50 Goals: Create a Grand Tally for My Project

Oct 23, 2025 | | 0 Comments

One of my 50 Goals this year was to create and maintain a Grand Tally for my project. And it’s done!

Why a Grand Tally? Isn’t this a bit disheartening, since I am not allowed to work for two years minimum? Well, no. I am chomping at the bit, I won’t lie, but I also accept that I have to work within this set of rules where I won’t earn any money with my project in that timeframe.

So I’m making this a game. And I’m using it for transparency.

How many people, like me, wonder how they’re going to make money with their art? Well, I have two years to build up my assets. Two years working toward my goal to one day be able to live on my earnings.

It will be fun to make it a zero-to-income, maybe, hopefully, a rags-to-riches challenge. In two years, I will have to face the cost of building my project, and assess if my bet that I will earn this money back is realistic or not.

I am not going to be hyper frugal, but I am not going to spend all willy-nilly either. I will use available funds to set myself up for success, mostly learning-wise.

Do you keep a Grand Tally for your project? If not, how do you know when it becomes profitable? Let me know in the comments.

The Difficulty of Doing the Things I Want to Do

Oct 16, 2025 | | 0 Comments

My friend Stephanie wrote a blog post (in french) about doing the things you want to do. She had a lot more to say about that than what I will blog about here, but I’m focusing my reply (as an attempt to reboot my blogosphere) on what applies to me.

I don’t have a diagnosis. Not of ADHD, not of autism. I am only approaching these topics from someone who has been in the know with her two children. I know how people like to get all up in arms when people like me self-diagnose, but it is what it is, and if you’re offended, you don’t have to stay here and read the rest.

Tons of what I read about autism and ADHD—AuDHD— applies to me in some form or other. I too have difficulties starting things, for multiple reasons. Often it’s because, well, like Stephanie, I don’t want to do the tasks. I think it can be commonly found in tons of individuals, neurospicy or not.

Somehow, it’s easier for me to force myself, to guilt myself, into doing something I am dreading to do. 🤷‍♀️

Other times, for the things that I truly want to do, it’s because I am missing something for me to feel able of starting (like with choosing my color palette, which took me way too long). Some organization stuff, some small step that is missing and that I instinctively know will trip me up in the process.

Like Stephanie, I am no longer able to fix myself objectives. It no longer works for me. I used to be able to do that a few years ago, but now any kind of pressure stops me from starting—or even wanting to start. It dissuades me from even enjoying what I was about to do, even when it’s something I was looking forward to.

Unlike Stephanie, though, I cannot schedule things and hope that with assigning enough time for a task, I’ll be able to do it. I won’t. It will feel forced, I will resist, I won’t succeed. It’s something new, and something I am slowly learning to live with. If I tell myself: “tomorrow I will do X”, you can be sure I will do anything but. And it spoils all the fun of doing the things I actually want to do.

So I don’t plan. I make a point in not scheduling. I look for whims, and when I spot one, I jump and act on it.

Some habit building can sometimes help. I know that I feel in a blogging mood when I have everything set up to feel cozy. A cup of coffee or a cold drink. Feeling nice under a blanket. Having a video in the background—one of those you don’t have to look at, like waves on a beach or a babbling brook in a forest. Having read something stimulating. Those are the best conditions for me to think, “oh, I feel like blogging about X”.

Body doubling is also very helpful, except the fact I can’t ask my family for their time. My husband works, my kids have therapy (and also, are kids even if they’re young adults now—they have better things to do than spend time helping their mom).

Breaking tasks down annoys me to no end. A lot of ADHDers have a tree structure type of brain. Mine also makes me capable of jumping from A to Z without having to go through B, C, D, etc. to understand in what order I need to do things. Not sequential, if I can call it like that? These two types of thinking work in parallel in my brain, and I can access one or the other depending on what’s (instinctively) the most useful at the moment.

The boredom is the real problem here. I have read about behaviorism for years. It served me well to help my sons. The problem is that there is no incentive to try to out-behavior myself. There are no real reinforcements that I can’t give myself whenever, after all.

