Addendum and Tangent

First, an addition to my last post:

Something that was a catalyst for dumping such a majority of my reading list was the sheer quantity of information offered by some of the art and design feeds. I had previously justified my subscriptions by saying, "I'm an artist, and I need lots of references to study style and composition and inspire my own development." And, true, those blogs were instrumental in helping me amass a visual library 40,000 images strong.

On the other hand, I'm like Mona in Figgs and Phantoms, knowing the contents of a library but nothing of its substance. My focus is so much on acquiring quantity I haven't put any time into grokking my collection or learning from it by adapting what's in there for my own art.

Unintended tangent: Ellen Raskin, author of Figgs and Phantoms (and The Westing Game, which I prefer) not only died the exact day before I was born, but also did the original cover art for another novel that made me who I am: L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time. I'd never claim in public that I was the heir to her spirit, but I might like to pretend it from time to time.


Intended tangent: In 2009 I'm going to try moving to a system of getting things done that does not put exact deadlines on personal goals. Instead of saying "accomplish X and Y every day", I want to structure time limits on my working hours each day. It's a subtle distinction to say "These are the things I have to do. I'm stopping work at n'o clock" instead of "These are the things I need to do by n'o clock", but I think it might work for me. I think it'll give me more freedom to relax when I'm having a bad creative day.

Those are my thoughts.