Without further ado, let's invite !

Janet: Thank you for your warm welcome, Harshini!

I know right! We have been supporting each other for a long time and yet to talk much personally.

I was really impressed when I first met Harshini, she and a few younger writers here were very mature for their age. Also, her passion towards art is even more remarkable. Not only can she draw manga, make resin keychains, crochet bags, she even started learning to play guitar recently. I can use one word to describe her - Artistic!

Harshini: Ahh, that's too many compliments, I'm flattered! You're amazing too, I love how you support a lot of creators and writers on Substack. You also inspire me to do the same, although I'm not much used to encouraging creators other than friends. (I feel like I'm becoming an introvert). Your articles describing your experiences and interactions with people are very interesting to read!

Janet: Likewise, thank you for your compliment too!

The thing I love most about people on Substack - everyone is very generous to support, share, encourage and teach one another.

For example, Harshini just introduced me to using Google doc which I would never have thought about if not for this collaboration. What an amazing App!

Also, I get to interact with people from everywhere in the world, all walks of life and different age groups. I never imagined having met Harshini (a teenager) at my age of over 50 to become friends if I didn’t write here.

Harshini: I really agree! Substack is the most peaceful and supportive social media platform I've ever come across. I found a lot of good friends here. I've been friends with one of them for years even, and to this day, we still talk every day. I met people from different age groups and it's pretty interesting to see there are so many creative and mature people no matter how young or old they are.

Also, Google Docs is pretty handy for collaborations like this. I'm glad you like it too!

By the way, I've been wondering about this. How do you assess if a person is mature or not? I have grown up with mostly immature adults, so I can distinguish between them and mature people by their behaviour. But most importantly I observe their emotional maturity before anything else. What do you think?

Janet: Oh yes, I really like this App.

We can just go back and forth adding our part which sounds like a conversation. I was wondering how you did it in the previous interview, now I know. I would definitely recommend using it to everyone.

You are right about observing the behaviour and the way they respond to determine the emotional maturity of a person. Not so much about their human age or intellectual ability or experiences in life generally.

For example: A person who is 40 years old with high education level and many experiences, doesn't necessarily equate to them being more emotionally mature than a 20 years old person who has lower education level and less experience. They might have been through lots of traumas and unhealed because they didn’t take the steps to become better. Whereas, the younger person could have one heartbreak but did the healing through therapy.

Most people are the way they usually are, unaware or unconscious. They live by the expectation of others and never stop to reflect. That’s why self-awareness is very important.

I won’t say I’m a healed person, as we are forever “a work in progress” mode. We have all kinds of emotions and circumstances happening constantly that will affect how we deal with different people and situations.

All I can say is, try to stay or surround ourselves in the good company of high vibe people instead of low frequency ones.

Harshini: Yes! I think we'll never stop learning new things as long as we're alive. I was emotionally immature when I was younger and I still make mistakes like oversharing to friends, sometimes. But I recently learned from a therapist that people with mental health issues like depression shouldn't overshare about their problems with other people as they could affect their mental health issues as well. So I've been more careful about how much I share lately.

Also, I kind of find it baffling how many people don't have self-awareness at all. They would gaslight, guilt-trip, and shift blame on to others without any hesitation.

To be honest, they make me mad (when they get in my way).

Then I realised that they grew up without access to the internet and in a place where topics like “Self-awareness”, "Reflecting", “Mental health”, and “Being considerate” aren't taught to them. Children end up parenting their parents. It's a bit sad, but it is reality.

I sometimes try to encourage those people to look up, learn, and practice incorporating these aspects in their life.

Some are too stubborn to listen and learn, and some think they're too old to try new things and improve their life.

In contrast, I love how you still use the internet and share your writing and casual photographs! I know there are people over 50 online, but it's my first time meeting one who shares things online.

Even when I become very old and wrinkly, I think I will try my best to learn new things and keep creating as long as I'm alive! 🍀

Janet: Yes, I agree with the oversharing part. I consider myself as a private person, I don’t share much about my family members with others until I feel safe enough to reveal it. Also, I don’t share my problems with anyone. I deal with them on my own. I’ll share it after I’ve resolved them when they are no longer a problem. Very rarely I’ll tell anyone, except my siblings unless I really need help.

I find it kinda surprising when people tell me about their issues and secrets, especially strangers. I guess they either think I’m a good listener and not a gossiper or they won’t see me again.

However, I obviously offended a few people (ex-friends) by being honest with them that I’m not interested in their drama and problems. Sometimes, we must learn to protect ourselves and our peace by not accepting others' negativity.

“They would gaslight, guilt-trip, and shift blame on to others without any hesitation.” ⬅️ I so agree with you about this part.

It’s very common that people usually don’t like to admit their flaws, take responsibility and accountability, because “the truth always hurts”!

When we voice out our observations and opinions, they get offended and would immediately turn into a defensive mode or give us the silent treatment.

In the end, our honesty becomes inconsiderate; our clarity seeking becomes demanding; our boundaries become walls. In fact, we merely recognise patterns as we have seen enough to know better, but they called it projection! Especially the group who have studied psychology, assumed they were fully healed after therapy and spoke in a condescending tone.

I think we have to be humble enough to recognise our flaws and accept them, in order to make changes.

Same as you, I’m still learning to keep my thoughts to myself unless they really cross the line.

In recent years, when I talked to my daughter, I realised she has become more mature than me. You are right that the older generation didn’t come across those topics before the internet era. Many children end up parenting their parents, I’m guilty too. I’ve learned so much about all these topics in the past few years from the internet as well. That’s why I can relate to everything we are talking about now.

Change is another thing that most people are resisting, especially the older folks. I can be stubborn in certain aspects, but I’m flexible and willing to change after listening to a different opinion that makes sense.

Though I’m over 50, I’m young at heart. I like to tell people I’m 5 years old and I often behave like one. Haha!

Way to go, never stop learning and creating. That’s basically why we are born as human beings.

Harshini: I agreed with everything you just said! Especially this part: “Also, I don’t share my problems with anyone. I deal with them on my own. I’ll share it after I’ve resolved them when they are no longer a problem.”

I think this sums up what I'm trying to do lately. But what’s troubling me is that sometimes, it's just almost impossible or takes too long to solve a problem that I feel guilty about not being able to resolve and would explain why it's hard before the problem is solved. Also while I still try to solve the problem, explaining it also makes me feel bad because it feels like I'm coming up with excuses…? Even though I'm just trying to keep in touch with people and I didn't want them to assume I gave up on solving it.

I tend to overthink stuff like this and I contradict myself all the time, but more than that, I don't know where to draw the line and what is considered as oversharing and what is not. Which is troubling. So I'm trying to simplify things, contradictory to what I usually do (which is complicating things):

Make stuff, collaborate, share with friends, get feedback, share online, try not to make promises too early, take breaks when overwhelmed, etc.

And about this part: “It’s very common that people usually don’t like to admit their flaws, take responsibility and accountability, because ‘the truth always hurts’!”

This is so true! A lot of people don't admit it when they do something wrong, and heck- even I was like that when I was younger (but I'm improving).

As much as it hurts their pride I think they should at least openly acknowledge it when they themselves realize they did something wrong.

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but I find it super difficult to admit my mistake in front of certain people. Maybe it's because of the lack of reciprocation from them and they never admit their mistakes, but if that's the reason, if I start doing it, theoretically, the other person would reciprocate too, but it just doesn't turn out that way for some reason.

When you said, “I think we have to be humble enough to recognise our flaws and accept them, in order to make changes.”

Really agree with this, so I'll try my best to openly acknowledge my mistakes even with people who don't reciprocate!

Although I'm 19, I’m 12 at heart. Well… and appearance (because people are still mistaking me for being younger than I am. But I hope I grow taller).

Because I agree playfulness is important.

Also, I too think we human beings are born to learn and create stuff!

Janet: I try to follow a quote - Don't tell people your plans. Show them your results.

If people are concerned and ask, you can tell them honestly that you are in the progress of something (no need to tell them the details). Those who understand will give time and space to resolve it yourself.

I had a friend whom I didn’t contact for a few months till she thought there was something wrong. I told her, I stopped contacting everyone, she wasn’t an exception. I was in a hermit mode, like “I don’t care and none of my business kinda attitude”. I didn’t wanna say it out loud to anyone in case they got hurt or had an unnecessary misunderstanding. It was a “me” thing. She got it and left me alone until I contacted her again recently. We had a really great chat and updated each other’s life.

Whether we are oversharing, it really depends on the relationship you have with the other party. Another quote I love - Those who understand, you don’t have to explain; those who don’t, no point explaining.

Overthinking is common with thoughtful people. We tend to consider others' opinions. I don’t think it’s about pleasing people, more like we prefer to consider everyone’s point of view, especially their feelings. And yes, I like to simplify things rather than complicate it. No wonder we click so well. I think that’s also why people might misunderstand me for being too simple-minded or naive. Haha!

“As much as it hurts their pride I think they should at least openly acknowledge it when they themselves realize they did something wrong.” ⬅️ Most time it’s the ego in play. Too bad that’s human nature. I have to admit I’m no exception in the past. Same as you do, I’m also working towards improving on this part too.

You are right, do what you think is correct regardless how other people respond or behave. It's like setting boundaries. They are not for others to follow or to keep others away, but a line we don't want to cross.

Yes, to live is to have fun and being playful sure is important.

Harshini: “It's like setting boundaries. They are not for others to follow or to keep others away, but a line we don't want to cross.”

I think this is really helpful to keep in mind! Actually this whole conversation was insightful. Thank you for joining me today!

Janet: Thank you and I’m honoured to be here. We’ll do a different topic next time! 🙏😊

Harshini: There will be a next time... :0 ✨

Awesome! Of course! I'll look forward to it! ^^

Note to readers: be sure to check out Janet’s newsletter through link below:

Janet Goh Again

Sharing my experiences to help others eliminate fear.

We hope you guys enjoyed this interview. See you next time!

Janet: Thank you everyone for joining in our conversation. Till then, have a wonderful week ahead.💕✨️

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Thank you for reading! We hope you liked reading this article and we hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini & Janet Goh

Today’s article is going to be a collaboration! It's been a while since I did this.

Today's guest is a good friend, @Douglas Jonathan Vincent.

They have DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), which used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder (which is now an outdated term).

We did a collaboration on this topic last time, so if it interests you to learn more about people with DID, be sure to check out this collaboration article:

Today we're going to be talking about our motivation for writing.

I wonder what different people's motivation for writing would be? I haven't even thought much about mine, although I ponder the thought sometimes. Excited to think deeper about it! But, before we continue, let's invite our guest to the chat!

Leyna: Hello everybody!

My name is Leyna, I’m one of the alters in the Douglas Jonathan Vincent system.

I was the first “other” alter besides Doug that we became consciously aware of, when we were 17 years old.

I am very fascinated with psychology and what “makes us tick,” so much so that the other alters in our system sometimes jokingly call me “The Therapist” of our system.

But I don’t really see myself as a therapist. If anything, I see my current role as more of the “P.R. person” of our system. I have been writing about our life with DID online, to try to educate people about the fact that Hollywood’s (and other fictional media’s) portrayal of DID is not very realistic. In other words, trying to help rehabilitate the reputation of DID in the minds of the general public.

Harshini: That's awesome, Leyna! I haven't come across a fictional story portraying DID, so I didn't know anything about it until I met you and we collaborated on our first article together. I'm really glad to have discovered this topic! It is pretty fascinating to me. But, if I watched the movies about DID, I probably would have learned the myths. So, props to you for spreading the right information and debunking myths!

Also, “The therapist” part is pretty relatable, since my family used to call me that. I don't see myself that way anymore, at least until the day I start going to Psychology college. Right, now it's more like I'm the one in need of therapy, lol! But I hope I can learn more about this field in the near future!

Leyna: Yeah, there are many stigmatizing myths about DID that come from fiction, but one of the main ones is the idea that we are dangerous, violent people. There have been many horror movies made over the years that portray people with DID as being vicious murderers. But the truth is that we are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators of it.

About ten years ago, in 2016, I was at the movie theater with a friend, and I saw a trailer for a movie called Split, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I could tell from the trailer that this was going to be yet another of these movies that showed someone with DID as a terrifying murderer.

That trailer made me angry. Why were they still doing this, in an age when we are supposedly becoming more “enlightened” about mental health? I had already been thinking about sharing the story of our life experiences with DID online, using pseudonyms. But this was the last straw, the catalyst that made me decide that I need to stop procrastinating and do it.

Harshini: I see… I hope they would stop making movies like that, and really look for people who do have DID, learn more about them and then write a story portraying them. I would imagine a director would have the connections and means to meet up with at least one person.

Based on what you said, it feels like they're using characters with DID as a plot device to move the story forward rather than with the intention of writing a character who accurately represents DID and teach the audience about understanding these characters.

I get where you're coming from. I would be angry too.

Leyna: I think you’re right, a lot of writers who write DID characters see us more as a plot twist than as actual human beings. But I think that part of the reason why most of them don’t even think about searching out someone with DID to consult with, is because there is a pervasive myth that DID is “extremely rare.” Actually, the current research has found that DID is about 1.5 % of the general population, which is 1 in 75 people. That’s similar to the prevalence rates of schizophrenia, bipolar, and people with red hair.

But I’ve also heard that most schools of psychology and psychiatry are still teaching students that DID is “so rare that you’ll never see it in your practice, so you don’t need to bother learning about it.” This is a big part of the reason why most DID systems are misdiagnosed for about 7-12 years before finally receiving a diagnosis of DID. For us, it was 10 years. I personally was hurt a lot by those years of misdiagnosis, which is also a lot of my motivation for wanting to educate others about DID. I want to help educate the world, so that other systems don’t have to suffer under misdiagnosis as I/we did.

Harshini: I see! I'm sure a lot of people are able to learn and really understand the topic and people with DID by reading your articles. I think that's a wonderful thing to do!

Can you share a few titles, or topics you cover, each in a sentence with links so that readers who are new to this topic and are interested can read further?

Leyna: Sure! Thanks for the opportunity to share some of my/our posts!

I have written some posts (and plan to write more) about the representation of DID in fictional media, mostly in comics. These are in the section of our Substack called “Dissociation Representation.” I also have plans to make a podcast of the same name, and the same overall theme.

Here is my first of those posts:

Douglas Jonathan Vincent

DID in Moon Knight Volume 1: Highly Inaccurate, Yet Accidentally Positive

This is Leyna, and as promised, I’m here to give you my perspective on Moon Knight as someone who has dissociative identity disorder myself (well, ourselves). I’d like to start by going back to the basics, both with Moon Knight and DID…

Read more

a year ago · 5 likes · 6 comments · Douglas Jonathan Vincent

Another section of our Substack is called “Our Dissociative Life.” These are posts about our own personal experiences as alters in a DID system.

Here is one of these, which is the first of a three-part autobiography of a protector alter in our system, Denise D.:

Douglas Jonathan Vincent

The Life of a Protector Alter, Part One: Divergences and Computers

(Self-portrait made with Bitmoji app…

Read more

9 months ago · 25 likes · 35 comments · Douglas Jonathan Vincent

The third section of our Substack is called “The Poetry Sisters.” This is where the two poets of our system, Lilith and Vanessa, share their poetry. This section may not seem to be “about DID,” but the way we look at it, it’s helping to show that we as alters in a DID system are fully human, with the full range of human emotions.

Here is the introduction to that section, in which Lilith and Vanessa introduce themselves:

Douglas Jonathan Vincent

Introducing...The Poetry Sisters

Hello everyone…

Read more

10 months ago · 14 likes · 21 comments · Douglas Jonathan Vincent

But I feel like I’ve been monopolizing this conversation. What about you, Harshini? What are your motivations for writing online?

Harshini: Thank you for sharing! It's okay.

It's my turn then. ^^

I don't think I have a strong motivation behind writing articles. It kinda just happened, to be honest.

I've always had a habit of writing random information on notebooks and keeping them. I had a notebook for each topic I was interested in: one for psychology, one for learning Japanese, one for writing random fun facts, one for writing down craft ideas and so on. I even had a notebook on parenting when I was 12 for some reason and wrote down things my mom was doing wrong, and what she could've done instead.

I also write diaries with apps.

