hollow II on Kongregate. It's good stress relief. Platformers are my favorites.

So, not only have I been doing writing, freelancing, watching live gaming, and playing some games myself, but I've also been doing some surveys to help me get some funds. I have been using surveysavvy and valued opinions. Valued Opinions doesn't have a referral link, sadly. But whatever. Surveys don't pay a lot, but they pay enough to be worth the effort of clicking on a link every week or so.

As for my writing projects today... I plan on doing the dictionary project and a couple example articles that will help me get more jobs from elance.

Wish me luck!
-Alexandria

Hey look, a distraction!

So, my sleeping stuff is getting better. I've actually been asleep during the times I was supposed to be asleep. Huzzah!! I mean, I'm still doing a little bit of oversleeping, but I feel like that will be resolved soon. And yes, I feel rested so far every single wake-up. ^^" So we're doing good.

Well, This is still what I've been up to. A lot of live game watching. But hey, I've come up with some ideas to make it into actual work like stuff ruther than just sitting there staring at a screen. For one, I realized Mario or Super Monkey Ball's background noises help me stay focused on what I'm doing. It's really weird but who am I to scorn what works? Soon I will be a multitasking powerhouse!

 Another thing that occurred... Making hot dogs over fire! It was super awesome. You see, I adore fire. Those were some really good hot dogs. I added too much garlic to mine, though. :( 

Anyways, yeah. I missed posting yesterday because I was lame like that. I just couldn't write. Which is fine because today I can't draw at all. Like, I tried to draw some of my friends or my little sister and I just failed. So badly. Maybe it has to do with the hairstyle, I dunno, all I know is they did not look right. So I erased and put my drawing pad away for another day.

That's all the updates for now!

-Alexandria <3

Life is odd sometimes

Life is odd, sometimes... There I was at 2am thinking about what to eat for breakfast and how I only had four more hours until I should be asleep again... I had just finished reading a story on a nazi lampshade made out of human skin that I found quite accidentally as I was searching the word skin on google to help me with an article I'm writing.

It put me in a really odd mood. The world took on this weird hue suddenly. And then I remembered I needed to check my deviantart and the feeling kind of faded away but the thoughts were still there, albeit pushed back a bit. It seems weird to me, just last night I did a poem on an abattoir for humans and this morning (yes, 2am is morning for me) I find that story excerpt... 

*coughs* in other news... I think I'll just post when I DON'T oversleep. I think this is going to happen quite often. I'm starting to get the hang of it though!

And yes, I'm still watching speed runs. It's cool. And actually I can do work and watch/listen to speed runs at the same time :)  This picture is of the user Cereth on twitch. Playing Super Monkey Ball 2!

I've been making some progress on Wendi, finally. I'll probably try to finish her within the next 24 hours... While I'm watching speed runs. Actually, tomorrow somebody is doing a 24hr speed running thing, so I'll be watching them like MAD! They're gonna do a lot of Mario which is super fun to watch. Like amazeballs. I'll post a link or something somewhere for them probably because that's some intense stuff. And I'll probably get a lot of story bears done in the process.

I've also been working on my specialized cards and am, in fact, almost done with one for my favorite web comic artist, Jocelyn. The card will be finished and sent when I have stamps to do so and money to send her other gifts. I'll send the package and the card within a couple days of each other :) it'll be super fun and I hope she enjoys them.

I really need to do more work on those this. Actually, I need to find my routing information for my bank. Then I can finish setting up my Etsy with all my cools inside and yeah...

Anyways, my boyfriend is coming over a little later and we're going to roast hotdogs over fire. Doesn't that sound awesome? I might try to get pictures for tomorrow's post. Fire is hard to get pictures of though. Hopefully it'll turn out. 

I'm feeling pretty awesome, I should be feeling tired if I were doing this silly triphasic sleeping thing right but apparently I haven't been doing good enough. But I've apparently done well enough that I'm actually starting to sleep during my naps. That's new. 

My writing be going well and I really don't have much of it planned tonight. So yeah. 

-Alexandria

Live gaming

I am so addicted to watching live gaming right now. I just got a twitch account and have been "wasting time" watching awesome runs, mostly of Mario. 

Believe it or not, it's helping me go from nap to nap.

Speaking of naps, they've been both successful and unsuccessful. 

What I mean by this is I overslept a bit, but it was spaced out amongst two naps rather than one. And there are a few reasons this keeps happening to me.

1. I'm taking some melatonin to train my body to sleep at certain times

2. MATTRESS SUCKS

3. Still not used to triphasic yet

This is like day 3 so it makes sense that I'm not used to it yet, yah know?

I'm a little bit tired but not too tired, which is good and to be expected.

I've done almost no writing but I plan to do a lot after my next nap. I've pretty much just been watching live gaming because it's been my way to stay up and such.

-Alex

Snooze

 You see this amazingness? It is so nummy. My mum and I had some last night and I took another piece today. I love food so much...

Speaking of food... My mum made homemade soup again!! It was so delicious...

No this entire post is not going to be about food (even though I absolutely adore food.) No, it's also going to be about my recent failure. That's right. I have failed yet again. But it's not a permanent fail. More of a misstep. 

I've been having a bit of trouble with the triphasic sleeping, obviously. I haven't been sleeping really during the allotted times. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, as I was nocturnal my body was used to being awake during the night time slot and up by the evening time slot. I did sleep kind of during the middle of the day one. Secondly, my body was on a monophasic sleep schedule during my nocturnal phase, though I did do some napping. Therefore it was used to sleeping at one time only. And thirdly, two hours to fall asleep. I apparently suck at falling asleep.