I also have self-imposed pressure. “I can’t do this before XYZ”. “I can’t start any artisting before my Artelier is done”. “I can’t work on something I enjoy before I finish Administrative Task #65678″. Even worse—”I can’t do this thing I will enjoy when my poor husband is in his office, working”. Even if I know he would want me to relax and do what I enjoy. Even if I know he’s having fun working.

How fucked up is that?!

The only thing that works for me is to find a way to “facilitate”. Even then, it doesn’t always work, but at least it opens the possibility of eventually doing the Thing later on. For example, I set up my writing files. All is backed up, all is ready for me to jump into writing the next time I feel like it. The whim may never come, but in the small chance it does, I will be ready. And since the facilitating looks like work, I feel less guilty about spending time doing it.

Of course, a lifetime of abuse and trauma has conditioned me to feel guilty enjoying things. My only goal had to be useful to others—the really great ones, the achievers, the earners. I was never to have ambitions—I was to feel shame to even consider my life to be important, too.

That’s some forty years shit to deconstruct. I’m not there yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be, to be honest, but I’m trying.

I believe that the part that fights to do the things I want to do is too tired nowadays. I don’t have the energy, and it’s not helping. I try to put myself in a good mindset—motivate myself, remind myself there is no fucking reason not to do that thing that I want to do—but it fails more often than not. The pain and fatigue don’t help, but the little Irma that has sacrificed all her life to be a stepping stone for others keeps wondering why would things change. And if she’s really, truly safe to change them.

Stephanie has a lot of strategies listed in blog post that help her with doing the things she wants to do. Her advice is very strong, and could totally help you if you’re having the same kind of stupid paralysis we do.

I used to be able to do this too. Now, it’s… what, too much pressure? Mentally? Physically, too, and that has to be taken into account. I need a slower pace. I need to be kind to myself and not setting myself to fail because I remember how I was when I was younger.

Anyway. I don’t really have working solutions—just attempts. For today, I’ll consider they’re good enough. I don’t want to put pressure on myself anymore. It doesn’t work anymore.

At least for me!

I Live for Small Delights

Oct 16, 2025 | | 0 Comments

There are moments in my life when I feel despair. I can’t say they’re not justified. But at the same time, I can’t deny I’m a very easy person to please.

I enjoy the little things—my husband making me coffee in the morning, watching a movie together, organizing my creative space. I like feeling cozy and romanticizing my day-to-day life.

This is why getting these pins organizers today brought a little light back into this moody day where I can’t step outside to get a package without almost fainting.

See, these are my little treasures. I haven’t brought myself to wear them yet—not because I am ashamed, nor because I don’t feel brave enough to support their messages to the world, but for a completely stupid reason: I’m not allowing myself to use the beautiful things. And for something like stickers, I could pardon myself, but for pins? Really?!

So displaying them in these little drawers, and planning on having them in a prominent place in my artelier, is the next best thing. I will have to work on the damn fears later.

My amazing husband immediately chose the pins he preferred in the order I made for him, and pinned them on his bag.

I don’t have a bag like that, I have two cute bags and a leather one, where I don’t want to pin things. I also don’t have a jacket (don’t worry about me, it’s not that I can’t afford one—I usually don’t wear any, which has got to change now that I’m feeling cold a lot of the times).

All these little pins say stuff about me. About who I am inside, about my sense of humor. About what is important to me.

For the sake of my mental health, I’m going to continue living for the little things. I’m going to enjoy making my space cozy, and feeling joy when I see things that bring me joy.

I got other little trinkets to make my Artelier cozy. I’m not putting them anywhere yet, because the work on the Artelier’s furniture will not start before November, but I’ll probably share those glimmers with you later.

I remember tearing up at Summer Strike last year. Or was it the year before that? This series has brought me so much, emotionally. When Yeo-reum says:

My life is truly sufficient. I haven’t quite figured out how I should go on, but my life is sufficient. Let’s live this life.

This. This is what I want.

A sufficient life. A slow, sweet, homebody life, surrounded by my loved ones, doing things I enjoy in a cozy environment.