When I heard about Substack, I thought it might be a good idea to share things I learned, so I started putting a lot of effort into writing informative articles. People were happy with it and it seemed to help them.

But life got in the way, and after a lot of things that happened, my energy levels stayed very low. I started drawing a manga (Japanese-style comics) project. And I decided to use most of my energy on it. I started writing less essays and articles and started putting less effort into them than I used to.

I still have the habit of writing down random thoughts and ideas, and occasional journaling, but I lack the energy to turn them into full-fledged articles. Doing collaborations like this article on other hand, is very enjoyable, but finding people to interview is the hard part. (So if anyone reading is interested in collaborating with me, definitely feel free to DM me).

A month or two ago, my computer stopped working properly, so I haven't been able to draw manga.

But lately, I've been indulging in writing fiction (aside from learning guitar, making crochet bags and occasional sketching).

I wrote a story (which I'm planning to share in this blog soon) and am currently writing another story which I came up with five years ago. I didn't consistently work on it, but whenever inspiration struck and I got a scenario idea, I wrote it down. It's like I have various pieces of colourful clothes in hand, and now I'm sewing them, throwing away unnecessary pieces, and adding new pieces

When I imagine each scenario, and the characters’ faces and movements, it kind of feels like it would be a waste to introduce them to the world in the form of text. Since my English vocabulary is limited, I feel like it needs visuals to bring out aIl its beauty and depth. So I'm thinking of turning it into a manga, if possible. The story is still incomplete so I can't make any promises. But I wonder how it will turn out when it's complete and I'm really looking forward to it!

Leyna: Sounds like you have a lot of interesting ideas! We are big comic book fans in our system, both American comics and manga, so we look forward to reading your manga!

I agree, with certain stories, text isn’t enough, and the visuals of the comic book/manga medium really adds an extra special touch. That’s why we’ve decided that when we tell the full story of our life with DID, we want to do it in graphic novel form, so that we can show what our alters and our inner world look like.

I’m curious, though, to hear your take on something else I’ve been thinking about lately. Do you feel like sometimes, your writing can be motivated just as much by negative emotions as by positive ones?

For instance, as I mentioned earlier, part of what made me decide to start writing about our DID online was my anger at the movie Split. But I also find that I am motivated quite a bit by my anger at the therapists who misdiagnosed us for ten years of our life. They were supposed to help us, but they actually did more harm than good. But the fault also lies with the education system which failed to equip them with enough knowledge about DID to be able to adequately help us.

It also seems to me at times that I’m motivated by fear. That is, fear that I’m not doing enough to educate others about DID. I feel like the problem is so huge, that I could never do enough to be able to change things for future generations of DID systems, so they wouldn’t have to suffer under misdiagnoses like we did. I know that it’s irrational to think that I could change the whole world by myself, but I feel so strongly about it, that sometimes it overrides the rational side of my brain.

I don’t want to be motivated by these negative emotions, and I strive to keep my sights on more positive thoughts. For instance, the thought that every person that I can educate about DID is one less who will believe the myths and stigmas about it. But my own strong feelings about my personal past come back to haunt me, and make me feel like I can never do enough to be truly successful in my goals. I’m not sure if this is what they call “impostor syndrome”?

Well, what are your thoughts on this? Do you have similar struggles with your motivations for your writing? Or do you have any thoughts about what I have shared about my struggles?

Harshini: Thanks and I'll be looking forward to your visual novel as well!

As for being motivated by negative emotions to write, I believe it's okay. I occasionally write vent pieces, but I never share them, because it would be oversharing. To be honest, your motivation is to spread the right information and educate people about DID, which is definitely a positive motivation!

I definitely struggle with imposter syndrome a lot, I sometimes wonder if I'm really a good artist or writer (well, I'm not really a good writer). I went through a lot of identity crisis, but remembering that I'm multi-passionate and that more people like me helps a lot, because it means I don't have to force myself to give up one hobby I enjoy for another hobby I enjoy.

There are times when I have wondered,

“Why am I even writing?”

“Should I continue writing?”

and “Is my writing even helping anyone?”

This was when I wrote more blog-type articles than informative articles about a certain topic. I talked about my pet, my broken tablet, my guitar class, and my weird new teacher.

But there were a few motivations behind sharing those stories, which is:

#1) I wanted to leave behind stories of my present for my future self to read. And #2) I wanted at least one person to know and acknowledge what I've experienced and I've been feeling. (Sometimes I write for my readers too.)

I live with my mom, and my grandma lives in the same apartment and same floor as us. But I spent most of my time with mom, until she got a job a few days ago.

My mom is emotionally unavailable(?) or very un-empathetic and she hates it when I cry (even though I very rarely cry). We never have heart to heart conversations or talk about things that happened or share our feelings.

So having a blog helps a lot, since I can talk about what's on my mind, and someone will definitely read it, even if that someone is me from the future.

When the future me is doing good, and living well, I want her to remember that there are a lot of really unpleasant things that happened and that I'm working hard so she can be at a better place. I don't really like reading my articles, but if she ever goes through those, I'm sure she will feel grateful.

I've been wanting to talk about this with my readers for a while. This topic is just perfect, haha.

You have a really strong motivation. I feel like it has become a part of your identity at this point. Don't doubt it!

Leyna: Thank you for your kind words of encouragement!

I also appreciate you sharing your experiences and motivations. I like that concept of writing for your future self.

I’ve really enjoyed this conversation with you, and I hope it has been enlightening to your readers and mine/ours. Let us know if you want to do another one of these sometime. We are always up for it!

Harshini: No problem! And of course! I'd love to collaborate another time. Thank you so much for joining me in this conversation today.

A note to readers: If you liked this article, be sure to check out @Douglas Jonathan Vincent’s newsletter! ⬇️

Douglas Jonathan Vincent

We are a DID (dissociative identity disorder) system of 74 alters. We live in a male body, but have many female alters. We are married, live in Midwest America, and are Christian. I, Leyna, am an alter in this system, and enjoy educating about DID.

You can also start from the articles we linked earlier. If you are also a writer or if you just enjoy it as a hobby, we would love to know your motivations for writing, so feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

We hope you enjoyed it, and see you all later!

Leyna: Thanks for reading! Bye for now!

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Thank you for reading! We hope you liked reading this article and we hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini & Leyna

Hi!

How are you all doing?

A quick note before I start (feel free to skip it if you'd like):

I haven't drawn manga in whole, because my computer didn't work well. I tried borrowing my cousin's PC, but it was an Apple mini and it didn't work out well. Mom said she'll buy me a new computer, but it's going to take a while so we sent my broken PC to repair. Honestly, I didn't think it could be repaired because it's so old and outdated, but an acquaintance of my mom said he can fix and upgrade it, so we gave it to him. It's been a few weeks since then. He hasn't picked up our calls and I'm still waiting to get it back. I really hope I'll get it back soon and continue working on my manga project.

Meanwhile… I did some sketches, crocheted a bit and practiced guitar! So I thought I'll put together an article, showcasing them. I'm always practicing and making something even when I'm not writing articles. So I'm making this into a series and I'll do this once in a while when I don't have any essays to post. Also I think showing off my art and crafts will motivate me to draw and make more.

I hope you enjoy it!

#1. Drawings of my persona:

#2. Sketches of my original characters:

#3. 3-6 minute sketches:

#4. Random sketches and drawings:

#5. Copy-study of manga and anime frames / illustrations:

#6: Crochet bags I made out of yarn:

#7: Keychains made with resin:

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and seeing my artworks. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

Hi there!

I stopped going to school back in the covid pandemic, I took online classes along with other students, and when school reopened, I didn’t go because of health and financial issues in my family. And I’ve been homeschooled ever since.

…Or so I thought.

My mom’s supposed to teach me at home, and I would take my high school exams and pass and go the next year of high school, so I studied a bit on my own, but mom said, “You’ll take the exams next year” several times, and before I realised, four years had passed.

During this time, a lot of things happened and nothing progressed at the same time, when it came to education.

When I told people, “I’m homeschooled”, the more time passed, the more it seemed to gradually become a lie.

Recently, I started wondering, “Although I’m supposed to be homeschooled. Mom says I am… but in reality, aren’t I a high school drop-out?”

Yep, I know it took me a long time to realize. I was grieving the loss of a family member and forgot to properly think about some things, it seems.

I’m a multi-passionate artist, and I believe I can survive in this harsh world with my art. But in my country, no one respects a person who hasn’t even completed high school, apparently. If you are a kid or if you look like one, you’ll be questioned about your education everywhere you go. (It happens to me all the time. I just got used to it, at this point).

I believe in my art, but because I want to travel to other countries when I grow up, I’m going to get a degree. It may also serve as a kind of insurance, just as Takagi Akito says in the anime, Bakuman.

But I’m not going to get a degree in art. I’m aiming for a degree in Psychology. Because it’s my favourite topic after art, writing, and guitar.

After all these years, I don’t think I can go to school. So I’ll be studying privately and take the exams when it’s time. Homeschooled… for real this time!

Last month, my mom and I went looking for a good tuition centre. Went to a few ones, and decided on the third centre we found.

A few days ago, I joined the tuition centre. I attended my first day, and my second. Since it’s the summer holidays, not many students are present except for me and three other kids. But there are over 20 students in total.

A fun fact: although I seem extroverted most of the time, in a class setting, I turn into an introvert for some reason. I’ve always been the quiet kid in class when I went to school. I got good grades, so teachers weren’t mad at me except for when it came to me having to skip a lot of classes. I went to several schools, and had no problem making friends every time, but it was still hard to have to bid farewell to them every time I transferred.

Maybe this time, it’d be the same, I’ll come to class, blend into the background and study what I have to. Maybe make some friends, and when mom comes to pick me up, I’ll pack my bag and leave.

…Or so I thought, but this tuition teacher won’t let me do, that it seems!

Okay, let me start from the top. My seat is next to the teacher’s seat. Maybe because she’s giving me priority because I’m about to take very important exams, or because all other seats are taken by students. Either way, I went to class, sat down and opened my book.

After I arrived, a boy came in. He got scolded a lot for not wanting to come to tuition on summer holidays. “It’s just two hours a day. Why can’t you tell your friends that you’ll play later and come to tuition?” the teacher asked him.

She lectured him for a while, he just stood there awkwardly. I thought it’d be better to just start teaching him instead of wasting time scolding him, but well, I don’t know the whole context so I continued reading. The teacher got mad at him and sent him home.

I thought I’ll be a proper student so I won’t get scolded like that, and continued reading.

After a few minutes, the teacher turned to me and she asked if I finished studying. I said no.

She (strongly) patted my back and said, “Say, ‘No, miss’ give your teacher respect.”

I internally thought that I didn’t know that saying, “No” is less respectful than saying, “No, miss”.

And she continued patting and said, “Why are you so rigid? Loosen up.”

Rigid? I thought I was being normal.

She said, “You always seem dull. Perhaps, are you afraid of me?”

I said, “No…”

She squished my cheeks and she said, “You don’t seem like you’re afraid. Then, smile.”

Huh? What’s going on? I’m not dull nor afraid. And why do I have to smile? Wha??

She said, “Look at my eyes and smile.”

Okay, at this point, it seemed too funny, I just turned away and tried to hold in my laughter.

And she said, “Shy, aren’t you? Don’t look away when you smile. And stop always looking down. Sit up straight and look me in the eye”

I was internally thinking, “I’m not looking down. I’m looking at my book! Which is down on the bench.” I didn’t say that.

I quietly said, “Please, don’t pat me. I have to read...” and turned to my book. But she covered the book with her hands and said, “You’re not reading until you look at me and smile.”

Like– why’s she so persistent on making me smile??

The kids in the class were all laughing. I was embarrassed, so I placed my head on the table in defeat.

“Look me in the eye.” She said.

I looked her in the eye. I remembered that on my first day, mom told her on day one that I’m going for psychology in college. I thought she won’t let me be unless I say something.

So I said, “In psychology, making eye contact is important to get along with a person.”

But I was obviously not making eye contact, because it’s either because I don’t want to get friendly with my teacher or because I haven’t got used to the class yet. Well yeah, it’s my second day! It’ll obviously take time for one to get used to a new place and new people! I didn’t say that though.

She nodded, “Yes. You have to like your teacher to be able to study well.”

I thought, “...We were literally strangers a few days ago…”

I decided to tell her, “I went to a different tuition centre before this one, the teacher seemed too strict, so I didn’t go there.”

I hoped she’d get the hint that means I think she’s a bad person and I decided to come here because she seemed better than the teacher at the previous tuition centre.

“Why? She’s strict to make her students study, right?” she asked.

I said, “No. She seemed to get mad at her students for little things too often. We can’t study if all she does is scold her students. She has to teach the kids.”

Hopefully talking this much will satisfy her, I thought.

She said, “I see.” and reached out her hand for a handshake. She asked, “Friends?”

I said, “But you’re my teacher…”

She said, “You can be friends with your teacher.”

I give up. I gave her my hand. After the handshake, she said, “Be casual, alright? Now continue studying.”

And so I did. I turned to my book and continued to read.

Continued to… read…

But—GAHHH, I couldn’t focus for the rest of the class!

After a while, Mom came. “Saved!” I packed my bags, said bye to my teacher and left.

Side note:

Well… that was weird. But at least I got a funny story to write about, hehe!

Also, I’m quitting my part-time job at the stationary store, because it’s going to get busy. Aside from going to guitar classes and tuition, I also get a lot of homework from both of them. My mom turned our print shop into a Tuition centre. So far, one student has joined. We are also going to take drawing classes and I’m the teacher for art.

The autie from the stationary shop told me crochet some pencil pouches to sell at her shop and show my bags to bigger shops where they can. So I think I’ll give that a go as well. (I talked to her daughter, by the way. She apparently was curious about what I do online and what platforms I use to sell my work.)

Well, if you liked this story, do let me know in the comments. I’ll write about it if anything interesting happens.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

Comic Con is an event for Anime, manga, and western comic fans, artists and Japanese culture enthusiasts that is held for two days every year.

I thought I needed to take a flight and cross seas to be able to experience such an event. But a friend told me that there’s one happening right in our city.

So I went! Along with my mom and aunt. I wrote about the entire experience after coming home from the event. Here it is, with some pictures.

I went to the local Comic Con event for the first time. Along with my aunt and my mom.

It was a bit crowded and was lots of fun!

When we arrived, I was really happy—but also a little frustrated at the beginning, because we didn’t know that we can only book the tickets online and we had to sit there under a tree and book the tickets.

The Comic Con event is only for Sunday and Saturday.

We have to book separate tickets for each day. Without knowing that, I booked 4 tickets for the 3 of us, thinking that we can use the extra ticket tomorrow. 3 of them were Saturday tickets and one was a “Superfan” ticket, which is a special ticket that costs more but can be used for both Saturday and Sunday, and comes with a box full of merchandise. But yeah, one regular ticket went to waste and I got scolded for it later.

That aside,

The entrance was great, the stalls were great, the venue was great, and there were a lot of volunteers with bright blue shirts, and they greeted everyone with a fist bump. I don’t know why, but I looked down and I awkwardly returned them a fist bump.

Most of the attendees, volunteers, hosts, and guests at the event used English, so that people of different languages can understand.

The whole venue was air conditioned, and I didn’t get very tired thanks to it.

I loved seeing the indie artists in their stalls there.

I really wanted to talk to them, but I was shy, and I didn’t talk to anyone except for my family.

There were quite a lot of Cosplayers, and a lot of them did a really good job! There were a lot of stalls with merchandise, such as anime T-shirts, action figures, posters, keychains, collectible cards, and of course there were also lots and lots of manga.

I bought four books and each of them were the first volume of the series: Noragami, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Bakuman, and You and I are Polar Opposites.

I also bought a book which is the Guide to Manga by the official Shounen Jump. There were also a lot of Marvel and DC fans, cosplayers, and western comics.

I didn’t understand most of them because I didn’t consume much western works except for Ben 10, Steven Universe, Teen Titans, and similar shows, I guess. And there were also a few arcade games to play.

While looking around, we navigated towards the main attraction, which is the stage.

There were a few stand-up comedy shows, which I think most people didn’t find very funny, but hearing live songs and the cosplay contest was amazing. I’ve never gone to concerts, so it felt awesome listening to singers singing anime songs on stage.

