six: make bad but do it excruciating by also writing down all the negative thoughts in your head you had while you did it
Posting these things is a hostage negotiation. This stuff I'm making this week has been a for real internal battle. These things so rarely look like what I think they will and only sort of feel like I want them to feel when I look at them. There are naught but a dark council of internal dreads, with increasing sharpness and derision, just laying into me as I scratch and scratch and scratch.
It's loud in here. The voices have more stamina than is reasonable for being as old as I am.
The shitty things I said to myself while I made this:
"This is bad and I don't understand how it works," "This isn't better than yesterday." "Is it ok that this face is black? You aren't black." "The teeth should look wetter." "Eyes don't look like that." "Sure. Put some buildings back there. That'll help." "Real artists don't use layers." "Not like that." "You have to write something about this too." "Do noses even go there." "You aren't taking enough time for this to be worth anything." "What is this even supposed to look like?" "Does writing 'bad' make you feel better about it being bad?" "Erasing that line is a sign of failure." "Why are you still putting this up. Not like people will see it."
and yet and yet
I'm still here. I'm still doing the thing and some feral version of my teenage self is maybe proud of old me despite needing to red knuckle it through surviving high school.
Some kind of proud.