Working on starting something up that is both an area that I love, and has the potential to be rather successful.

The last few days have had periods of giddy excitement, being completely overwhelmed, feeling confident and excited, and being scared shitless.

Daddypopp got me a fantastic book for my birthday, The War of Art... and I remembered this quote that I had to go back and look up:

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident.  The real one is scared to death. . . The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch.  He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself.  Is he scared?  Hell, yes.  He's petrified.

And a few others:

The professional, though he accepts money, does his work out of love.  He has to love it.  Otherwise he wouldn't devote his life to it of his own free will.  The professional has learned, however, that too much love can be a bad thing. . . The seeming detachment of the professional, the cold-blooded character to his demeanor, is a compensating device to keep him from loving the game so much that he freezes in action. 

Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?

Someone once asked the Spartan king Leonidas to identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed.  He replied: "Contempt for death."  For us as artists, read "failure." 

On your personal territory:

A territory is a closed feedback loop.  Our role is to put in effort and love; the territory absorbs this and gives it back to us in the form of well-being.

A territory can only be claimed by work. . . A territory doesn't give, it gives back.

A territory returns exactly what you put in. . . Every erg of energy you put in goes infallibly into your account.

I've never regretted a moment of the things I've done online and the art I've created in pursuit of what I love and believe in. 

Wonderful book for anyone who needs a kick in the pants.

Chris explained something to me yesterday that was both poignant and hilarious.  I was trying to explain that my site(s) weren't that different from other personal/blog/cam sites I see... okay, I might get into it a little more and get slightly obsessive at optimizing and enhancing at times, but really, the elements are the same.

He interrupts and says:  "Sweetie, no it's not.  You're fucking insane for doing what you do.  If you did what you do for your own site for other companies, you'd be off making six figures somewhere right now.  You're like that weird guy who has his own roadside attraction because he's turned his house into a replica of an entire Moorish castle made out of tin cans or cheese or something.  You know the story, it took him forty years of his life to build it and he lost his family in the process, but he just wouldn't stop."