I knew some of them, so I sang along with the singer and the rest of the audience. It was a very lively experience for Anime and Manga fans.

Today is the last day of the Comic Con event for this year.

I spent the first half of the day with my aunt. She made me take photos with a few cosplayers, because I was shy. It was hard to approach strangers for a photo together, but it was awesome!

Here’s a few pictures:

My friend said that everyone looks like giants beside me. That’s true, lol-

The singers on the stage mostly sang Japanese anime songs, which was amazing to experience in person.

I can’t help but record them with my phone and a selfie stick. (I couldn’t see them much because I was too short among the crowd, and I needed the selfie stick to go higher anyways-)

This time, I was really embarrassed about one particular incident. They hosted a panel with 6 artists, and Ron Marz was among them.

They were all going to draw a comic page, each of them their own panel. And they were asking the audience for ideas. At first, I misunderstood the question when they handed me the mic. I told the name of an existing character and the host said that they’re not looking for an existing character and moved on. I was suuuper embarrassed!

Unfortunately, my aunt recorded the whole thing. Oh man… I don’t even want to watch that footage.

That aside, the artists talked about inspiration for art and answered questions of fans.

Day two was also really fun, because I enjoyed taking photos with cosplayers, attempting a few arcade games too.

Even though I made some mistakes, I’m still learning to be an extrovert again and communicate well with strangers, and hopefully I’ll make less mistakes next time.

My first time at Comic Con was an awesome experience I won’t forget about for the rest of my life! Definitely excited for next year! ✨

What was in the box that came with the superfan ticket?:

The four manga you see on the left are what I bought. The rest came with the Superfan ticket: An Attack on Titan poster, Maya (comic), and the Comic Con bag (These three were also given to those with regular tickets). In the box there was also a Blue Lock poster, anime cards, and we also got a big T-shirt and a mini Iron man collectible (I think I didn’t take pictures of them).

I sent one of the Comic Con bags with the Attack on Titan poster and Maya to my old friend. (Because we got quite more than needed).

Here’s a few more pictures before I go:

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Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and come again next week for a ✨new post.✨

- Harshini

“Silly” things like writing letters to my future self, putting on an outfit that best represents the vibe I'm going for before going out, keeping the poorly made but precious gifts my craft students gave me—safely in a little box, or like deciding to learn guitar just because a fictional character looked so cool while playing it.

These are “silly” things, and I know a few people who would laugh at these activities.

But now, it doesn't matter.

I put on my best clothes because they give me more confidence when socializing, and I keep the crafts my students gave me because whenever I look at them, I get reminded that there was a time when I inspired my juniors to create art.

Which means, these “silly” activities have some meaning behind them.

Then what about actual silliness? Such as randomly wrapping around yourself in a purple blanket and pretending you're a wrinkly old witch? Or like pretending a wardrobe hanger was a guitar, or like randomly talking in Japanese to confuse your mom? (Yes, I actually did those before).

There are many psychologists (like René Proyer) and philosophers who mainly research this aspect of people’s lives. And there are numerous research studies showing that humour and playfulness can become a person’s most helpful personality trait as it adds to their their resilience, lowers stress, and gives them the ability to find humour even in tough situations. But silliness doesn't necessarily need to have humour in them, because maybe you just like doing the silly activity even if it doesn't seem funny.

Silliness is not a sign of immaturity, as many seem to think. It's a precious trait you'd want to carry with you from your childhood into your adulthood as well. It's a trait that is especially helpful for artists and creatives.

When I was younger, I used to think that to be taken seriously, I should act seriously too, but that's just not true. Now, I think of doing silly little activities as strength and as a way of bringing joy to one's life.

Until recently, I was too embarrassed to explain the reason to anyone who asks me why I do something that I do.

I often tell them something that is one of the reasons, but not the main reason for why I do it.

Now I realise that not everything we do needs to have a valid reason behind it. Now to respond, I just shrug shoulders and continue on with my day. And maybe if I find a plastic bottle, I can fill it up with water and thin stripes of colourful pieces of clothes to watch them floating around in the bottle.

When I come to the internet, I see people boldly pursuing their true passions, not being afraid to voice their opinions or be themselves. Maybe they have a side to them when they get afraid of posting the heart-felt essay they wrote at mid-night—like me. But they still have the courage to keep sharing their writing anyway. And I find that fricking inspiring!

You need to be silly sometimes.

I get a feeling that a lot of people (including me) feel the need to wear a serious face 24/7 to be taken seriously by others. But are we sure that's because it's how we got our family to stop treating us like a child during our childhood? (Yes, kids do want to be taken seriously sometimes).

The internet is a huge place. There can be people who experienced the same things as you so they understand your feelings when reading your article, but you might not know.

Even if you still believe there's no one who wants you to take out your old and unfinished sketchbook and make bad doodles until you run out of pages, or if you believe no one wants you to sing your favourite songs out loud because you believe your voice sounds weird—now you know that that's not true and it's okay to have fun for fun’s sake.

Adding some playfulness to your days is how you keep yourself from falling into the automatic, zombie-like mode where you do things without putting much thought into them. Being playful at times is how you uplift your artistic spirit and inner child.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

A quick note before I start:

I said that I'll share about how I got my guitars, but then I read my diary, and I realised– it didn't seem interesting enough to share it as a story. So I just added a few pictures of them at the end of my previous article.

Check them out, if you'd like!:

Alrighty. Gather around! Because today, I'll be telling you about…

My rather embarrassing first day at my part-time job! (Oh, boy-)

That's right. I joined a part-time job at a small stationary shop just last week. I've never had a job before (because my mom didn't let me join until I turned eighteen). But I really wanted to earn pocket money. (It's rare for students, including me, to get allowances in our culture. We only get cash from relatives on festival days. On other days, convincing parents is the only way to get something you want).

I want to invest in some art and craft materials. And using those, I want to make crochet bags, resin keychains, coasters and other crafts.

It's still just an idea but I'm hoping I can sell them at the stationary shop I work at.

Also, I wanted to experience handling customers at least once! So I think this is a chance to build my communication and selling skills. (As an artist, I shouldn't only know how to make good products, I should also learn how to advertise and sell them, I think).

Alright, with that said, here's the story of how my first day at work went.

Right on the opposite of my mom's print shop, there's a small stationary shop run by one person.

I've seen that shopkeeper many times when I visited my aunt’s house (which is right beside our print shop). And I have also bought some things from her stationary shop before.

So, imagine my surprise when I heard that she was open to hiring! I've been asking mom to let me work a part-time job for a while. So when this offer came, I thought this was the chance!

It was my first day of work. I took my black sling bag with a notebook, sketchbook, a pencil box, water bottle, and my phone. Just in case if I get some free time, I thought I could doodle or write something.

The shop is a really small one, but it had a lot of fun little things, like designer erasers, little toys, candies, and typical stationary items like pencils, sharpeners, and erasers.

The shopkeeper and I introduced ourselves to each other. After that, she asked, "Can you remember it if I say it once?"

I understood that she's asking if I can remember which things are in which place, and how much they cost. I answered yes.

We sat down in two of the three chairs.

While waiting for a customer to come, I was internally chanting, "I should be a good employee. I should satisfy the customer."

Because, I mean- I never worked a part-time job before, and I've never dealt with a customer in person. Although I'm around 56% extroverted, I've spent four years without much social interaction and mostly staying at home (there's a reason for that). So I was pretty anxious as you can imagine!

There's a school nearby, so in the morning, before the first bell rings, the road gets pretty crowded with school students and their parents. The shopkeeper (I call her "Auntie") said that this is the time of the day when we get the most customers.

She was right. A little girl and her dad came to buy something.

I went up to them, and he asked, "Do you have a sharpener?" I took a sharpener from one of the cylindrical boxes, and handed it to him. He told auntie that he will pay later, she said okay, and he and his daughter left for school.

Auntie said, "If they are a person we know, we can let them pay later. That man comes here pretty often, so we know he will come to pay later. If it's a new person, we won't let them pay later."

I nodded my head and said, "I see."

We got another customer after a few minutes, and I went up to her and asked what she wanted. But the auntie went to attend to the customer. The customer bought two packs of coloured clay. After that, she said she wanted a miniature. I didn't see any miniatures in the shop except for a small play money which was the size of half of my finger. I pointed towards it and asked, "This one?" The customer and auntie both laughed and said that's not it.

(I was confused because they didn't seem to agree that the tiny play money was a miniature.)

Auntie asked if she was looking for something like a keychain, and the customer said yes and auntie took a few keychains from one of the shelves and showed her. She looked at them and said she wanted a God-statue shaped keychain.

We said we don't have it and she went away.

We waited for a while, and we got another customer. He asked for ginger candy, but I was confused because he referred to it as a "Tablet". Auntie said we didn't have it and she left. I asked auntie, "How would we have a tablet? It'll be available at a pharmacy shop rather than a stationary shop, right?"

That's when she clarified that some people also refer to it as a tablet (it might be because it can help reduce coughs, I assumed).

She added that this is nothing compared to how some people have come and asked for cigarettes before.

"Yikes, why would a stationary shop have that?" I said.

“It happens.” she replied.

Somehow... I didn't feel like I didn't do much at all on my first day of work. Whenever a customer comes, auntie takes care of them before I do.

But maybe auntie is showing me how to handle customers.

"I should be more helpful the next time a customer comes!" I thought to myself.

Not much later, a person came up to the shop. I went to her and asked, "What do you want?” (Wait- that sounds kinda odd when I say it in English, lol-)

She asked, "What?" And I asked, "What might you want?" once again.

Auntie suddenly burst out laughing, seeing this interaction. I was confused.

"Mm? Wha-? What happened?" I asked.

"That's- [laughter] My daughter!" She said and kept laughing.

Aahhh, how embarrassing!!

I didn't know! I honestly thought she was a customer. Auntie went up to her and they both talked for a while.

Meanwhile, I just stood on the side, feeling embarrassed and tried to blend into the background like a mob character. (It was very awkward!)

After talking, she gave Auntie a box of porridge and left.

“I thought she was a customer…” I said to Auntie.

“It’s my daughter. I didn't get a chance to introduce you two yesterday.” she said.

After a little while, I bought a small notebook to keep track of things at the stationary shop. I sat down and divided the notebook into sections. One for keeping track of customers who said they'll pay later, and one for remembering the price of products, and one for to-do lists.

I asked Auntie for the price of several things and wrote them down.

After a while at 11:00 AM, she said I can go home because she's closing the shop, since we didn't get many customers.

I packed my things, took my bag, and left for home.

Side note:

I have been working at the shop for a few days now, and Auntie and I are getting along well. We also often get customers who are visibly surprised to hear that I'm studying class 10. (People often mistake me for a 12-year-old, so I've gotten used to it.)

I get some free time at work since we don't get many customers, except for the mornings, so I've been crocheting a bag while waiting for someone to come and buy something.

I also got two bag orders! (One from auntie herself). So that's a big win!

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

You might already know that I had and have multiple hobbies. Drawing manga, crocheting, writing, reading, chalk-carving, etc.

And now… I recently got into playing guitar! (I can't stop myself from stacking on new hobbies it seems, lol-)

How did this happen? Let me start from the beginning.

It all started one day, when I realised my PC crashes so often, it's pretty much unusable for digital art. (It has gotten so old that repairing it basically almost costs the same as buying a new pc now.) There's no choice but to wait until mom and I get a new PC or a laptop.

I was kind of frustrated that I couldn't continue drawing manga, but I told myself that it’s no use getting restless.

So I sat back and looked for a new anime series to relax and pass the time. (This was when I was still taking a break from Substack.)

I ended up deciding to watch a musical band-related show for some reason.

I watched the first half of the show, and it was pretty interesting.

And there came… the 9th episode.

. . .

All the main characters got on stage and performed the song called “Fuyunohanashi” (which means, “A Winter Story” in Japanese).

I still can't forget how I felt the first time I watched. It was sad, kinda relatable, but more than that, it was inspiring.

It almost gave me an existential crisis. And whoa… the song was just too good! The drums, bass, and especially the vocals and guitars!

Well, I've always thought guitar is one of the coolest musical instruments, but that day…

I wanted to learn it.

My energy kinda faded when I realised I didn't have a guitar yet. I hadn't bought one before, and I also didn't know if I should ask mom for one.

And I probably stopped watching anime that day and went on to do something else.

After a few days, mom and I went to the hospital and when we were on our way to home, a bright musical instrument shop caught my eye.

I said, “Mom, look! A musical instrument shop!”

Mom slowed down the bike, and I said, “I want to go inside and see!”

She asked if I wanted to learn an instrument like the piano, but I immediately said, “I'm interested in learning guitar.”

She approved, and we entered the shop together. I have never entered a musical instruments shop before, and wow, it felt so nice to see various musical instruments in the same place.

I didn't know much about guitars at the time, so I only observed the basic types of guitars, different colours, and shapes.

We noticed that there's an advertisement board for a musical institute on the first floor, right above the shop. There were guitar classes too!

Mom asked if I wanted to join the guitar class. And of course, I said, “Yes!”

We wrote down the contact number for the class teacher, went home and called the teacher the next day. I was told to come once a week on Thursdays.

Then Thursday came, and I went to attend my first guitar class.

I wrote about the whole experience in my diary, so my diary self will take over now.

Today I went to the guitar class (or any musical instrument class) for the first time in my life!

It's at an institute, an hour drive away from home.

It was a nice place, with the whole classroom being air conditioned. There was only one other student besides me (who was a young man). I said I was studying in class 10 and the other student and the teacher both commented that I don't look like it. (They said they thought I was younger).

The teacher was nice. He didn't really explain well, but I somehow understood a few bits and pieces from the notes he wrote for me, and I filled in the rest of the information by studying online at home.

Since I've been obsessed with learning about the different types of electric guitar models for the past few days, I've pretty much decided that I'm going to get an electric guitar because I can play most of my favourite songs with it after building up my guitar skills. I specifically really like the Fender Telecaster. (One of the reasons being it's what a character uses in the anime, I watched recently).

I decided on the Fender Squier Telecaster Debut series, because it's way cheaper than the Standard Fender Telecaster, and it looks just like Uenoyama's guitar (but with a few differences).

I also had a second option in mind, which was the Yamaha Pacifica 012. My guitarist friend, Josema (from Spain) said the Yamaha might sound better especially because it has a humbucker. But of course, it costs a bit more. And it doesn't look very similar to the one Uenoyama plays.

(Yep, I can't forget my source of inspiration. Even if it's an anime character, lol-)

Unfortunately... They don't teach electric guitars in the guitar class. They told me to get an acoustic, because it's the right fit for beginners.

To be honest, acoustic doesn't motivate me as much as electric guitars.

Before and after the class, I played demos with a few guitars at the instruments shop. And the sound from the acoustic just felt plain, and kinda hard compared to the electric. I'm not saying acoustic is bad, I just can't get motivated by it as much. (I'm a big fan of rock, electronic, and pop music, you see.)

Anyway, so both it is. We're going to get both the acoustic for the class and the electric to practice at home.

At the class today, I learned about the names of each guitar string, the musical alphabets, different notes, and symbols. (But as I said, the teacher didn't explain what these well and I didn't ask him, because I've always been the quiet kid in class who's scared of interacting with the teacher, lol.)

After the class ended, mom and I went to the food stalls near a big mall, ate some snacks and bought some home for my grandma.

Mom seems to be interested in learning guitar too, so after coming home, I taught her what I learned today, and made her some notes with some diagrams to make it easy to understand.

Overall, it was a really fun day! I hope to learn guitar well!

[End of diary page]

Hm-hm. That's the spirit! I'll try to keep this energy until I'm in the skill range to learn and play the song that inspired this new hobby in the first place, haha.

Having just joined the class, I didn't have a guitar when I wrote the diary page you just read, and I used the guitar they have in the class.

But, I have two guitars now! Let me show you:

This is the first guitar I got: an electro-acoustic for the class because the teacher told me they don't teach electric guitars for beginners:

And here's my beautiful electric guitar. I got the exact model that I wanted (Fender Squier Telecaster Debut Series).

I love both of them, but the electric guitar just sounds and looks so cool, that I even made a drawing of me playing it:

It's good that we got two guitars because my mom said she'll be using the acoustic guitar and we can both play at once. Having two also makes it easier for me to teach mom as well.

