My school year is winding down...we're done at the end of the week. I'm not working this summer (unless you count "finding a job" as work), and so I'd like to set myself some manageable writing goals.
1. Complete my article for Toasted Cheese (due in August).
2. Participate in Debbie's 500 words a day challenge
3. Submit. I need slightly more concrete goals than that, but I'll start there.
4. Do some serious work on revising Julia's Song.
That's probably enough for now. I don't want to overwhelm myself before I even get started!
Wish me luck.
Yesterday, I decided to pull out the MS I completed for NaNoWriMo (working title: Julia's Song) and take a look. I even sent it to my Kindle so I could read it more easily.
I'm not all the way through it, but here are some things I definitely need to work on:
1. It needs a much better beginning. As it is, it kind of starts twice because I changed my mind about both where/how to start AND the pov character partway into the story.
2. There's a subplot that probably has to go. It's out of place in this story and doesn't go anywhere.
3. The romantic interest needs a lot of fleshing out. She's kind of flat and boring.
4. A few other characters need some work as well. There's some backstory that I left kind of vague and undefined, but now I'm pretty sure I know what I want it to be.
There are a lot of things I like about this story, which I suppose is a good thing. I'm not entirely convinced that it's good *enough*, but I guess that's what revisions are for...I'd just hate to do the revisions and then decide it's crap. Meh.
I have another seed of an idea floating around in my head. A paranormal thriller. Thriller? What the heck am I thinking? But there it is, and it doesn't seem to want to go away. I'm thinking of a teenage protagonist, and I'll want to create a sort of Scooby Gang of characters around her. She sees dead people, and solves mysteries. Think Veronica Mars meets Buffy meets The Sixth Sense. Or something. It's still pretty vague and nebulous right now. ;)
Last night, I couldn't sleep, so I got up and got out a journal and wrote a bit. I made a promise to myself to carve out 15 minutes a day to devote to writing. That's all...start small, and see where it goes.
Today, I decided to go through my various journals and notebooks and compile a master list of story ideas that have never gone anywhere. I think there are at least one or two things in there I can pursue.
I'm also finding a lot of interesting things in these notebooks...a bit of a poem I jotted down after X and I broke up (and various other fragments of things...I was really, really angry).
What's also interesting is how many notebooks I have. It's like, I just stop and move on to a new one. It's such a waste of good paper!
Anyway, I feel like I was at least semi-productive today. Yay. :)
So yeah...it's been two years or so since I actually visited/updated this blog. I thought I should do something about that. It seems I've been so busy getting married/moving/starting new jobs that I've all but forgotten about, y'know, writing. I've done some little things here and there...a writing promp, etc, but nothing of substance. Nothing that makes writing a regular part of my life, and that makes me a little sad. Sure, I've been busy, but isn't everyone?
I have a copy of The Artist's Way sitting on my shelf, and I've heard lots of good things about it. Maybe this will be the week I actually jump in, try to get my creativity flowing again.
Much has happened since I last checked in with you. Or it at least seems that way.
I am preparing for another show opening next month.
Sort of.
I've had another birthday.
I took a 7-day jaunt to California to see my mother and my sister for the aforementioned event.
See yesterday's post.
I've had my locks cut and coiffed and colored, California style. I've got an Electra thing going on.
See yesterday's post.
Our last ferret died, an hour before my flight touched down the day I arrived home.
She was over 7 years old and had cancer. Still tough.Still sucks.
I often don't blog about the mundane day to day crap in my life because I am certain if it bores me, it will surely bore the shit out of you. However, as a friend points out, many people enjoy reading themundane, everyday events of some else's life because it can remind themthey are not alone and what I consider to be mundane and boring may
indeed entertain, inspire and invigorate someone else.
Take today, for instance. I got up, got ready to go to the gallery.Waited for the sCARE van to collect me and carry me to the gallery. Onthe van, I was duly grunted at by the driver as I handed over my ticket and eyed carefully as I dug around in my bag for my MP3 playerso I could listen to my daily dose of KATG.
Once at the gallery, I fired up my laptop, turned on lights, got mydaily fix of Diet Coke and checked e-mail, fixed a few blurps on thegallery blog and website, researched blog stores and eCommerce throughblogging (John Unger's got a terrific eCommerce Guide over on his Typepad Hacks site. It's chockfull of eCommerce information that is useful for anyone who blogs.) I did some online marketing and promotion for the gallery siteand blog . I am now writing the post you are now reading and once done with that I will peruse Popscribe and the KATG Forums or maybe read my feeds for the remaining 30 or so minutes until closing and then wait for sCARE to again collect me and carry me back home.
