Wyrdling

[Edit - January 9th, 2013]

Cleaned up my gallery (moved all drawings and random stuff to storage - as well as a lot of the "not so great" photos, that I feel I've outgrown), and cleaned out my watch list so that it only holds photographers now. I have a great plan, you see, to keep this account purely about photography and then use my secondary account, Gnildryw (which is pretty much empty right now), for random drawings, poem, css designs and so on. It's not gonna happen over night, but this account at least needed a bit of pre-emptive spring cleaning :]

Hopefully, this will mean that I can actually tick "yes" to recieving deviations in my inbox instead of how it is now - where everything is ticked off, because there was just too many (I had over 1500 people on my watch list). And you know, deviations = inspiration, which will hopefully = new photos!

Love,
Erica

Zero messages, zero devwatches. I'm tempted to delete all journal entries and stuff everything in storage too (but maybe that's too drastic).

I've been away from dA for so long. I've logged in almost everyday (to get my comic fix and look exasperated at my inbox), but I haven't posted anything, haven't commented. I've been just as good as dead.



I want to change that. I miss logging in and seing new messages - for me! I miss being a part of this community. I miss actually having something to post, to see other people's images and be inspired to go create (instead of just running into the wall of "I wish I could do that"). I miss photographing, and most of all, I miss wanting to photograph.

It's starting to come back, slightly. I've reached the point were I want to get going again, starting to pick up the threads, sorting out the mess. That's why I've deleted all my messages and ticked off everything on my devwatch list. I need to start fresh - not over, but fresh. And that means getting some kind of order in my online life.



I've been wondering, before, if dA was the right place for me, if maybe there'd be another, more photocentric site out there that fit me perfectly. Well, I haven't found it yet. Flickr is just too "ooh, look at my new dog/cat/flower" centered and although some damn great photographers use it, I just can't really seem to like the site. And that is oh so crucial. 1x is so fancy that I can't get an image accepted (although I've only tried once yet) and Shadowness just seems so superficial, besides being awesome (it's an odd mix, I know - I think I like the concept more than the users on the site).



And so I'm back here, wondering if dA deserves another chance. Considering the fact that I'm writing this, you should probably have a clue to that answer by now.

What I love about dA is the community that, if you participate, you can help create and be a part of. I love that almost all the artists I admire is a member here (mostly because dA still is my go-to site for looking at art, so where else would I find them). And I love that both scrawny amateurs and megastar professionals can be on this site and that both get good and bad comments.

What I don't fancy so much about dA is the "ooh, we much go catch the next big, shiny thing" attitude from the company itself. I don't need fancy new things - what I like about dA already works.



I think part of why I started to lose faith in dA was that so many new things was introduced, seemingly all at once, and I didn't need any one of them. Some of them have then turned out to be awesome (new designs, journal nifties, fancy profile pages, groups and storage), but others just leave me with the feeling that it's the money that's in center and that the goal is to lure as much of it out of their users (points system, anyone?). Lllamas are kinda funny, but completely pointless. Muro just has no practical value for me. And what the hell is Stash and why have they made something that I so obviously don't need?



Who knows, maybe it'll become the next thing I just can't live without, but it all boils down to this: a feeling of community and pretty art = good, but evil masterminds behind the site = bad. And I don't want that feeling! I want to be crazily loyal to the site, like I have been before. I want to be able to love everything about deviantART.

I don't know if I'll get that, but I find that it's worth a try. dA seems to be the only place where people actually care, where even the dreadfully boring "ooh, pretty" comments are still so much more geniune than on other sites.



About online life in general, I once thought that it would be awesome to have galleries on multiple site, at least one blog, updating on Facebook and Twitter and whatnot (and now Google+), plus maintaining a personal website, of course. I'm wiser now - or maybe I have just realized that I do not have the drive to maintain just half of that, but none the less it leads to the same. Keep It Simple, Stupid.



It's my plan to choose one site, and one only, that I maintain. Then, if I actually have content enough or a damn good reason, I can use my own domain (right now I'm planning on linking it back to here, then at least it isn't a dead link). I know it's really popular to use Facebook or the like to connect with (a much bigger) fanbase, but trying to build that fanbase without an existing one just seems like a ridiculous amount of hard work, with no guarantee that it will pay off. And you'd need to be so damn active, not something I feel I'm capable of while attending school. I barely use Facebook for my personal life - it's more a means to stalk pretty people (yeah, that sounds really creepy).

So, dA it is.



And boy, am I out of the loop.

I have sort of a game plan. First stop to start getting back in the grind is to post something. But I don't have something to post. And I don't have any new images to edit. And I don't have any new shoots planned. And school is a bitch that steals my time and my good mood.



So, until I find myself out there shooting again (or editing, because truth be told there are still old images that deserves a bit of spotlight), I'm thinking that house cleaning is due. Hence the zero. I don't plan on keeping my devwatch list unticked forever, but it would be nice to go through each and everyone, assess whether or not it's someone I actually want to be following anymore, delete the no's, re-tick the right boxes and stuff them in the appropriate lists (that I've created according to media).

Yeah, that's going to take a while.

Right now I'm revamping my favourites folder (who needs fifteen anyway?) because that's relatively easy to do. I'm still thinking that a lot of the previous journals just need to go and that a bunch of my images probably are beyond outdated. But also, just writing this journal, is a way of "getting back". I've really missed you guys (whoever's still reading this). Holla at me, eh?



Until I cry out for help for being crushed by humongous boxes of virtual work,
Erica

[Update] Almost all previous journals deleted - now the only one's left are those that holds fond or important memories (plus a few odd ones, of course).