And that's the whole story of how I got into playing guitar! ✨

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

I'm happy to be back to Substack again. (After my extended big-break from writing articles.)

This is the first article I’m posting this year. (It's already 2026, huh? Time really flies.)

To be honest, I wrote and deleted this article a few times, because I had a lot to talk about and I wanted to include most of the topics while not letting it become boring…

But, it got me nowhere, so I decided to take a different approach.

What I'm going to do is cover and expand on some of the Notes I posted on Substack, related to things that happened during my break from Substack. (So this one is pretty much like a personal blog-post. I may delete it after a while, if I feel like it).

As for some of the major events I experienced, I'll only mention a little about them in this article, because I think there's so much to share and they deserve their own separate articles.

Alright then, here we go!

Note #1:

The thing I really wanted, which I'm referring to in this note, is that I started going to therapy! 😄

Yep- I really wanted to go to therapy for a long time, especially because I'm very interested in learning about psychology and I was 100% sure I have some issues and I had trouble convincing my mom to take me to a therapist.

I wrote a longer article about my first therapy session which I'll post soon. Look forward to it, if mental health is a topic you'd be interested in!

Note #2:

Well… Sorry I have some unfortunate news to share, but it's related to my previous article and this Note that I posted:

My kitten, Phynix, went missing in January- that day when me, my cousin, and my mom were arguing.

There was quite a lot of noise, and Phynix hid under the furniture and stacked objects in the living room (we were tidying up the house that day).

After it ended, I kept calling for Phynix to come out. I thought he was still hiding because he's scared of the noise.

But he was nowhere to be found. He slipped out of the house while none of us paid attention.

A few moments later, I realised he went missing, cried, and looked for him for a few days. I quickly made a missing poster (that you saw in the note). And posted it online and showed it to a few locals, who were not that many.

Although a bit dangerous of a place, this is a pretty big neighbourhood with over 900 houses. And there are rumours of pet thieves, so mom immediately assumed that Phynix got taken in by someone and he won't come back.

Of course, this is just a guess my family made.

Not my mom or anyone else helped me look for him, and they don't want me going out, looking for him on my own.

So I just unwillingly gave up…

I was calling his name every time I went outside and hoping he would return home soon or that I'd spot him somewhere.

Notes #3 and #4:

In these two notes I posted, I mentioned my physical health.

I had to regularly go to the doctors because the medical test report showed that I have Microcytic Hypochromic Anemia, which isn't an official diagnosis, but it's an indicator that I may have an underlying health problem.

They ruled out the possibility that I may have an autoimmune disease.

I was admitted to an average hospital for two days. After returning home, I didn't improve, so mom and I decided to go to a different hospital, which was an hour drive away from home.

The doctor there was a nice person. She took a lot of tests and said that I don't have a disease and that I don't have to worry. But I do have to take some medicine.

Phew! That was a big relief!

Because I couldn't walk well, I was pretty confused as to what was going on with my health. (I can walk better now, so don't worry.)

Note #5:

I posted this Note after I came home from my first time at a Comic Con. It was a really amazing experience that I will remember for a long time. As you read in the Note, I took some photos with a few cosplayers. (My aunt forced me into it, because I was feeling shy around strangers, lol-).

The stage shows were great, the merchandise shops were great- I had a blast, nonetheless! I'll write a separate article about this experience as well, because it was pretty interesting.

Hi! Editor Harshini here!

After I wrote this article, two more really great things happened. One of them, which I mentioned in a note, is that I joined guitar classes! I wrote about them in my diary and I'm definitely making article-versions of them. (I didn't include them in this one, since this article is already scheduled.)

This post kinda felt like a promo video for a series, right? Most of the topics ended with, “I’m writing an article about it, so look forward to it!“ lol!

I’m saving the interesting stories for later. This is just to keep my readers updated and for me— to get back into the habit of regularly writing and postings articles.

I hope I clarified most of the questions you may have had about my Notes. If you have any questions, please let me know about it down in the comment section below! (I tend to forget things pretty often).

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

I hope you've had a good weekend!

For a while, I've been thinking of putting this newsletter on a small hiatus, but I thought I'd do it once November was over, meaning I would have posted last Friday's article—only if it weren't for a sudden turn of events.

Because you see, my cousin has been telling us that he's going to bring his friend’s kitten and insisted that we take care of it.

But I wasn't expecting it would happen so soon!

Last Friday, my cousin called us from a pet shop and suddenly said that he's bringing the kitten and asked what he should buy.

Of course, as a lover of cat who hasn't officially raised a cat before (except for feeding neighbourhood and street cats, which I'm sure doesn't count as ‘Raising’), I already knew a lot about raising kitties and told him the entire necessary items list–except for a few that we can buy later once we save up enough money. (We still ended up having to spend a lot, of course, lol.)

There he arrived, looking very timid, sitting in the corner of a big picnic basket, and we named him…

Phynix!

I worked my magic, and now, in two days, 2-month old Phynix seems to enjoy being around me.

He comes to me and lies down beside my leg when I'm standing, he sleeps beside me when I’m sitting down or laying down, he “marks” me (which means rubbing his cheeks or other part of his coat with scent glands on me, which means he claims me as a part of his territory. Which—in human language, means he thinks of me as his best friend and or caretaker).

He also likes my mom and grandma, but they both get slightly scared when Phynix runs at them, haha.

This entire weekend, I spent time getting to know Phynix, and making sure he gets comfortable with me, my mom, grandma and being at my house. We bathed him just this once because his previous owners told us to. (He was super-scared, and it was difficult. We won’t bathe him again unless it's absolutely necessary, because cats clean themselves every day, and have a natural coating on their hair that shouldn’t be removed).

I quietly clipped his nails, without any fuss while he was sleeping. (We should only clip the tip on a cat’s nail, and be sure not to cut too much because a cat's nerves run up to their claws!)

We’re still experimenting on the litter, his preferences on cat treats, and we're trying to build a good routine. (Because unfortunately, his previous owners didn't have a solid routine for Phynix, and they free-feeded him, which is not a very healthy meal routine for kittens and cats).

By the way, if you're wondering how I learned about cats before even raising one, there are plenty of YouTube videos and articles for it, but I'm personally a big fan of Jackson Galaxy’s YouTube channel. That's where I go when I need some advice on caring for cats.

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Welcome to The Phynix Gallery!

Phynix is a quiet yet very energetic little kitty.

I hope I raise him healthy with lots of love! Here's a few photos and videos of him to please your cat-loving soul!:

#3: Sleepy kitty:

#2: Playfully hunting his prey:

#3: Playing beside my knee:

Isn't he so cute? ❤️✨

I hope Phynix brightened your day. Now, I'll tell you more about why I was planning on going on a hiatus.

Why I'm going on small hiatus:

Even before Phynix arrived, I was planning on taking a longer break than usual from Substack, because plans have changed, things have started piling up, and I decided it would be better to take a break to sort things out, instead of constantly rushing or trying to do everything at once and hitting a big bad burn out. (You might have noticed I've been posting off-schedule articles more than usual. Probably a sign that I’ve been trying to do more things than I can handle).

I wanted to write an article related to my previous one about shame, which is a bit personal and seems kind of difficult to write well, so I wanted to handle it with more care than usual.

I wanted to collaborate with a few friends on articles, take care of the Discord Manga Artists Club (server) that I'm managing, and I have a few more commitments with people that I want to complete and tick them off my to-do list.

All while, working on my main manga project, of course! (Because I'm an aspiring manga artist, and it's pretty high up on my priority list).

I want to take good care of Phynix—And I also want to create more stuff, work on my art skills some more, and I want to upgrade by adding more quality to my articles and artworks.

Even if things stay the same after the hiatus, it's fine, I'm trying my best. But I hope to improve during this break!

Hopefully, I'll return on the last Friday of December to post the December edition of the Monthly Journal series.

So I'll be returning on December 26.

Until then, see ya! ✨

(Let’s try to stay connected through Substack Notes, if you use it.)

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

“Do not kill the part of you that is cringe, kill the part of you that cringes.”

I really like this saying because it implies that we should be ourselves more, don’t worry too much about liking cringy things or acting cringe, be more open, and all that good stuff.

This saying basically encourages us to overcome shame (or ‘cringe’) and feel less guilty about our (harmless) desires and ourselves.

But I had a problem with this. I didn’t know how to kill the part of myself that cringes.

Like– It just happens very suddenly. Way too quick for me to react.

Every now and then, my mind reminds me of something stupid, insensitive, or an embarrassing thing I said or did. And suddenly, I get bombarded with strong emotions. Emotions so strong– that they literally become visible to others.

I slap my forehead or I impulsively let out a short yell, like, “Ahh!”, or cover my face in embarrassment, or I quickly lower my head and say to myself, “Oh gosh, why the heck did I do that?”

Although it happens just for a short while, these emotions are intense.

And it’s definitely not because I’m more carefree and open around people– because when I impulsively act on that emotion, I feel puzzled. “What was that? Why the heck did I just yell out loud?” and I feel a bit embarrassed about it.

(Note from future me: When watching Dr. K’s video, I later found out that this habit is normal for those struggling with shame, and letting it out with my voice like this— is the right thing to do. Or if we're in a public place, there are certain meditation practices for it that we can use. Now, back to the article.)

The weird thing is that it just keeps happening over and over again. There’s no gap or even a moment to think rationally or be prepared to handle the surge of emotions and calm myself down in time. I recall– and in the second, I’m physically tensing up and cringing at the unpleasant memory.

I thought that it’s probably because my surge of emotions is stronger than it is for other people.

What’s even more weird is that most of the time, what I did wasn’t even that big of a deal! The person I said something stupid to a few weeks ago– most likely doesn’t even remember I said that, and here I am, still cringing about it.

It’s super weird.

I didn’t think of digging deep into why this happens. But, I often wondered, “Why am I like this?”

It all finally made sense when I watched lectures about the topic, ‘Shame,’ taught by psychiatrists. The things I learned when researching this topic are absolutely mind-blowing.

Shame was not only causing me to cringe at myself, it also explained a lot of the negative mindset and behaviours I struggle with almost every day– such as overthinking, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, self-sabotage, etc.

I’ve been struggling with these all my teenage years! Why didn’t I learn about this sooner??

I see a lot of people struggling with these too, and so when I learned about this topic, I felt that “It’s such a shame that everyone doesn’t know this!” (Yes, pun intended, lol.)

I’ll link all those wonderful lectures and videos from psychiatrists at the end of this article, so you can check them out.

Time to put on your goggles because we’re going to dive deep into it!

What is shame, and how is it different from guilt?

Let’s say you listened to someone’s fictional story. And with the intention of giving honest feedback, you said, “I feel like this lacks some depth...”

The next moment, you find yourself regretting saying that, because you see the change of expression on that person’s face.

To you, it feels like you’ve crushed their enthusiastic spirits instead of encouraging them. So every time you recall this little incident, you feel guilty or even ashamed.

Guilt and shame are not the same thing.

Guilt is actually a good emotion, although it feels uncomfortable. Its purpose is to make you realize when you make mistakes, so you won’t keep repeating them for life. Unlike shame, guilt calls out the problems in your behaviour, and it is a temporary feeling.

Shame, on the other hand, makes you feel like the fault is not your behaviour– it makes you believe you are a faulty person.

It says you are built this way, you’re fundamentally broken, and that you can’t change or improve. So yes, shame can be pretty toxic if you’re not aware and catch its convincing lies.

Why shame is called “The Master Emotion”

Shame is a very powerful emotion. The moment it enters the picture, it tramples on all other emotions and makes them disappear. Including anger, happiness, fear, etc., all of them become deflated. When you feel shame, it’s the only thing you can feel.

Shame is also a very effective mechanism that can almost permanently rewire your brain. Unlike other emotions, it doesn’t just come and go. It comes, changes you, and sticks with you.

Shame is very powerful; that’s why psychologists and mental health professionals refer to it as “The Master Emotion”.

As all brain mechanisms do, shame is a function of our mind that has its own purpose.

It’s a mechanism that helps a person grow and adapt to their surroundings.

Let’s go back 4000 years ago, and let’s say there’s this person who stole something that belongs to someone else.

Once he finds out that the other people in his group, including the people he respects and likes, react negatively to his bad behaviour, he feels ashamed.

He feels guilty of this action and ashamed of himself.

Remember that shame is a very strong emotion; it hurts to feel shame. So what happens is that he improves. He learn from his mistake and will become a person who doesn’t steal because of that whole shameful experience.

Toxic Shame and Imposter Syndrome

When you’re trying your best and working hard every day, and there’s still that voice in your head that keeps saying that you’re not using your potential to the fullest, you’re not good enough, you’re acting like you’re working hard, or that you’re actually a fraud.

We, artists and creators, call this the “Imposter Syndrome”. And mental health professionals refer to this as “Toxic shame”. (I think they’re essentially the same thing.)

Shame exists to help us improve, but an important thing to remember is that it doesn’t always help us. There are certain situations and circumstances where shame can turn toxic and encourage unhealthy thoughts or behaviours in a person.

It can make us believe crap like, “I’m way behind my peers, I can never catch up”, “I’m a loser”, “I’m an incapable person,” or that I don’t have any skills or unique features.”

Of course– those are all lies that shame tells us, and negative thoughts like these– are not helping us in any way.

Shame can be toxic and tricky; it makes you believe that all these negative thoughts about yourself are true, but actually, they’re not.

Shame often makes the victims blame themselves for an incident, even though they didn’t cause any of it, and they really shouldn’t be feeling ashamed at all!

Why does this happen? When does shame become something toxic and potentially dangerous?

This is where I learned another very important concept.

Shame and Emotional Abuse

Alright… this part is going to be hard to talk about…

Not everyone has a pessimistic voice in their heads, pointing out and blaming them for even their smallest mistakes.

But many of us do. Mental health professionals say it’s because we grew up experiencing emotional abuse and hearing toxic words all our childhoods.

All of the psychiatrists I watched said that the reason we have this toxic voice in our head is because we grew up being raised by a toxic parent(s) or caretaker(s).

We heard their constant nagging, unreasonable words, lies, guilt-tripping, gaslighting, blame-shifting… you name it.

And our mind internalized their words, and it has become our “Internal Parent”.

Even if you’re at your relative’s house, away from your toxic parent– or even if you have left your parents’ home and you’re living alone, and you think you’re finally free from hearing those words, your mind will fill in the gap for you.

One day, I found myself kind of agreeing with my mom’s nagging words.

I thought, “Well, it may be true that I’m weak, but she doesn’t have to keep taunting me with it.”

When I realised what I just told myself, I was shocked.

Until that moment, I have been telling myself and her that I’m not weak, every time she says I am. It seems that I eventually got tired of trying to convince her otherwise or arguing, so I just subconsciously started finding reasons why that could be true and just started agreeing with her.

I was surprised that I didn’t realize that this was happening sooner.

I recalled a saying I heard the other day, “When you keep telling a lie for long enough, it becomes true.”

And I thought maybe there's some truth in that saying, after all. Until I found out that the real reason all along was shame.

Shame exists in the gap between your current self and your ideal self

Dr. K (or Dr. Alok Kanojia), a licensed psychiatrist, explained this really well.

I’ll try my best to explain what I understood in a second, but I highly recommend watching his video on this:

In our mind, we have this idea of our “Ideal self”. It’s the standard that we try to live up to every day.

And below that, there is our current self. The you that can do better and try harder in life.

Shame basically exists in the gap between our ideal self and our current self.

Our idea of our ideal self is not something that is unreasonable; it’s actually made up of our past achievements.

Your ideal self is the proof of your full potential.

Shame points at your ideal self and says, “Look. You have done it several times before. So you can do it again.”

It feels like a reasonable thing to do– trying to become our ideal self seems like a realistic goal we can achieve.

We think that if we close the gap by becoming our ideal self. Or if we achieve more, then we wouldn’t be so ashamed of ourselves. We think that achievement can cure shame.

But… what if our ideal self keeps growing and improving? What if our standards kept rising higher and higher the more we try to catch up?

So this is very important to understand. In this case, achievement cannot help us stop feeling ashamed of ourselves, even if we’re tricked into believing otherwise.

Dr. K explained that as long as our ideal self is high up over there, we’re never going to be able to celebrate our small wins.

