think I might be dealing with some burnout xD not solely artistic burnout, but that's part of it for sure.
I've had a huge mental load to handle since basically october regarding unfortunate irl stuff, and have also been away from most of my drawing tools for several weeks. I'd thought originally that getting back home after the holidays would mean getting back to my usual activity but that just hasn't happened lol. I still have some stuff I really want to do artistically like writing and drawing for my personal projects (AND. also. lol I started playing bg3 and have been struck with motivation to make fanart for the first time since like 2016) but I want to keep it all for myself and not make it polished and pretty for posting. just messing around having fun. I feel exhausted by the thought of being online right now I guess. and I don't have literally any motivation to draw the polished scenery art that usually brings in people who want to connect with what I draw. like I don't want to draw the Crowd Pleasers right now if that makes sense. I want to draw Shit <3 and also I want to write and i almost never share my writing because I'm a sentimental little bitch with my words.
as an aside to all that, for a few years I've tried really hard to be engaged with online spaces and to like, Be Present and Be A Fan of other creatives because I think everyone creating online deserves that. but Im starting to think I am trying too hard and spreading myself too thin. I have 5-6 different haunts I always check and I really wanted to include Sheezy in that but I gotta say the notification system here is particularly demanding insofar as it requires a lot of focus for me to sort through and navigate.
The "feed" function kind of destroys my computer overheating-wise and the alternative method of having an actual numerical counter on "latest artworks" is not much better considering in order to check them I have to open each artwork on a separate page. and then also you can't check off individual drawings, you can only "clear" the notifications if you mark them all as "read" in one fell swoop. Ive got 167 notifications right now going back a couple months and it just feels insurmountable to check all of them at once. but I can't even decide to whittle it down by checking 5 a day or something because it won't change until I've checked all of them. which seems silly because yea, I'd still be physically whittling down by actually getting my eyes and hopefully some comments on them. but the perception of the number is genuinely hard for me to reckon with xD
in addition to me trying occasionally to be on sheezy I also check + comment regularly on a forum site, tumblr, patreon, youtube, toyhouse, and discord, plus do my best to keep up with several webcomics and I am just. tired. of. being online. sheezy's notification system is killing me the most so Im having the most trouble being here regularly out of all of those places so that compounds the numbers-piling-up issue. I guess "follow less people" is an option but it's also hard to decide to just start removing artists from my follow list that I genuinely like? also I'm following less than 100 people here to begin with. actually less than 70 last time I checked. and some of those folks aren't even uploading regularly there's just also tons of really amazing prolific artists here.
even when I do have art to post it's really hard for me to do so if I haven't been keeping up with other parts of the community because I don't feel like I should really be adding to my page if I haven't been present and involved. like I really do not do art to bring in income or take me anywhere professionally, I only do it to have fun or be proud of what I make, and a big part of me having fun with my art is being involved in creative communities. so it feels a little empty and hollow to post if Im not also engaging with other people's posts. so I think that's a big part of why I've gotten to this point of like, I just want to do my own thing and not post anywhere and just have some downtime to myself with my own creative whims.
anyways I got to the end of that paragraph and abruptly ran out of steam so I don't have a thoughtful closing line to add xD tl;dr I'm aware I've not been active here and I am not in a good place right now to jump back in. if I follow you and you do have something up right now that doesn't have much interaction and you'd like me to see it please feel free to comment on this journal with it! maybe getting some stuff shown to me directly will help me kickstart returning to activity here so you'd be doing me a favor too. <3