After a lifetime of grief and trauma, I truly believe it is not too much to ask for. And I’ll fight for it.

Choosing My Color Palette

Oct 16, 2025 | | 0 Comments

I don’t want my projects to be all over the place, color-wise, so I’ve decided to work on the kind of palette I’d enjoy drawing in.

My first decision was a simple grayscale palette. I used it to draw the two Shadowdark maps I created for my husband’s scenario. I was able to assert that they work for me—the grays are sufficiently different to be used in contrast with each other, and still look good (at least to me).

Then, because I love rainbows and pastels, I chose the following colors for future illustrations.

I still have to refine my drawing style (which is one of my goals this year), but I think I will lean in both kawaii and spooky themes. I believe that merging pastels with darker colors might look nice, more on that later, hopefully!

And then, I wanted to get my blues in. My #5271FF, of course, and then two others that could work with it in future illustrations.

Are these palettes definitive? No. I still have to test them out, but from my experience with drawing on Procreate, similar colors have worked for me in the past. I’ll use them as a basis and might modify or expand them later, if I decide it is better.

If you want to use the same swatches as me, you can download them here and import them in Procreate:

Since this is finally done, I might have an easier time starting on one of my projects (eliminating barriers usually helps, fingers crossed!).

The Problem With Being Undiagnosed

Oct 3, 2025 | | 0 Comments

Sometimes, I come out of social media pissed off. People who have no idea what neuroatypism is, or what chronic illnesses are, come around and cast their ignorant judgement.

Sometimes, I envy them. Lack of empathy notwithstanding, they have the luck not to know how it is, and their lives must be at least a tiny little bit easier than ours. Privilege.

I won’t cast stones, I was privileged at some point too, and I was probably just as judgemental as they are. Except now I’m on the other side, and I see it all with more clarity.

And that clarity is something that weighs a ton on me lately. Because I’m at the end of my strength, and yet undiagnosed. Somehow, because women, and even more older women, are rarely diagnosed. Because fat people’s health problems are always put on their weight—of course, according to too many doctors, fat people don’t ever get sick, only their laziness and food addiction is to blame.

Well, I have a plethora of problems. They’re all intricately related. And I’m burned out, man. I can’t anymore. Doctors don’t want to hear it, they all blame it on my weight, or on the diabetes. Even when it’s not a related symptom. That is, when they even take the time to hear me out.

I’m pretty sure I am autistic. Maybe even AuDHD. I went to see a neuropsychologist to take some tests a few years back. Of course, tests being oriented for the diagnostic of young boys, and me being a middle-aged woman back then, they didn’t substantiate me being anything other than normal. At the exit assessment, the neuropsychologist said I might have overcompensated autism, but that the test results didn’t place me into that category so he couldn’t add it to the report.

I was just shy of a gifted diagnosis too. Verbal skills matter in the assessment of IQ, so I was just in the superior bracket, not the gifted one. Does it matter? No, but it’s another piece of the puzzle when it comes to my (I believe) neurodiversity.

I’m pretty sure I have C-PTSD. It’s something that no one will diagnose, so I just have to make accomodations for myself, and avoid mentioning it because people—and doctors—look at me like I’m looking for excuses.

I’m also pretty sure I have another chronic illness. I have hidradenitis suppurativa, but I’ve had it for years now. I know how it is like, and it doesn’t explain all the other symptoms. The diabetes doesn’t either.

I understand that the accumulation of problems makes me look like a nut, a hypochondriac in the eyes of doctors. I don’t want to diagnose myself, but I have to do something when no one cares enough to look into what I could actually have.

Why being diagnosed matters to me

It shouldn’t. I am a grown woman, at the age where I can pretty much decide everything for myself. I have a privilege position where I don’t have to want for anything. I could just say “fuck it” and just… well, be. I don’t have to prove myself to people.

But there is a financial matter. If anything happened to my husband (Universe forbid, how awful that thought is!), I wouldn’t be able to afford our house, groceries… anything, really. Going back to work is not an option—I’ve been out of the workforce for more than twenty years, and since my health is down the toilet, I couldn’t even work a day job to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Yet, it goes deeper than that.