Because when you finally make some progress, your mind thinks, “Yeah, I made a bit of progress today, but I’m never going to reach my goal at this pace,” or “Yeah, I wrote for 2 hours today. But I could’ve written for 4 hours.”

This happens to me often. I know very well that I should celebrate my small wins. I know I should be feeling positively about making progress, even if it’s small. I know that doing so is the only way to fuel my motivation and keep going.

But despite knowing all that, a lot of the time, progress doesn’t make me feel happy.

So it hit me hard when Dr. K said this:

Acceptance and accountability

If we’re constantly feeling bad about ourselves– like all the time– just like Dr. K said, we have to let go of our ideal self. We have to accept that there’s only one you, which is your current self.

Now let’s talk about the other side– the nagging (and possibly toxic) grown-ups who talk negatively to their children or students.

What makes this whole shame concept so difficult to deal with— is that a lot of the time, these grown-ups don’t realize what they’re doing wrong.

Or they have a vague sense that they’re doing something wrong, but they don’t know how to make repairs.

When you’re a teenager growing up, and you realise that you’re being verbally or emotionally abused by one of your parents, it’s hard to tell them.

Especially when that parent doesn’t know what verbal abuse or emotional abuse looks like, and they don’t realise the damage their behaviour is causing to their child.

The negativity in their words and actions is very subtle, so that the child feels like they’re overreacting or being over-dramatic when they try to call out their parents for their toxic behaviour.

It’s even worse when the child overcomes their fear and finally tells them, and they get defensive, like, “What did I do that you’re accusing me with such big words like ‘Emotional abuse’? Just tell me what I did wrong.”

If you’ve experienced it, you might know: Emotional abuse is not easy to describe. Because it’s not as obvious as physical abuse, and it doesn’t leave any evidence. You get emotionally hurt by that person pretty often and blamed for things that are not even your fault don’t deserve to take responsibility for it.

If you’re one of these– or you are suspecting you could be one of these grown-ups: I know it’s hard to admit and acknowledge that you have been unknowingly hurting the mental well-being of your loved ones. But you have to accept, because this cycle of hurt has to stop.

There’s an abundance of resources and information on the internet about mental well-being and human behaviour. It’s never too late to learn and get a clear idea of what toxic behaviour is, and take steps towards becoming a better person.

How do we actually heal from shame?

The first step is to realize and accept that we’re struggling with shame. If you’ve realized it, good job! You’re already halfway there. I realised it because of the symptoms of shame I described at the beginning of the article: cringing or feeling ashamed whenever I recall a bad memory. (I regret ignoring these symptoms for so long, but oh well. I can’t change the past.)

One way– or probably the best way to heal from shame is to get therapy.

Many psychiatrists say that compassion towards oneself is the antidote to shame.

To be self-compassionate is to treat yourself with kindness and understanding, like how you would treat a friend.

I’m (currently) not good at self-compassion.

Maybe it’s because no one has ever taught me self-compassion before, or maybe it’s because there’s no word like it in our language– or at least in the language that we use every day.

I’m very judgmental towards myself, and I do a bit of negative self-talk. The tricky part is that a lot of the time, I don’t realise I’m doing negative self-talk because it all sounds like, “Harsh truths about myself that I need to face.”

This negative self-talk or shame is the manifestation of the words of toxic adults I grew up hearing.

Whenever we feel ashamed, we must stop and take a moment to ask ourselves: “Did I do something wrong?”

(When answering this question, we must be honest and try not to fall for the tricks our brain plays on us.)

If the answer to the question is “No”, then you realize that you have nothing to feel ashamed or guilty about and let go of that negative feeling.

If the answer is “Yes”, you must be honest with yourself, accept your mistake, and take accountability for it.

Doing this over and over again is one of the best ways to steer towards healing and growth. It’s true even if it sounds a bit tiring.

Luckily, self-compassion is a skill that can be learned, so let’s all learn it and work towards healing and growth.

Lectures / Videos By Psychiatrists:

1. Why Shame Is The Key To A Better Life by Dr. K

2. Shame Isn’t Something to Overcome Alone by Dr. K

3. Why Shame is the Raid Boss of All Emotions by Dr. K

4. Shame For Not Being Successful by Dr. K

5. Self-Compassion: An Antidote to Shame by Christopher Germer

6. How to Heal from Shame, Guilt and Regret by Emma McAdam

This one is not by a licensed psychiatrist. It’s by a counselor, but I recommend watching it:

7. Why Shame Affects 100% of People with Complex Trauma by Tim Fletcher

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

I initially planned to post this last Friday, but I later decided I wanted to do a Halloween special, and I ended up having to post this article a week into November, even though it's the monthly journal entry for October.

Anyway, thanks for reading this off-schedule post! Now let's back to the article.

Unfortunately, October has been one of my most unproductive months of the year. But, one big issue has been resolved so I'm not feeling too down.

Actually– you know what? I'm thinking of celebrating the small wins.

Because you know–

“Life can get pretty dark if you focus only on the negatives”

(I think I heard that from a creator online, I can't remember who, sorry.)

Alrighty~ Without further ado, let's start with the topic I wrote in the title!

Projects I'm giving up on:

I have several self-made projects that I'm working on, but as new opportunities have opened up, things have started to pile up, and I started finding it harder to manage.

“I’ll work on it… I'll finish it some day…”

*Flops head in desk*

Also, there were and are a lot of obstacles that are preventing things from progressing smoothly.

On the bright side, I got a lot of time to think and I figured it would be wise to drop some of my side projects and make time for more important things.

So I'm going to share a bit about some of the projects I'm (probably temporarily) giving up on and why.

#1: Clip Studio Paint course:

I had a few friends tell me that they're starting to learn and use Clip Studio Paint (a digital art software).

Since I know the software, I thought it'd be a great idea to make a short beginners course and give it to my friends and my Discord server for free and put it up for sale on other platforms.

I made the first lesson. It came out well, and my friend found it helpful. The second lesson also came out good, which you can check out by clicking this link.

By this time, I realised I have underestimated the work that goes into making a course. It was very time consuming, and I had to rack my brains and think creatively to figure out how to explain each step in a beginner-friendly way.

I appreciate that I could gain a lot of experience in making a course, but yeah. As it started consuming way too much of my time, I decided to drop this project.

I might pick it back up and finish it one day, but I'll leave it up to my future self to decide. (Who knows? My future self may even decide to remake the course from scratch, better than this current version.)

#2: Drawing Classes:

My mom and I planned to start a tuition center at our office where I can teach drawing classes too.

So we designed a poster and stuck it at the entrance as an ad.

But our office– (it's actually a print shop, I got used to calling it “Office”) is so small that every student who contacted us cancelled their plan to join after we told them that that's where we will be teaching.

My mom still says I can teach once we get a student to join. But I think I'll give up on this plan for now.

I'll wait until we move to a bigger office or an apartment that allows tutors to take classes.

And that's it. Those are the things I'm currently giving up on. (And I may pick them back up one day).

Luckily, I have discovered better things I can spend my time on that will actually help me in the long run, if I just commit to them and seriously work on them. I'm not 100% sure if it'll work, so I won't reveal what these discoveries are. But if they work, I'll definitely share about them and share my learnings with you guys. (Yep, I'm learning from my mistakes. I'm trying not to be “all bark and no bite” if you know what I mean).

Computer problems:

Our family PC is what I've been using to do all my writing and drawing stuff.

But… I couldn't use it for most of October. I'll keep this section short, because it's a boring story, really:

→ Microsoft cut off Windows 10 security support.

→ I decided to switch to Linux OS because I've heard good things about it.

→ I did some research and realised it's a complicated process with risks like I could lose my files if I mess up.

→ Mom an I contacted a tech person to install it for us. He seemed to be new to Linux too, and we couldn't finish the process, so we left the PC at my mom's office.

→ There was a rainstorm for the next few days. Once it was sunny again, we brought the PC back home. And checked if I was eligible for free Windows 10 updates. Fortunately I was, and I extended the security support for one year!

And just like that, my computer issue has been solved, and I got back to drawing manga and sketching digitally. (Yay~ happy ending! …Lol, no. This is where the real work starts).

If you're not sure what happened on October 14 and what Windows 10 security support is, I recommend reading this article to stay updated: Windows 10 Getting Closed On October 14, 2025: Is It The Windows 10 End Of Life? Final Days.

(If you're wondering why I gave up on Installing Linux, feel free to ask me. I don't mind explaining the full story.)

Other things:

I couldn't sit around and wait for my computer to get fixed, so I did other productive things like learning more website coding concepts, and learning Japanese by having conversations with a friend, making silly doodles in my sketchbook, writing stories, etc.

I also found this really good deck of flashcards you can import to Anki and it'll give you a set of Japanese words and sentences to study each day.

If you know the Japanese alphabets, Hiragana and Katakana, you can study using this set too. Here's the link: Kaishi 1.5k - Basic Japanese Vocabulary.

Newsletter Updates:

Ever since I started this newsletter, I've never stopped experimenting.

Which is kinda good, because I feel like I learned a few things over time, and I think about all these little things and observe as if I'm a young child watching ants walk in a line, every time I post a new article.

One time I thought “Maybe my readers don't like self-deprecating humor.” considering that I added “Two artists discussing like they're not total imposters (lol)” on a collaboration article’s thumbnail.

I thought that, because at first it didn't do well compared to other collaboration posts I did.

Or maybe it was because it was a long read, or maybe it caught my readers off-guard.

However, it was a fun experience.

Writing it was fun, the discussion was fun, putting an unusual thumbnail with a phrase I wouldn't usually use in an article was fun, posting the article and eagerly waiting to find out what would happen, how people would react– it was all fun.

So, yeah! Even if I end up not learning much from my experiments, I'm going to do more of it for the experience.

(Also I'd really appreciate it if I could get more feedback on my writing.)

My favourite video of the month:

I found this animated short film, and it was beautiful.

I don't want to spoil the story, but the foreshadowing, the music, the backgrounds, the way they talk– I can imagine having a conversation like this with my friends, like giggling and having a good time.

(And what happened next was something I was not expecting.)

It's really well-made! So go and give this short film some love!:

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

Hi!

Welcome to a Halloween special letter!

Although we don’t celebrate Halloween in our region, I’m a big fan of the supernatural genre, and I love the vibes of this yearly festival– from what I’ve heard and seen on the internet. (Yes, I don’t know much about the history of Halloween. Maybe another topic I’ll look into one day).

And I uh… wish I could cosplay as a ghost and scare people. (But, I won’t because I’m 100% sure I’ll just get scolded by my mom, lol.)

I’m sure when you think of monsters, many of you are thinking of the classic Western monsters such as zombies, vampires, werewolves, or white-clothed ghosts.

But you know what? When I think of monsters and ghosts, the images that pop up in my mind are not of these beings, but are of Yokai— in other words, Japanese spirits, monsters, and supernatural beings.

The fanbase for these supernatural beings is huge, and a lot of people, including me, really love it when supernatural creatures are featured in a story or a show. Because they add an indescribable, mysterious atmosphere and authenticity to the scenes and story.

(“Spirited Away” and some other Ghibli movies by Hayao Miyazaki and “Demon Slayer” by Koyoharu Gotouge are widely popular, and are some of the many examples of modern animated shows and movies featuring creatures and characters based on yokai. The classic children’s TV show, Doraemon, also has made some references to yokai in its episodes. A lot of Pokémons are also based on Japanese yokai.)

Each yokai has a lot of lore and stories– not only in ancient Japanese Folklore– but also often referenced in modern Japanese media, such as anime, manga, video games, commercials, or even mascots for YouTube channels.

Today, I’m going to introduce you to the concept of Yokai and other supernaturals from Japanese folklore, a brief history of them, and also a bit about why they’re a great inspiration to a lot of aspiring manga artists, fiction writers, and creators (like myself).

With that said, let’s get started!

What is Yokai?

Yokai is a very broad term that refers to supernatural beings and strange phenomena in Japanese folklore.

Yokai could refer to Japanese monsters, goblins, phantoms, and demons. But they are all of that– and even more– such as transformed humans, demi-humans, demi-gods, apparitions, spirits, and other supernatural phenomena.

They also come in many forms, such as animals, animated objects, humanoids, spirits, or creatures with animal-like features. A lot of them have the ability to shapeshift or other unique powers that let them trick humans, lure people into danger, or some of them just play harmless pranks on people.

There’s no clear-cut way for one to determine whether a supernatural being could be considered as a yokai or not. Its definition could vary depending on who we’re discussing with and how they would describe yokai.

There is also no other word like yokai in English that could describe this word well enough.

Therefore, just as it’s stated in Yokai.com:

“Yōkai is one of those words–like samurai, geisha, ninja, and sushi–that is best left in its native tongue.”

A brief history of yokai

During the Edo period (1603–1868), yokai was a widely popular topic. It’s the time when the descriptions, writings, and records of yokai sightings– were given form and brought to life by artists through their imaginative illustrations.

Especially– the works of Toriyama Sekien depicting yokai and other imaginative creatures were extremely popular at the time.

His first book, in 1776, the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons), had a huge influence on how people viewed yokai and was used as a reference by a lot of artists and writers.

A lot of people still mistake Toriyama’s depictions of yokai as the original source, while there are even older stories documenting these folklore creatures and phenomena.

During the early 19th century, the popularity of yokai decreased, and stories of these mythical beings were cast aside as mere superstitions of the past.

This decline in popularity lasted until 1960– when a manga by the name, “GeGeGe no Kitaro” by Mizuki Shigeru gained a huge traction and brought back people’s interest in yokai— with each of its main characters being a kind of yokai.

GeGeGe no Kitaro is the classic of all Yokai Manga, which had a huge influence on how manga authors, writers, and creators included yokai in their works– making the entertainment industry re-discover the charm of yokai and Japanese folklore, and how they could be modified to tell unique stories in the form of books, manga, short films, TV shows, and movies.

The differences between Yokai and Yurei

Yurei— translates to “Spirit” or “Ghost”, is often classified as a type of yokai.

But the other day, I learned that the two are probably not the same, and the Japanese view them as different entities.

Unlike yokai, which are mostly creatures with a physically opaque form– Yurei are the spirits of the dead (or even alive humans). Most of them are illustrated as spirits with the appearance of humans. They are either completely invisible to ordinary living humans, or faintly visible with invisible legs. They have the ability to float, and haunt people and places that they have some kind of connection to.

There are different kinds of Yurei as well. Some of them are: Ikiryo, the spirits of alive humans, temporarily leaving their physical body when they’re asleep or unconscious to haunt their enemy or even the person they have a crush on. And Shiryo, which are the evil spirits of the dead.

(You guessed it! This is where my first manga, Shiryo, got its name from.)

I recommend reading this article on Yurei or watching this video to learn more about them!

Although there are hundreds of yokai and spirits, each of them has their own unique appearance, personality, behaviour, habits, and stories.

Just like humans, several creatures of the same yokai kind usually have different personalities. Which makes it a very interesting topic to explore.

Every yokai is different and can range from harmless spirits— to mischievous creatures— to the cruelest demon one can imagine.

I’ll briefly introduce you to a few kinds of yokai I know:

#1. Tsukumogami:

There is a superstition that when a tool, object, or sometimes an animal gets old enough, a spirit comes to inhabit it. The Tsukumogami are yokai that have been an object once, but have been turned into yokai. These yokai appear as everyday objects (such as an umbrella, shogi doors, flip-flops, etc.) with some yokai features and abilities.

#2. Mysterious yokai living in the sea:

There are also Yokai that live in the sea. Such as the Akaei, a massive sea creature resembling a stingray, which was mistaken for an island by sailors due to its enormous size. Or Umi Bozu, which is a large and shadowy humanoid creature, bigger than ships, that sinks boats and ships full of sailors and fishermen.

#3. Yokai that are/resemble animals:

There are also playful, and mischievous animal-like creatures such as the Kitsune (Japanese fox), Tanuki (Japanese racoon dog). And Kappa, which is a green humanoid creature, with a turtle-like shell on its back, and a depression in the top of its head– which is filled with water that acts as their source of energy. The Kappa live in rivers, lakes, and lagoons. If you come across an aggressive one, you can outsmart it by luring it into the land, and bowing to pay respects– which prompts the Kappa to bow in return, emptying out the water on top of their head, and making them unable to move. In some cases, they may even die.

