I need more hours in the day

It's just gone 6 pm; Erik'll be coming over in an hour, for dinner and movie or music or whatever it is we do, and all I've accomplished today is spackling the rent-a-room, yoga class, and sketching. Most of the time I spent sketching.

This is fantastic.

This is awful.

Thing is, it's awesome, I'm really enjoying it, and I can already see improvement from when I sat down four hours ago! But I'm slow, real improvement is slow, and when my madalchemist got home I realized I hadn't done enough on the things with deadlines today -- okay, the spackle* has to dry, so I can't paint yet, but I still have a chapter to write, my new year's card isn't even drawn** yet and it's already almost Valentine's, and I have a painting commission to do.*** Then there's always practicing (okay, I did manage half an hour of vocal work) and cleaning the house (well, did one load of dishes).

The thing is... I want to get better at art, I kick myself for not doing it enough, but I have a really hard time allowing myself to do it before 'real work' is done. For some reason I still think it's a treat. I DO enjoy it, but the 'treat' status means it always comes last. Today I broke that rule, and it was great except that now I'm hit with guilt and a bit of schedule panic.

I'm hoping some of this turmoil is just the lack of sleep last night. (Speaking of which, thank you stasia for being awake and willing to deal with my whiny-ass self at almost midnight!).

*I love the word spackle. SpackleSpackleSpackleSpackle. When I wasn't drawing or spackling I was spamming twitter about spackle.

**The new year's card is a very, very different type of art from the illustration/figure stuff I'm practicing.

***The commission is ALSO a very different type of art.