From a psychological standpoint, it’s hard. It’s almost impossible already to deconstruct the capitalist mindset when you’ve bathed in it for decades. So it’s horrible to be unable to work and earn money. It’s horrible to feel useless.

It’s also hard to allow oneself whatever accommodation you need. Somedays I feel fine. I can walk, I can stand, I can do things. Some days, I can’t. I feel light-headed, like I’m going to pass out. My limbs are heavy, I ache all over. I have an abnormal fatigue. It’s very hard to justify to myself (and the world) that I need a cane. I have a special cane that transforms into a seat when I need to sit down. Without it, I would have passed out many times when we go outside. It’s been life-saving.

I still feel guilty using it. Like, because I don’t have a diagnosis, I don’t “deserve” an accommodation. People around look at me weird. I feel the judgement in their eyes. “Why the fuck is she using a cane at her age?” “Probably because she’s FAT.”

By the way, fuck you with my weight. I’m at the lowest point I have been in more than twenty years. I eat the healthiest I’ve ever eaten. Stop the fatphobia, okay?

I can’t exercize. I feel worse after exercizing, and you can’t exercize chronic fatigue into feeling better with time. Fucking exercizing makes me fucking worse. Fuck you and your “you need to exercize”. Also, how do you want me to exercize when I feel like fainting just walking around the house?

So, it’s not just a “other people” problem. It’s a “me” problem too. I have stopped waiting for the medical field to care about me. I have also stopped looking for outside solutions. Reading about fellow chronically ill people like me let’s me know everything I have to know: no one can help me. There is no solution, no miracle med. I guess I just have to say in that void, where I don’t know exactly what I have, and just abandon all will to feel better at some point.

I get so infuriated when people around me say “it will get better” or “hope you feel better soon”. I know they’re not ill-intentioned. It just is another time where I have to fight for myself, justify, explain, and feel it’s falling on deaf ears. They cannot fathom that there is nothing to be done. They cannot accept that this is my life now. I can related—I cannot accept it either. But is it what it is.

What now?

Now, I need to work on:

  • tracking my symptoms (which is one of my goals this year), to hopefully at some point be taken seriously by doctors,
  • my mindset—I need to find ways not to be crushed by the depression brought by my health and mental health struggles,
  • educating others, here or IRL, because I can’t keep living in a world where I am not understood.

It’s not much. I don’t feel confident this will make any change towards anything good. But I gotta try, right?

Geddonverse Games: Building the Menu System (Part I)

Oct 1, 2025 | | 0 Comments

As I was blogging about earlier, I am trying to work on systems, not games. That means I have to find a way to code something that can be reusable in every new project, hopefully in a customized way.

So I’m starting with a Menu system. Why? Because every game (and app) needs a start menu, options menu, pause menu, etc. at some point. My goal is to only code what I am using, and not run around adding features I might not need. It will be on a need-to-use basis.

So, what do I need so far?

For the Start Menu, I need:

  • a New Game button,
  • an Option button, that will not do anything for now, but will change the scene later to an Options Menu,
  • a Quit button.

I will implement a save/load system at a later date, and will only then add the corresponding buttons wherever need be.

What else do I need, that is not a priority but that I would enjoy?

  • a splash screen, different from the Godot one
  • pixel art for Geddonverse Games
  • some music for the Start Menu

This is the first part. Later on, I want to create a Test Project where I can test everything. I would have to be able to import that Menu System, and pass different variables in order to make modifications (colors, music, background, etc.):

  • pass the name of the New Game scene (or implement a standard for my own games, where the name of the New Game scene is always the same from game to game),
  • pass the background music file I want it to play
  • pass the background image to replace the background color
  • pass the game title or an image to replace the Game Title label

So far, only the Quit button is implemented. I also added some feedback that prints a message when the buttons are pressed in the output panel.

Yes, the menu is very simplistic and doesn’t look like much, but my goal is to have something that works first, and then I’ll see to make it nicer. Options and Pause Menus will be implemented later on.

All of it is scary, because I can only rely on my small experience in PHP/MySQL twenty years ago to figure out how it could work, and zhuzh it up as I go.