#4. Yokai in the disguise of beautiful women:

And there are also eerie (or kind) yokai in the form of women, such as the Yuki-onna (Snow woman) or the Kuchi-sake Onna (Slit-mouthed woman), which is a terrifying yokai appearing as a woman wearing a mask, or holding a fan to cover her mouth. She would ask you if she’s beautiful. If you answer yes, she reveals her grotesque mouth. “Even now?” she asks. If you answer yes, she will cut the corners of your mouth to look just like hers. If you answer no, she’ll murder you.

Thankfully, there’s a way to outsmart this yokai. Which is by answering her question with “So-so”. It will confuse her long enough for you to escape.

#5. Ogre or demons:

The Oni is one of the most iconic yokai in Japanese Folklore. The word, “Oni” quite literally means “Demon” or “Ogre”. They are cruel and destructive yokai that heartlessly kill, torture, or crush humans with their large iron clubs. The Oni have red or blue skin, crazy hair, and bushy brows, and they are said to live in caves, islands, Hell, and remote mountains.

(As you might already know or have guessed by now, the demons that appear in Demon Slayer are all Oni.)

There are also good Yokai, like the Zashiki Warashi, that bring fortune to the person or place they haunt.

There are also yokai that appear grand and majestic, such as the Nine-tailed Fox (Transformed kitsune), Tatsu (Dragon), or Kirin.

And there are yokai like the Tsurara Onna, which is a beautiful yokai, indistinguishable from humans, that fall in love with a person and marries him.

The possibilities are nearly endless.

Do yokai exist in real life?

Maybe. Or maybe not. The answer to this question will vary greatly depending on who you ask.

Some might say that the yokai existed in the past, some might say that some of the yokai are real while others are superstitions, and some might say that the yokai might still be lurking around in the guise of ordinary objects or animals, unaware to us.

If you ask me, I think the yokai are superstitious beings— which hold extremely interesting lore and stories. I don’t believe they exist, at least until– if I ever encounter one in real life, haha.

(Please don’t be real, Kuchi-sake Onna!)

A recommendation for further reading:

If you enjoyed this article, I highly recommend checking out Yokai.com. Which is a large database of yokai– illustrated, written, and maintained by Matthew Meyer.

A lot of the articles I linked in this post were from that website. (Not sponsored, by the way. I’m recommending the website because I love it.)

It not only has illustrations and descriptions of the appearance of many different kinds of yokai. The unique behaviours, stories, and legends surrounding these supernatural beings are also written. And it’s so interesting that if I could, I would just read them for hours.

To all those yokai enthusiasts out there: I hope you have a good time reading!

Side note:

[All the images used in this article are Public Domain images of old illustrations of yokai, spirits, and Japanese folklore.]

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

Welcome! To this week's special article.

It's been a while since I did this– a collaboration article with a friend, so I'm kinda excited. And you may remember our guest this time from this article:

Yep! This is the second time we're in a collaboration together.

Without further ado, let's welcome, !

Mat: Hello! Thanks for inviting me over. For those who don’t know me, I am Mathieu Noel, a world expert in education. Ok I’m kidding. I’m just passionate about drawing, storytelling and graphic design. You can find me on instagram (@mat_incorporated). I am looking forward to this discussion because like many artist, I like sharing my passion for art, and also, I want to get better. Now Harshini, you’re telling me there is a way to merge those 2?

Harshini: That's an interesting question! Yes, there are many ways to share your passion while also getting better at art.

One way to do it– would be to teach art to other people. It sounds simple, but when put into practice, I'm sure many face self-doubt and other internal struggles when using teaching as a way to improve.

That's what we're discussing today!

To give each other some context about ourselves, here's the first question:

Harshini: Although my mom and I are not certified teachers, we have quite a lot of experience with teaching. When I was younger, my mom ran a small tuition center, and I studied there with the other kids too. My mom's really good at teaching things in an easy to understand way. She doesn’t get mad when the students don't understand, and her teaching techniques can even make maths feel easy!

I learned to teach as well. I was the quiet kid in class–well, classes because I transferred school several times, but my classmates were always friendly with me. I ranked pretty high in tests and exams. So when it's time for group study sessions, I would teach my classmates the things they had trouble understanding. In cases where there's a test in 5 mins, we used mnemonics to memorize.

At home, I also used to teach my neighbour’s kids all the time.

Even before moving to the home I was at a month ago, I used to run a drawing class at my home, with two kids from the floor below who attended 3 times a week. (I wrote about it in this article).

Mat: I remember a few years ago, I was at a family reunion and my little cousin (aged 10 if I can recall well) asked me for tip about how to draw. Back then I didn't drew as much as now. I just taught him basic head proportions. So I don't have much experience teaching.

Harshini: I see! I think teaching little cousins also makes for a good experience and story. I haven't taught any kid to draw heads, so I'm curious. How was it? Did he learn it well or was it a bit difficult?

Mat: I was years ago and honestly I can’t remember well… But at the time I wasn’t as serious about drawing as I’m now, so I probably wasn’t a good teacher (because of lack of knowledge and lack of enthusiasm).

Harshini: I see. I'm sure he would've enjoyed learning from you though!

Harshini: Mm… that's an interesting question! I learned a lot of valuable things. One of them will sound obvious, but I'll say it:

#1: You can't reach someone who is not curious or interested.

This isn't specific to teaching art. I'm referring to teaching in general so this statement applies to every subject.

The most effective way to teach something to a child or someone– is to make them interested first. No matter how boring or difficult the subject is, there’s always a way to get them motivated. Whether you use the contents of the subject to make it interesting, or use external sources of motivation like rewards.

(Like my mom,) I'm good at finding a way to make learning or doing homework feel like a fun adventure. This comes naturally to me when teaching kids in person, but…

Teaching online is very different. If it's regularly teaching one or a few people online– I personally know who the students are.

Which makes it a lot easier to figure out and use teaching methods that suit them.

But say, if you're teaching things through a YouTube channel, or a newsletter like this one, it just complicates things.

You don't know who the students are, how old they are, how deep you have to go when explaining to make it comprehensive. Or how many of them are present and how many of them are interested.

So to make it simple, I don't count teaching through a newsletter as being a teacher. Which leads to the next tip:

#2: If you're teaching online, make sure there is a smooth and clear communication between you and the student(s).

You and the student will have to be able to hold a casual conversation, keep track of each other, and hold each other accountable. And both sides shouldn’t feel like you're sending out a letter and waiting for the other person to receive it, read it, and send their reply.

So, what I would recommend is to use methods like video calls, Google or Zoom meetings, direct messaging and groupchat-like spaces to teach your students.

Just make sure it's easy as heck for the students to ask questions and for you to answer them.

Mat: Reacting to your answer #1: my dad tried teaching kids table tennis last year and he had the same thing to say about it as you said in your first answer. He quickly gave up trying to teach uninterested kids and instead he let them do other activities (it was in a gymnasium so there were stuff like balls, hula hoops, etc…) while he was teaching the students who were actually interested in table tennis.

Harshini: I see. But in cases where they definitely have to learn something, I'd still look for a way to get them interested or learn it. This reminds me, I used to use a sticker board to teach my neighbour’s kids. “If you learn this well, you get a star sticker!” Or something like that, haha.

Mat: Haha that’s great, now I want you to teach me, so I can get a sticker too :> Just kidding ^^ Back to answering the question, if I had to keep one thing from my experience with my cousin, it's that being passionate is important. I lacked passion at that time. I took some comic drawing classes earlier this year and the teacher was fond of making comics, it was a pleasant experience and it made learning easier.

Harshini: Lol! If digital stickers would do, I don't mind. Haha.

The part about passion is very true! In contrast, I went to learn from a drawing teacher who looked very bored when teaching me. Naturally, I was bored learning from her too. It was only for a short while though.

Harshini: (I know a lot of folks here wouldn’t be, usually…)

Mat: I actually went to 2 manga drawing courses (a different one than the one I mentioned earlier) last year with a teacher younger than me. He was probably 10 years younger. But it didn't bother me because he had crazy skills and went to one of the best schools here. I think we all have a different art journey. What's more bothersome to me is when it's a group course and the other students are more than 10 years younger than me ^^ That was the reason I only went two times to this course. I also went to another course in 2024, to learn painting. This time it was the opposite, there were almost only old women haha. They seemed really nice but still it was a bit weird to me.

Harshini: Manga courses sound fun! Also, I agree. Being the only person way older or way younger among a group of students feels a bit awkward like you said.

I won't mind being taught by someone 10 years younger than me– which just means I'd be learning from an 8-year-old. I still don't mind. In fact, I think grown-ups have a lot to learn from kids that young. Even my little cousin, who is around that age, is smart enough to avoid unwanted arguments.

But a lot of adults here are not ready to learn from kids or teens. Parents will feel ashamed to have to learn something from their kids. (Maybe I'm just referring to parents like my mom).

Well, if it still feels embarrassing to learn from a kid, you can just observe and notice their good habits instead. Learning is mostly observing, after all.

This is just my opinion, but I think grown-ups who think they deserve the respect of those younger than them, without understanding that respect is something to be given and earned, have to practice this more.

I decided I won't be like them. I acknowledge that there are things I can learn from someone way younger than me. I really hope my future self remembers this!

Mat: That’s really wise of you! I think it’s especially true for art. Let’s take manga making, for example: artists, no matter their age, will have different sensibilities, inspirations, motivations that makes their journey unique. This individuality makes each of them unique. Also manga is such a complex and versatile art that I’m sure even young artists can come up with something original, like for example an art style, a storytelling style…

Harshini: That is very true when it comes to the manga industry! There are a lot of very young artists, as young as 14 or even 13, being really good at art, story, layout, a combination of those, or inventing new styles. They're awesome! ✨

Harshini: I would say, “Work on your art Fundamentals.”

But, as important as fundamentals are, recently I've discovered there's another important thing that comes before it.

Which is: First decide whether you're going to draw #1) Abstract or Modern art. Things which are philosophical and not apparent at first glance. Or #2) Recognizable objects or beings. Like: people, animals, plants, characters, objects, etc.

If it's the former, I can't help, but if it's the latter, here's my #1 tip!:

Decide whether you're going to draw Realism or Stylized art.

I'm sure a lot of non-artists and beginners are confused by now.

To put it simply, “Realism” and “Stylized” refer to the appearance of an art work.

“Realism” is drawing very detailed and realistic art from either photos, videos or real life. For example: pencil portraits, and realistic paintings.

And “Stylized” is a very simplified version of things and beings. In other words, the art in cartoons, anime, comics, and manga are what is referred to as Stylized art.

In both cases, any medium works. Many artists use colour pencils, water colours, or draw digitally, etc. I used to draw realism with normal school pencils to make monochrome portraits. And I recently switched to drawing stylized art when I got my first drawing tablet.

I could go in depth about the differences between the stylized and realism in a different article, but here's why I think it's important to pick one:

It's too difficult to learn every art fundamental !

By deciding whether you want to draw realism or stylized, you can narrow down which art fundamentals you have to focus on first, to improve faster.

I never considered learning to draw stylized art for most of my art journey, and I feel like I would've improved faster if I started studying stylized art sooner. I realised it late. (But it's never too late to learn art!)

That said, Of course— it’s completely okay to switch back and forth between Stylized art and Realism. You don't have to rush to figure out which one you like better. There's also an artstyle which is a mix between the two: “Semi-realism”.

There are countless tutorials and explanations online on Stylized, Semi-realism, and Realism, so I hope the readers will take interest and look into it more. :)

Mat: Really interesting answer! I totally agree, and I don’t know what I can add to that. Maybe knowing yourself is an important corollary? Once you know if you’re gonna go for realism or stylized, you still have to figure out what you will draw (The following advice will be much more helpful if you want to draw stylized art. It still might help a little if realism is what you’re interested in). It sounds pretty obvious, as the reason you start drawing is often because you enjoy already existing art and want to do something similar. But of course you don’t want to copy art, you want to make your own.

I would recommend making lists of artworks that inspire you, and taking notes about what you like about them. It can be the message, the colors, the lighting, etc… I would also suggest you try to know yourself well. Try journaling, introspection. The more you are in tune with your deep desires, the more you’ll enjoy art. And as a result, other people will like your art too.

Also, some things to keep in mind :

• What you love to draw might be different from what your favorite artist create (Falling in love with the final art work is important, but art is a whole process, you have to find a process you like)

• What you love to draw might also be different from your personality (like you could be emo and like to draw cute stuff)

• Art is like a language and the more you know the workings of it (the dreaded fundamentals) the better you will be at expressing yourself.

Harshini: These are all really great tips! Like you said, the artist has to understand what they like to draw. And I encourage them to learn the fundamentals according to that.

It's also important not to fall into analysis paralysis. So if an artist is a beginner, they don't have to overthink and start with drawing things they like. A lot of artists wait too long to get clarification before they start. But starting first and getting clarification by experimenting and participating in art challenges will be a lot more efficient.

Overall, balance is the key. I think beginner artists shouldn't waste time by drawing whatever without exploring their likes and dislikes, and they shouldn't waste time by waiting to understand themselves. They're going to draw a lot of drawings that they won't be satisfied with, make mistakes and fail a lot. But, just focus on drawing more! Is what I'd like to advise.

Mat: Those are wise words! I tend to over-analyse a lot (over the 2 years I tried learning how to make illustrations, I filled a google doc with pages of thoughts on how to get ideas, methods gathered online, list of stuff I liked, etc…). Often I just say, fuck it, let’s draw.

Harshini: That's the spirit! I love that breakthrough energy, haha.

Harshini: Okay, I think it's about time we wrap up and head home for today. Thank you so much for collaborating with me this week! I feel like I learned and recalled a lot of good art-related and teaching advice. ^^

Mat: It was a pleasure chatting about art with you, I hope people have as much a good time reading this as we had making it ^^

Harshini: Me too!

Until next time, see ya!

Mat: See ya!

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Thank you for reading! We hope you liked reading this article, and we hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

Hey there!

Welcome to the 11th episode of the Art Journal series!

In this newsletter series, you get to see my recent drawings, the process of creating a digital illustration, art tutorials, and some tips as well.

The previous episode:

(Note: I mentioned that we will learn to draw a table in the previous part, but the plans have been changed. We will learn it in a future art tutorial).

Today, we are finally putting together the shapes we learnt so far in part 1 and part 2, and we’re going to learn simple “construction” in art.

If you practiced drawing the shapes I introduced in the previous parts, Kudos to you! You’re doing awesome. It might be a bit of a jump from drawing forms and shapes to objects. But to keep it beginner-friendly, we’ll only draw two images with simple objects. (And learn a few tips about 3D shapes along the way.)

Alright! Without further ado, let’s get to the first drawing.

Level 1: Drawing a dice

Reference image:

This one is pretty simple. It’s just a cube with big dots / circles on each of its sides, right?

That would be close enough. But we can draw it closer to the reference image by modifying the cube. If you closely look at the outline of this dice, you’d notice that, unlike a regular cube, the corners and edges are not sharp. They’re a bit rounded.

Let’s see how we can draw it.

First, draw a normal cube. (Sorry for the big jump, I haven’t made a tutorial for how to draw cubes. But when I do, I’ll add the link here.)

This will act as the guidelines for our dice. So draw it lightly if you’re drawing on paper.

And then, draw on top of the cube to round its sides and edges. And erase the guidelines we drew in the previous step. If you’re drawing traditionally, you can also use a pen to draw on top of the cube. (But remember to let the ink dry before erasing the pencil lines.)

There are lots of objects we use in our everyday life that are made of shapes with rounded corners and edges. Things like phones, laptops, tables, suitcases, cars– you name it.

So, it’ll definitely come in handy if you learn and practice drawing cubes, boxes, cylinders, pyramids, etc., with rounded corners or edges. (You can round the edges and corners of any sharp and pointy shape.)

Tip: You might need to observe and practice drawing a lot of these shapes with the help of references before you can draw them from imagination.

Next step: Draw the circles in the planes of the cube, to make it like a dice.

You might have noticed that the circles in the dice are not actually circles. They look more like ovals, right? Well, that’s because they are circles in perspective– in other words, they’re ellipses!

*Mind-blown*

Okay, jokes aside, as I said, ellipses are just circles in perspective. And their outline changes depending on which way they’re facing. Let me show you.