So this morning I let myself have an actual rest for awhile, taking up the entire first third of my day. I know I need sleep so it seemed reasonable. I'm going to continue my triphasic attempts. My stomach has already gotten used to eating three "meals" evenly spaced throughout my day, so it was quite mad at me that it hadn't gotten anything yet. Silly stomach. I fed it :)

Yup. Mentioned food again. Haha.

I'm feeling a little off right now, but I guess that's normal.

As for my writing, I haven't written a thing yet today but I will later. I have a lot of stuff to do later, actually. In fact, off I go to snooze soon. Which brings up another problem I have with sleeping...

MY MATTRESS IS TERRIBLE! 

I can feel each and every spring. It's almost enough to make me want to clear off the living room couch and sleep there. But that would make sleeping more difficult. Although more comfortable.

I really need a new mattress.

My room has a bunk bed, one is my sister's bed, one is mine. Both mattresses are in the same shape. They've had a good life. OVER 10 years. They've been flipped so many times the action has become useless. It will be time for an upgrade... Whenever I have the cash for it...

With Love

-Alex

Not all true writers only use computers!

I got very annoyed recently while talking to an old friend of mine. She made a comment on that she learned somewhere that "true writers" can only use the computer to write because it's the only thing that can keep up with their brains.

I highly disagree. Here are my three refutes:

1. Some of the best writers lived during a time when there were no computers

2. Faster does not mean better

3. Who is to say what a "true" writer is? If you write, you are a writer. If your work is being sold, you are an author. Simple as that.

Okay, now that I got that venting over with, on to cool stuff.

It is day 1 of my triphasic sleeping experiment. And this picture should show exactly how I feel: 

Teehee. I kind of look silly. And tired. Very tired. It's always hard at the beginning though. I'm using a sleep app on my iPod to show my quality of sleep. There's a little graph to show your cycles of sleep based on your movements. My hope is to see an improvement in how much sleep I get in a two hour period. Otherwise I will be a zzzzzzommmbieeee!

I've not just changed my sleep pattern, I'm also working on eating healthier. I think being nocturnal wouldn't have crashed so hard if I had eaten the right foods to keep me energized. Oh, and drinking water!!!

So I described how I was feeling and some things that are going on so now we move on to the productivity part of the post!

Guess who is doing fantabulous? This gal! I have over fifty things written down and I'm trying to see how many I can do today. I'm keeping major tabs on my progress which is a great motivator to see those percentage go up and up! My goal isn't even to do 100%of it. Just 75%. I can do more the next day. It feels great!

Some stuff I've completed already:

1. Finish the thought part two

2. Draw older sister

3. Practice drawing mouths, hands, eyes and butterflies

4. Apply for freelancing jobs

5. Creating an article to use as an example for Elance projects

...and much much more...

Some things that I'll be doing today? Creating another article, teddy bears, drawing three of my friends, and a couple other writing related projects. Boy do I have a full plate! But staying occupied is important to keep me awake today!

God knows I need it...

Today is a good day!

-Alexandria

"This is my livelihood!"

I got into a discussion with my mum today about the stuff I was doing. I made a lot of comments about how what I'm doing IS my job. I told her "it's my livelihood" to which she responded "not yet." She wasn't trying to sound negative about what I was doing, she was just being a devil's advocate. My mom is amazing for that. She brings up things one would never think of.

She's also great at helping with suggestions for some of my creative endeavors. In fact, she helped in making a decision on Melissa's ears. Which are now happily sewn on by the way. Melissa is amazingly finished and oh does she look cool!


Well, actually, I think I like her box more. I got into acrylic paints with it and everything. Which brings me to my next commentary.

I played with paints. Oil and acrylic. I made some pretty oil painting pictures

and used the acrylic paint to start a new project I suddenly thought of. I'm making a little sculpture Christmas tree. I had to make brown with my limited supply of acrylic paint, which was fun and amusing. It's in the very beginning stages.

Another thing that I said a lot was that I used to always think having so many interests was a bad thing, I got all these art supplies and other things and they mostly were laying around because I just didn't know what to do. Suddenly though, I find having all these ideas is amazing. I'm going to try everything I can think of. Hopefully one thing will lead me to success.

Right now I'm working on the teddy bear Wendi. I'm in the cutting out pieces stage.


It's coming along slowly but surely.

I've had a million things to do today and so far I'm doing a good job on working through them.

In other news, I'm going to try out triphasic sleeping. That's right. I'm trying yet another sleep habit. Why am I doing this? Because my nocturnalness keeps getting messed up, I need more daylight as SAD is creeping in, spending too long in my bed is giving me leg cramps, and it will help organize my time. I've split my naps up completely evenly and divided my day into sections.

Section 1: 10pm -6am. 

Nap will be from 10pm - 12am.

This will help me keep organized day one from day two if I wake up right past midnight.

Also great because it gives me my darkest sleep, as well as my quiet time to myself.

Section 2: 6am - 2pm

Nap will be from 6am - 8am

All the morning daylight that I need to keep up my vitamin D. Nap will be in the daylight but when I wake up, the sun will be bright in my eyes, perfect for getting me up.

Section 3: 2pm - 10pm

Nap will be from 2pm to 4pm

I hate being awake from 2pm - 5pm, so at least I can sleep for two hours of that time.

When I wake up, others will be awake and active. This is when I can hang out with people.

Okay, on to the general questions I have to answer to count this as my "journal"

How am I feeling right now? I am... Tired. Which is why I came up with the triphasic thingy in the first place.

How is the writing going? So-so, better than expected for all the stuff I have to do today, yah know?

What will I be writing today? Mostly just my warm ups considering my day ends in about an hour. This is strange. Yeah. It will be changing everything up. 

So when will I be doing my journaling? I think I'll journal every midsection of my day. So when I'm awake after my 2-4pm nap I'll journal about how the day went so far and what I'll be doing later. Makes sense to me.

This is Alex, signing out!