This is the state of the Start Menu right now.

Till next time!

September 2025 Recap

Oct 1, 2025 | | 0 Comments

October is here, and I’m here too—for the Fall and spooky vibes! There is not much Halloween celebrating where I live (either in my country, France, or my beloved neighborhood, whose population is mostly Turkish and Algerian).

And with October’s start, I wanted to make some kind of recap of the previous month. I don’t have much energy nowadays, because of my chronic illnesses, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, chronic everything, and seeing that I still succeeded in making some progress is good on my soul.

Blogging

I have been publishing 15 blog posts in the month of September. That’s a post every two days, in average. Not bad, since blogging more is one of my goals this year. In August, I had only posted once.

So, I’ve updated the passive income assets creation counter on my homepage. Will blogging create income? Possible, but it’s more an asset for visibility that will attract traffic to my websites at some point.

Plus, I love to blog, so there’s that.

September Goals

My list of goals for September was almost all done. I started working on a game dev project by learning to make pixel art. I did not blog about progress on future income, but I did write about the assets I made (a little Irma character, a zombie, and a pixel fan art).

My husband and I worked on building some Ikea furniture for my Artelier. I’m still waiting for the handyman to start working on the things we don’t feel comfortable doing, though.

My iPad is reset and set up for future Procreate usage. I want to work on future passive income by creating designs for print-on-demand. I’m looking forward to creating some characters for my universe and put them in fun, cozy or spooky situations.

I tried to kickstart most of the social media accounts I created. I will make little status report of my first month below.

I worked on one of my health goal by getting a visio visit with a doctor. It did absolutely nothing good for my mental health, but at least I have the diabetes meds I need.

I found backups of all the books I’ve written as Irma Geddon (if you didn’t know, I published a few with this pen name a few years back, and even was included in a boxed set that earned me the USA Today Bestselling Author title). I’ve put them back into Scrivener—finished, edited books, as well as works in progress—for the next time I feel like writing fiction.

I also started the Grand Tally of my future passive income project. For now, it’s just listing expenses, since I can’t start earning income before end of March 2027.

Learning

I have followed some tutorials to learn how to make pixel art. It is fun, and I want to create my own assets for my games, so I will probably dabble with Aseprite more in the future.

I have also taken a course in drawing kawaii isometric rooms with Procreate.

Last but not least, I have started coding in Godot and I am working on a main menu system for my future game(s).

Social Media

I have started my accounts between the beginning of August and the end of September, except for my Facebook account which I already had for a long time. So, this will be the first time I make a followers/friends count.

A lot of these accounts have few to no followers. I expected it. I have not been very active on social media—but I’m starting today with interacting more. Following my brainstorming, I will focus on Bluesky for the month of October, and see where that leads. If you’re on Bluesky, say hi!

In conclusion

I did almost everything I wanted to do in September. I didn’t blog about progress of creating assets for future passive income, because I didn’t create anything that could be used that way last month (except from some pixel art that may or may not end up in a game).

There is a ton for me to look forward to in October. Coffee to drink, time spent under a blanket as I blog, draw or code—I love Fall vibes. I like that the weather is colder, but still sunny most times. The air is crisp, and somehow time slows a little for me.

I wonder what I will be able to create, and how much I will be able to progress in my projects.

Working on Systems, Not Games

Sep 30, 2025 | | 0 Comments

In my goal of trying to learn how to create games with Godot, I watch a lot of game dev videos on YouTube. I stumbled upon this one, which scratches my brain the right way:

I recently joined the Godot Engine Discord server, and was able to ask for clarifications on how to actually create systems. Turns out you can either put them in your game project, or directly have them as separate projects that you can then import as addons in any other project you might want them in.

I like the idea of systems projects outside of your main projects, because I would only need to modify, debug, improve on them in one place instead of digging into every projects’ code to find out where I put them.

I’m also thinking of building “tests” as I go, so that I can easily check if everything is working, and have a comprehensible error message if something fails (as it is bound to do).

My tired brain is slow at learning, but I am determined.

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