Try to observe the outline of the circles in this video:

When I draw the picture, where they are facing directly at the camera, they appear as normal circles. But when I draw pictures of the plane facing in different directions, they look more like ellipses:

Alright! Now moving on to the next drawing.

Level 2: Drawing simple objects

Next, we are going to draw just the objects on the table in this picture:

First, draw a box that is a bit flatter:

Beside the box, draw a sphere for the ball:

Now, if you observe the reference photo, you realise that the clay bottle is not really a geometrical 3D shape. So how do we draw it? That’s where the construction part comes in! We’re going to construct the bottle with simple 3D shapes.

For the bottom, draw a cylinder. As it is in the reference image, I’m placing this cylinder on top of the box:

Next, I’m going to draw a sphere that has been cut in half, and place it (draw it) on top of the cylinder:

For the neck of the bottle, it’s just another cylinder on top of the semi-sphere. This one’s a bit smaller.

All that is left is to erase the unwanted, overlapping lines, and done!

The drawing is complete:

If you’re feeling a bit adventurous, you can also add some shading to this drawing using the airbrush tool, or you can also shade with hatching lines, like I did here:

Tip: If you’re a beginner, be sure to use references when drawing. And be sure to observe how the lights and shadows are behaving in the reference picture, to build a good visual library.

If you practice a lot and get the hang of drawing 3D shapes, stacking them, connecting them, carving them, and merging them, drawing objects won’t feel very difficult.

I recommend that you try this:

Practice drawing a LOT of 3D shapes and simple objects. Do it for at least 4 weeks. Fill a sketchbook with just Boxes, Spheres, cylinders, and cones, and play around with these basic shapes and manipulate and modify them— to create new shapes.

Hopefully, these two examples gave you an idea of how you can observe and study objects from photos or from real life, and redraw them using simple 3D shapes.

Hope you have fun drawing!

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

Ever since I started writing online last year, so far I've met and talked with many artists online, and I also became close friends with some of them.

I learned a lot in this journey, and today, I want to talk about something that I've seen a lot of other artists and creators face, including myself. And how it affects our growth and mindset.

Sometimes, when I post a photo of something I made in one of my socials, or add a new link to my profile’s bio or portfolio; my brain automatically assumes that my friends noticed that new link, or if they haven't yet, they'll notice it sooner or later. (Now it feels stupid. I honestly don't know why I thought that).

But in reality, most of them will never notice it unless I directly tell them through direct messaging. (Same goes for me. If you made something new, I’d never know about it until you send it to me. Unless I’m a fan and I’m always keeping an eye out for more content from you).

So I want to leave this here as a reminder for myself (and for you, if you need it):

People don't know what you made unless you show it to them!! Just because you made something available online, it doesn't mean people are looking at it.

When they make something new, many beginner artists and creators tend to just announce through their article, a social media post, or just make an edit to their portfolio, and move on.

They won't send it to their friends, and they won't tell anyone about what they just made. I mean– they made it available online, so people will notice it eventually, even if they don't show or tell anyone about it, right?

Nope. Here's the truth, people don't really care about what you make as much as you think they do. And I don't mean that in a way to say your friends don't care about your art— I mean this is a good thing! And it's common and natural in everyday life.

When was the last time you noticed your friend had added a new link to your new mini-comic to their Substack or Instagram profile, on your own, without them telling you?

Most likely, not often. Right?

And just try imagining someone having 2 besties and 20 friends online, and just going through each of their friends’ social media accounts to look for new posts the first thing in the morning, every single day.

That's a highly unlikely scenario, right? And nobody has that kind of time in their hands. Especially not artists and creators.

So, lesson learned: if you made something new, and you want your friends to take a look at it, you just have to send it to them or tell them to check it out. (It's pretty simple when you think about it!)

In psychology, there is this concept called the Spotlight Effect. Which makes one think that people are always looking at them, or observing the things they do and make. They feel like everyone’s eyes are on them, all the time.

They don't think they're so charming that people like looking at them all the time. No, it's actually the opposite.

The reason they feel like everyone is watching them is because they feel insecure and anxious. They're afraid of making mistakes and embarrassing themself. And they feel like everyone is constantly judging and criticizing them all the time.

You might wonder: if they're a good person and they have good intentions, why would they be afraid of anything?

No no, it is because they're such a good person, that they hesitate.

They’re a good person with a good reputation, and they want to keep being that way. So they're afraid of making mistakes, thus they play it safe. Maybe too safe, that most things they do don't give them much in return or help them improve.

They tend to strictly follow the rules of internet etiquette, by avoiding things like spamming, click-baiting, recommending a product or service that they don't really use, guilt-tripping someone into answering their questions, offending people with words, being too nosy, etc.

Well-intentioned people are often mindful of how they interact with others online. They're well aware of the consequences and outcome of their actions, and how it affects their friendship / acquaintance-ship with the people they regularly interact with. However, they aren't cautious all the time. They tend to be more casual and let their guard down around closer friends and relatives.

This is a good thing, until you realise– you have become too self-conscious that your own thoughts start offending and harshly criticizing your actions before anyone on the internet does.

This slows down the growth of many online artists and creators in many ways.

A good example would be: imposter syndrome, (the feeling that you're a wolf in a sheep’s clothing, or a fraud among a group of good people). It makes us– artists and creators feel like everything we do is a bad idea.

Thinking of sending your friend a photo of your new drawing tablet? Imposter syndrome asks “Shouldn’t you be more humble?”

Thinking of telling your friend about how you argued with your mom today? Imposter syndrome says “You'd look like a spoiled kid to others”.

Thinking of sharing an artwork where there are many artists of different skill levels? Imposter syndrome asks “What if you made the beginner artists feel bad about their own art skills?”

You get the point.

Imposter syndrome tells you anything to prevent you from saying or doing things that are actually good for you.

Because of it, you regret every little mistake you make and feel embarrassed or horrible about it.

Even if you recall the very obvious fact: that mistakes are common for us humans, and it's how we learn and grow– it doesn't make the horrible feeling go away.

But in cases like these, I found that putting these horrible and embarrassing feelings into words– or even better: writing them down was very effective in making these negative feelings go away.

Here's an example:

The other day, I was feeling extremely embarrassed because of a sentence I wrote in one of my articles. It went something like, “Give yourself the freedom to change!”

Even though there's nothing wrong with that statement, I felt like I should’ve rephrased it in a different way, and I was literally cringing whenever I recall it. But I also didn't want to edit it, because— there's nothing wrong with what I wrote(?) (Pick one, my brain. Why do you have to be so difficult?)

Now that I'm putting it into words, I'm realizing what a dumb thing it was to feel embarrassed about. No one (except for me) who read that line even remembers it by now. The spotlight effect just makes me feel like it's a big deal.

If you look at other people sharing their embarrassing stories online this situation is nothing in comparison.

If something you wrote bothers you so much, just edit or delete it.

No need to waste time overthinking something that has a solution so simple. (*Taking notes for myself*).

And… would you look at that? I wrote my way into making these negative feelings go away! (Aren't blogging, journaling, and writing diaries cool?)

So, yep– Don't be afraid to show your creativity to your friends and audience, help and collaborate with other creators, and write a journal or start blogging whenever you're feeling strongly about something.

That's how you grow online along with your friends while having a healthy mindset, and build good connections.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

It’s been a while. Glad to be here again.

As I’ve shared on Notes, my mom and I spent the last couple of weeks moving to a new home.

If you’ve been here for a while, you might know that we’ve been moving from one home to another pretty frequently, so I think you deserve to know some context of our moving shenanigans this time.

We moved… back to our old neighbourhood??

A bit of a recap, the first time I wrote about moving to a new home was in this article, where I shared that we’re moving from my grandma’s home to our new home that we got in exchange for an old, unused house that our family owned in the slums.

We got three houses actually, one on the 6th floor for my aunt, one on the 4th floor for me and my mom, and one on the 1st floor for my grandma and another aunt of mine.

And then, mom and I gave up our home for rent, and moved to a small apartment where I met our friendly neighbours, a rude landlord, and a cat named Maylie and her late kittens. And we stayed there for a few months. Our landlord hated the cats, so our neighbour took Maylie and left her in the care of their relatives. (Phew, I’m so glad! Maylie has a home now).

Now, for our latest move… yep. We moved back to the old neighbourhood where our grandma is.

Now, there’s one thing I didn’t tell you, my aunt, who is living with my grandma, actually got another house in the same building, on the same 1st floor– the house that’s right on the opposite side of my grandma’s home. It’s literally 2 feet away.

Since my mom gave up our home on the fourth floor for a 1-year rent, we can’t go back there. So we ended up occupying the house our aunt got.

It has the exact same floor plan as our house on the 4th floor, so it feels like a lot has changed, yet we’re back to how it was before, haha.

I might have a low-energy problem

It’s been a pretty slow month for me. As soon as I got to my new home, I decided I would seriously work on my projects and stuff, but after the move, I was super-exhausted even though I didn’t do much. At some point, even getting out of bed became difficult, so I thought I might’ve gotten sick, but it wasn’t a fever or a cold, so mom figured it might be anemia. She also got a bit sick, so we both decided to take it easy for a while.

I’ve been feeling like I’m always low on energy lately, and even the simplest of tasks can knock the consciousness out of my brain. (Well, that’s probably because mom and I haven’t been eating on time. So I guess that’s on us for not fixing our eating habits.)

As I’m writing this, I don’t have any energy to do things. So, I must focus on regaining it, so I can get back on track and do things as usual, I suppose.

Showcasing things I made this month

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t do much this month. But I did draw random things that have nothing to do with my main projects, because I didn’t want to lose my flow with art. Here they are:

I practiced some coding while still had the energy.

So here’s a picture of me learning HTML and CSS:

I also bought a chunky crochet yarn (Category 5), and I got a big 6mm crochet hook, so how can I not use them??

It took 2 hours for me to use up the entire ball of yarn. And I made this half-finished bag:

I have to get another ball of this chunky yarn to finish this bag, so I’m saving up for it. (Yep. It’s more expensive than regular yarn). This was way too much fun. I’m definitely not buying this yarn once this bag is done, or I’ll get addicted, haha.

I also got a sketchbook, and made these little doodles:

And that’s pretty much what I did this month.

I also wanted to draw a lot of manga, and write more articles about art and make art tutorials, but I couldn’t do any of them. So… I feel pathetic, not going to lie.

I’ll be warping up this month’s journal with my favourite YouTube video.

Favourite video of the month:

You guys know I’m learning japanese. I’m not focusing fully on it, but I sometimes use the Japanese-learning apps I downloaded, or watch video like this to learn a bit (Note: Turn on Subtitles for English translations):

This channel is my favourite one to learn the language. Tanaka-san (the YouTuber teaching Japanese), is really good at teaching Japanese in an entertaining way. So if you’re interested in learning Japanese, I recommend checking out her channel, Learn Japanese With Tanaka San.

She has a lot of series and different ways to teach Japanese, but my favourite one is the Tanaka Radio series. The video I sent earlier was an episode from that series as well. I particularly like that episode, because it’s super relatable.

Hopefully, next month, I’ll have more energy to create good things and show you guys.

Have fun learning, and I hope you have a great weekend!

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

Hello!

I had a different topic planned for today, but I discovered something important about Substack, and I wanted everyone to know about it, so I'm writing this article.

The Sitemap in my Substack website has disappeared??

A few days ago, I decided to tweak some things in my Substack to improve it. While I was at it, I also changed the layout of my website/publication using the customization options that Substack provides.

After I was done, I opened my website and I noticed that– a small section that was at the bottom of the page had disappeared?? It looked like this:

This little section had links to my newsletter’s Archive, About page, Recommendations, and the Sitemap. (Only the links to those webpages disappeared; the pages themselves still exist, and I was able to locate all of them, except for the sitemap).

Now, that section is just gone, and the bottom of my website looks like this:

I looked to see if it was moved to a different section or webpage, but it was nowhere to be found.

Understandably, when it didn't see it reappear after a while, I panicked. Sitemaps are kind of an important feature. If you don't know why that is– don’t worry, I’ll explain.

Spoiler alert: I later found that my sitemap exists, and it’s just invisible. But your website may not have one because of a recent change on Substack that they didn’t tell us about.

What is a Sitemap?

Let’s start from the top. You have to know some basic things about SEO to understand why sitemaps are important.

When you search for something on Google, you get results– links to websites, Webpages, and posts.

These results are pulled from a big database called the “Search Index”.

So for your website and articles to show up on Google search, they need to be ‘indexed’ by Google. (Which means they need to get in Google’s search index).

There are programs called “Web Crawlers” or “Bots” that travel through URLs (or links) to discover websites and posts, and they'll automatically index them for us. The web crawlers of Google are called “Googlebot”.

Sitemaps are useful because they help the web crawlers navigate through your website and discover most of your webpages.

Your website will show up on Google search, even if it doesn't have a sitemap. But not having one puts smaller publications at a disadvantage, so that's why we're looking into this today.

Important notes:

1. Crawlers won't index every webpage they crawl on. They process the content on the page first and see if it's worthy of indexing (this step is called “Processing”). If they find the content useful, they'll index the page. (Google hasn't told us what the requirements are– for a page or site to get indexed by crawlers).

2. Another thing to note is that your site or webpage won't immediately get crawled and indexed as soon as you publish it online. It can take anywhere from hours to months until it starts showing up on search.

3. Sitemaps help crawlers crawl and process faster and more efficiently.

Is the homepage of your website indexed on Google?

To check if your Substack publication is indexed on Google, you can simply search:

“site:yourwebsite.substack.com”

Or search this if you’re using a custom domain:

“site:yourwebsite.com”

My substack’s name is “Harshini writes” and I’m not currently using a custom domain, so

I searched:

"site:harshiniwrites.substack.com"

The main homepage of your website should show up, even if your website doesn't have a sitemap. Mine showed up as you can see in the above image. (If it didn't show up, try reading this comment and see if it helps: Link).

A sitemap’s purpose is to help Google find the webpages and posts that are within your website.

Your website consists of several Webpages and posts. And Google needs to crawl and index all the webpages and posts separately– not just the homepage.

Your website might show up on search, but your articles may not, if they haven't been crawled and indexed by Google.

Having a sitemap on your website will tell Google which pages of your website are important, making sure that Google indexes all of the important ones, including the posts. It will automatically link newer articles you post to your sitemap.

Not having a sitemap isn’t a big deal if your Substack is a medium-sized or bigger publication. Because (later we learn that) Substack automatically gives site-maps to certain publications that meet their quality standards, which they haven’t specified to the public yet.

This official Google article says:

“A sitemap helps search engines discover URLs on your site, but it doesn't guarantee that all the items in your sitemap will be crawled and indexed. However, in most cases, your site will benefit from having a sitemap.”

Mine is a smaller publication, and I value most of my articles. I want more of my articles to get found by people. So yes, if my publication will benefit from having a sitemap, I want one. And assume you want to learn more about this, too, so I’m writing this article.

Why did my Sitemap disappear? (Asking Substack Support)

I decided to contact the Substack Support Bot to see if it knows something. Here’s how it went:

(Of course, my newsletter is set to Public mode. How else will I write to my readers?)

As it suggested, I already waited for a few days and checked back to see if the Sitemap had reappeared. Still nothing.

Back then, sitemaps were automatically given to new Substack publications as soon as they were created. Not anymore, it seems.

Luckily, I made a Substack publication back when this was true, so I had a sitemap from the start.

Now, it seems that there’s a minimum quality requirement that new Substack writers have to meet to get the feature? (At least that’s what the bot says).

also mentions this change in his article:

“I’ve been back and forth Substack support after I managed to authenticate with Google Tag Manager and discovered no sitemap. They have all been nice, but all say the same thing: promote it on social media or put links on your site, or whatever and get enough traffic and that may lead Google to index. And maybe if you get famous enough, Substack will generate a sitemap.xml and you can get your whole site indexed. But otherwise you’re out of luck.”

This is important to note for later. Here, the bot says that if a sitemap is not visible on our website, it doesn't exist at all.

I also looked at some other Substack publications. Interestingly, the websites that were customized didn't have a visible sitemap or that little section. And the publications that used the default Substack website layout– had that whole section.

After some research, I learned this: If you don't see a sitemap, it either exists in the backend of your website (so it’s invisible) or– it doesn’t exist at all!

That begs the question:

How do we (actually) know if our website has a sitemap?

Thanks to this Reddit post, I learned another way to check if our website has a sitemap. For the sake of simplicity, I call this the “Backend sitemap”.

First, go to your website’s homepage, or type this in your browser: https://Yourwebsite.substack.com (Or search this if you’re using a custom domain: https://Yourwebsite.com)

Example: my Substack publication’s name is “Harshini writes”, so I have to search “harshiniwrites.substack.com”.

Next, add this to the end of your website’s URL: “/sitemap.xml” to find your sitemap. I searched: “harshiniwrites.substack.com/sitemap.xml” to find mine.

If your website has a backend sitemap, you should see something like this:

Or, you should see something like this:

If your website doesn't have a sitemap, this is what you'll see:

How to locate your Sitemap that was generated by Substack?

I didn’t find anyone online mentioning this, but there’s a way to locate the sitemap that was generated for you by Substack.

Well, you still have to check if you have a backend sitemap by doing the previous check. But if you find that you do have one, just add “/sitemap” to the end of your publication’s URL.

And there it is! The neatly arranged sitemap that went missing in the first place:

After looking at several perfectly fine Substacks that didn’t have this sitemap visible on their website, now I’m thinking— The backend sitemap is probably what’s been helping us all along, so I don’t know what to do with this page?

Maybe I’ll just link it on my homepage, because that’s how it was before.

Did Substack really stop giving Sitemaps to new publications?

All clues point to the same thing: Substack has stopped giving sitemaps to new Substack publications, and new writers and bloggers have to meet certain requirements to get a sitemap.

I was curious, so I wanted to test it myself and see if this is true.

I made a new Substack account, finished setting up the basic settings, made a publication named “Demo newsletter”, scrolled to the bottom, and…

Yep! There’s no sitemap.

(Link to the recommendations also doesn’t exist, but that’s because I’m not recommending any Substacks in my new publication yet).

Okay, what if the sitemap exists, but it’s invisible? I added “/sitemap.xml” to the end of the website’s URL to check. And look what shows up:

This proves it. Newer Substack publications truly don’t get a sitemap. And their publication has to grow a bit, to be qualified to get one. (How much do they need to grow? I don’t know. That’s what the Substack Support Bot is refusing to tell us).

Luckily, I created my Substack last year, so my site still has a sitemap. But what about newer publications that were created this year, and they don’t have a sitemap yet? Will they still be able to get found by Google? The answer is yes, but now it’s harder to do than before. That’s what we’ll see next.

How do we get our website to be indexed without a sitemap?

I recently discovered a powerful tool that enables us to index our webpages manually without depending on sitemaps. The tool is called “Google Search Console” or GSC for short.

It’s a time-and-effort consuming process to manually index every article, especially if you have a lot of them.

There was an easier way to connect your Substack to the Google Search Console, but apparently, that option doesn’t exist for newer publications anymore.

Here’s how to check if you have that option: Go to your publication’s settings, and scroll down to a section called “Analytics”. You may see an option named “Google Site Verification.”

As you can see, my main newsletter (the older one), has that option. But the newer publication doesn’t.

If you have it, congratulations! You can connect GSC to your Substack publication, and you can manually index your articles by following the steps in this article by , or you can follow this article by .

If you don’t have that Google Site Verification option, you can still connect to Google Search Console (GSC) by using another tool called “Google Tag Manager” (GTM).

I recommend reading this article by , to know how to use GTM to connect your Substack to GSC.

I'm linking some useful articles that might help you, because I haven’t used Google Tag Manager before.

So yeah! I hope this article has helped you.

Side note:

Maybe the Substack team is cutting corners to help small writers in a different way? Maybe Substack publications grow normally even without sitemaps? Or maybe Google set a rule not to give Sitemaps to small websites? (If so, this change makes sense). Who knows? There’s a lot to theorize about, haha.

Related articles I found useful:

• How Search Engines Work by Joshua Hardwick

• What Is Googlebot & How Does It Work? by Patrick Stox

• How to Use Tags to ?Grow? Your Substack by

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

Hello! It's me.

This month was like a rollercoaster for me. A lot of bad and good things happened, and I eventually found myself getting into another new hobby for the past few weeks.

Let me tell you about it first before I share some usual updates on things (Like my manga project, newsletter, and stuff).

I'm learning to code websites!

I'm a complete beginner to this, and I've never tried to code before. So why this sudden decision? You may ask.

Well, I was inspired. A big wave of inspiration washed over me and took me along its waves when I watched this video:

This video is from one of my favourite creators, Shar. She is an artist, web developer, and animator. On top of that, she also makes and releases well-made videos on YouTube.

I absolutely love her channel; her videos never fail to radiate good vibes and make me feel cozy. I'm inspired by what she creates, especially because she does a lot of creative things and does them well. I think she's multi-passionate like me, which makes me want to try harder and create like she does.

Okay, so in the video I shared above, she shared how she made her own personal website and also added a link to her website in the video description.

As a big fan of websites & apps, this is probably the best website I've ever seen. The design, all the satisfying clicky sound effects, illustrations, personality, and the cute little frog at the bottom right corner, which plays music when clicked— it's just so beautiful!

And a strong thought crossed my mind, along with fire in my eyes:

"Man... if I'm going to have a website of my own, I want it to be like this!"

I seriously didn't know a website could feel so fun and cozy before. I didn't think it was possible. But Sharlene (which is her name) has shown me that there are endless possibilities with creating a website, and it can be fun like doing crafts or making a scrapbook, except— all the materials to make it are free! (I love free stuff. I mean, who doesn't?)

I usually see people making something nice, and I would think, "If this person can make it, why can't I?" (This mindset is probably why I have a lot of hobbies now).

That was the case this time, too. If you've been here for a while, you might be wondering, "But, Harshini, you already have a lot of things to work on, and also, what happened to your manga project?"

I'm still working on it, but there are some complications that I'll talk about later.

So— back to coding websites.

I have a few cousins in my family who code for a living, and it has always seemed to me like a very complicated and stressful job, which pays a fortune and can only be done by very experienced people and software engineers, who have taken years of paid courses and stuff.

I'm more of an artist— who doesn't know anything about that stuff. And it seemed like learning it wouldn’t be of use to me anyway, so the thought of learning to code never crossed my mind.

Well! Now I know I was wrong, a bit of research told me web developers can be self-taught too, and artists like me can learn to code websites too, and very pretty ones at that.

So I started learning on August 10. It's been 19 days so far, and I already feel like I learned a lot and I'm making good progress. This is just a start; it’s definitely going to get more difficult as I learn more.

Here’s a dumb website I made! (It has an advertisement at the bottom, but just ignore it): https://first-demo-website.tiiny.site/

I used a free web hosting service my friend recommended to me. Thanks to him, I can share my test websites with others!

I don’t really know what I’m going to make or how I’m going to put this skill to use, but I’m thinking it would be really nice to make a website with my art all scattered across webpages, so that it would feel fun for the user to explore.

This has been a lot of fun so far, and I learned some interesting things. And I think I’ll continue learning to code for a while. If I feel like dropping it mid-way, that's fine too!

I'm keeping track of my progress by journaling, and I will definitely share an article with some of my learning process, things I learned, and the free apps, courses, and software I'm using to learn and practice. (Look out for it, if you're interested in learning to code yourself!)

Newsletter updates:

As I had a lot of things to work on, I didn’t focus much on my newsletter for the past month, except for writing and posting articles and dropping by on Substack Notes, once in a while.

I also lost subscribers, which is— fine, I write more for those who’ve been sticking around for a long time. And I could tell I was getting kind of sloppy, making typing and grammar mistakes here and there, editing after sending out the emails. (I’ll try to minimize these mistakes and put more focus when writing).

You might have noticed that I also changed the place of the subscribe button to right after the introduction. This is because I think it conveys what my newsletter is about, and placing it at the end means it can easily be overlooked, so I made this little change. (Let me know if it's not a good idea, I'll change it back).

Taking a break from my manga project:

Sometimes a problem from outside will get in the way of our creativity, and it will take us some days to recover from it and get back on track. That’s the case for me this month.

Even though the (metaphorical) storm has passed, I found it hard to continue drawing. And I’ve been forcing it a bit too much for a while now.

I didn’t intend for it to feel like this. So I decided it’s time to take a longer break than usual to reset and start fresh. This means I won’t be drawing manga for the rest of August, and I will only continue on September 10. In the meantime, I decided to do some planning, change my ways, and try some new things.

Some new things I’m working on this month:

Aside from coding, I took an interest in learning how artists sell their art. (And also how I can stop being broke, *cough* *cough*).

There are lots of ways to sell art! But I was interested in finding out which ways would suit me, and I was curious about the nitty-gritty details of how artists take art commissions. Also, there’s a friend who was telling me to try freelancing, so I figured I’d just make and set up an account for now, without really hoping to get any orders.

I did some research, and I know an artist who works on art commissions, so I also asked her for advice. And I learned that…

A lot of artists had a really bad experience with Fiverr(?). It seemed like Fiverr is more for technical and business stuff, so I looked for an alternative that would be fit for artists.

Fortunately, I found a really good website! It’s called “Artistree”. As the name suggests, it’s specifically for artists. Some of my favorite artists use it, so I figured, “Why not?” and made an account. The setup was surprisingly easy, and the platform offers a lot of benefits for artists. (I’m not being sponsored; these are my honest thoughts).

You can read their resource page and learn more about their platform using these links:

• Artistree General FAQs

• Artistree Help & Guides

So… I posted my first commission sheet! I’m starting with smaller pricing to see how it goes and build some communication skills if I get clients. There are probably more things I have to learn about this, but—

You can check out my commission sheets through this link: My Artistree Profile.

To be honest, I’m not really expecting to get any orders. I just think it’s a nice-to-have in case I’m talking with someone and they like my art and wonder if I’m open for commissions.

I can just send this link to them.

Favourite video of the month:

With no doubt, Sharlene’s video about her personal website is my favorite video of the month, but there’s also another video I really liked, so I’ll share that here.

This is a video from another YouTube artist I like, and I liked it mostly because it was very relatable. He accurately conveyed what I was feeling about art throughout this month and made me rethink some things. So if you find the title of this video to be relatable, I highly recommend watching it:

Side Note:

A while ago, I worked on a collaborative artwork with a few friends. You may have seen just the sketch I shared on notes, but in this article, my artist friend, shared, you can see the complete artwork, and in between stages!

Nirved

Do you really love working alone?

Zoro probably can handle everything alone. Yet, he is a part of crew. We can also see that he is achieving greater feat while enjoying the company of his amazing crew mates…

Read more

10 months ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · Aadu

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini

Harshini, a multi-passionate artist here!

Sorry for the weird intro. Thought I'd introduce myself to those who are new here. (Not sorry).

When you're working on smaller artworks that take less than one hour to finish, it's a smooth sailing. You sit down, start drawing, and just finish. You feel proud of finishing it, and you go ahead and take a break, start drawing another piece, or do something else.

But, if you're working on a really big art project, that would take a long time to finish, but it's important to you– it just feels… a hundred times difficult to do.

You can draw, but it feels like it's taking forever, you can't even draw as fast as you did when making that smaller art piece, and you don't feel like you're making progress even if you draw two art pieces for the main project.

So… what causes big art projects to feel so difficult?

The first reason could be that it's too big.

If you're tasked with just sketching a character or an object, you can just finish it right away. No sweat.

But if you're tasked with drawing for… a large book, with 100 high-quality, fully rendered, illustrations for example. Would you feel very motivated? In most cases, you can feel motivated at the start, it feels easy for the first two illustrations, but you would notice that your motivation is slowly dissipating, until you have no motivation, but 98 illustrations left to draw.

#1: Are you really ready to take on a big art project?

First things first, you have to consider a few things before you say yes to the big art project offered to you by someone.

If you're a beginner, and you haven't built an art portfolio yet, definitely don't take on a big art project or start doing commission work. Especially if you’re not very confident in your art skills.

I’ve seen a lot of beginners make the mistake of accepting bigger offers, and regret their choice later down the line.

I know it feels exciting, and you don't want to miss an opportunity that comes your way, especially if you have never gotten an art project before.

But most of the time, what happens is that the big art project becomes too much of a burden, difficult to manage, stressful, and in the worst case scenario, art will become not fun anymore, and you will lose your passion for art.

So what I recommend doing is making a lot of small artworks, to both improve your skills and also to pick some good ones to add to your portfolio.

#2: Break your project into smaller parts

I asked my friend who is a manga artist for advice, and she said she usually breaks up the big project into 3 or 4 parts.

For example, if you have to draw 100 drawings in total, you can break it into four parts: 25, 25, 25, and 25.

And then finish the storyboard (or script if you're making a comic) for the first part.

And then start sketching the first part, and add line art, colours and so on.

I haven't started following this tip yet, but I’m sure it will be effective since it's similar to a productivity tip called “Chunking” where one breaks a big task into several smaller parts to make the project seem less intimidating.

#3: Start working on small side projects

Make time for practicing drawing things, separate from your main project.

Aside from working on your main project, set some time aside for practicing drawing things that are separate or unrelated to your main project.

I learned this from the book “Steal Like An Artist” where Austin Kleon shared the importance of side projects. And also from my friend who is a manga artist. He calls this art practice, “Training”.

At this point, some people might get confused. Like- isn't that being counter-productive? Why spend time drawing things that you're never going to use in your main project, when you can use that time to work on the main project?

Let me explain.

If you're really good at drawing trees, you are able to draw them fast. But if you try drawing something you haven't drawn before– for example: a chair, it takes you significantly more time to draw. Even though the tree looks more complex than the chair, the chair took way more time to finish than the tree. Why is that?

Because you've drawn a lot of trees, many many times, learned a lot of tips and techniques that are specific to drawing trees and you've gotten yourself familiar with the process. While you're not so familiar with the process of drawing chairs.

When you draw something new or something you haven't practiced enough, it will take you a lot of time. It's a struggle to finish.

That's why when you have a big project like creating a comic or a manga, which requires you to draw tons of new things you haven't drawn before, it gets pretty difficult, and you slow down a lot.

Continuing to work on the main project can become quite hard, especially if you're getting stuck every week because you have to keep drawing new things you're unfamiliar with.

It's like navigating through a huge forest with no map or a compass.

What's the solution? Spend some training to improve your art. Drawings made when training are separate from your main project, and it focuses on helping you improve your art skills.

Start super small side projects that can be finished within a day or a week, and just keep drawing things on the side.

If you're struggling with drawing poses for example, spend 15 minutes to an hour every day, on just drawing a bunch of poses. Use references while practicing, so that you can build your visual library.

In one month, when you draw poses for your main project, they'll be difficult and take a lot of time to finish. And the next month, you would have gotten faster at drawing the poses, thanks to the training and side projects you worked on.

You won't give as much importance to the training drawings as much as your main project, so you can draw more freely, and faster, and you'll have a piece of mind because it's okay to mess up.

When training, you can experiment a lot, practice drawing things that you want to get good at, try that one drawing technique you learned yesterday, and most importantly, have fun drawing. It helps you make creating art feel less stressful and the process feel more enjoyable.

Working on side projects, or sketching or doodling something for fun will help you improve your art skills alongside making progress on your main project.

But, obviously you don't want to end up spending too much time on your side projects. In this case, balance is the key.

#4: Have a good collection of artworks to show

Here is a common problem for ambitious artists who take on big projects:

If you keep working on only your important big art project for a long time, you'll feel like crap.

Why?

Because you keep drawing for such a long time, but you still don't have anything to show for all your spent time and effort.

The thing with big projects like making art books and comics, is that you can't show much of it to anyone until it's complete. Especially if you're working on a comic or a manga (like me), because you don't want to spoil the story, and people won't understand the pages or panels you share without the context.

This is another reason why you have to work on side projects.

If you're an artist who is trying to build your online presence (like me), you have to share some of your drawings with your friends and audience, to keep them from forgetting that you exist. to remind them that you're still there, drawing and creating stuff.

As an independent artist, it's hard to survive if you don't have a good art portfolio.

And working on side projects will help you get a good collection of artworks, which you can show to your friends, post on your socials, add to your art portfolio, or just browse through them to feel good, seeing the awesome art pieces you've created.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨

- Harshini