Once home, we might go out and grab a bite or I might toss someleftovers in microwave and call it dinner before I settle in for anevening of TV and stitching or maybe a little artmaking on the offchance I feel inspired.
My life is so exciting and glamorous. Can you stand it?
Actually there is probably some truth to the whole what's boring to me might not be boring to someone else. I keep up
with many of my favorite blogs daily because I care about what is happening to their owners, boring or not. We all have our off periods. It's the loyal friends and readers who get through with you that are so endearing.
myself in a fit of geekiness.
I am afterall, despite outward appearances, rather anti-social and reclusive with a healthy pinch of misanthrope
thrown in for a pinch of spice.
I find myself once more slipping on my posts to this journal, which I've admitted I can't let go of. I really enjoy reading my neighborhood about once a week, but I'm finding that I'm crossposting between here and my REAL personal blog quite a bit, so I'm just going to bite the bullet and say, if you really want to follow me, you will have to go over there.
TTFN!!!
We often believe one of the biggest challenges to creating is time. Often I still hear that voice in my head say, "There's no time for THAT because you must do THIS". Even more often, I still listen to it and do what it says thus losing another inspired moment to create. I convince myself there is not time for all the things in my life that are important, that the email won't wait, that the answering machine can't pick up my phone calls, that I don't have enough time. Oddly enough though, of all the things in life we may not have, time is not one of them. We always have time. In fact, it's all we really have but we convince ourselves that we have too little of it to do what we love, to create, to inspire, to live.
For many years, I held my writing close and hid both my interest and my art from others. I was certain I didn't have the time to be "good enough" and even if I had the time to devote to it, no one would enjoy what I created. I complained of having no time, yet spent what time I did have doing things I really didn't want to be doing with people I didn't really want to be with. I remained so weighed down and stressed about relatively unimportant events, creating rarely entered my mind. The voice, the pull, the calling was almost always drowned out by the din of day-to-day life. When it came to making time for creativity, whether it was writing or making art, that stuff that was fun, imaginative, healing, life-affirming, nourishing and mood- lifting, I was usually hard pressed to make the time and justified my choices with a myriad of excuses. Sometimes, I wonder if I would forgotten the call completely had I not been injured and forced to change my life.
When I see the world outside myself, outside the little artistic microcosm I have created for myself, time is a synonym for money and it's use is measured by profitability. People often spend years in school getting degrees and diplomas, not to learn but just so they can make more money. The world sees art, our work the same way. If it makes money, it's considered time well spent. If it fails to make money, it is wasted time. Many define themselves by what they do to pay the bills when what we do rarely has anything to do with who we are until we are listening to calling in our hearts, the hugging on the heart, or in the work that has little to do with money.
My concept of time has evolved and changed over the last few years as a result having a spinal cord injury and being forced to change my life. I've learned that whatever time it takes to create, is never, can never be a waste. When we arrive at our work with the intention and knowledge of creating something that only we can make, something that reflects who we are and what we have experienced, then we are participating in creative activity that is worthy and deserving of whatever time it takes.
Making time for our writing, our art, our creative time, regardless of our medium, is often like making time for meditation or prayer. For some it is meditation and prayer. Creating is a holistic act that involves all parts of us as well as the known and the unknown, the seen and unseen. Creating can be healing as we build something whole out of the pieces of our lives, seeing how each piece matters, understanding where they fit, and seeing them more clearly. Making time for creativity can be a break from the confusion of the surface to the stillness of the center.
We don't need to have our art installed in museums or galleries or posses the praise of critics and the world to be successful artists. It's not imperative that we earn a living from our art, that we are published or even that the famous own one of our works to be successful artists. To be successful artists, to live creatively, we need only to breathe deeply, taste the colors of the mountains and the sky, to know the wind, feel the bark of an old oak, the smell of a storm, the sound of swamp grass bent in the breeze. To be successful artists, we need only live with our eyes wide open, to take in every detail, rub life all over and jump when we reach the edge of a plateau. To be a successful artist is to notice gorgeous moment, bear witness to the small miracles and messy mishaps, to feel freely and collect these events, shaping them into forms and images and words others can share.
Living creatively is being productive and alive with every moment instead of whining about not having the time. Our creativity isn't about waiting for others to define who we are, but defining ourselves, claiming our own lives and creating for ourselves, for love, not money. Being an artist is about becoming familiar with creativity's mojo and how it works: we hear a voice, feel a pull and begin the work.
We create, often not knowing where it will lead us. Clues arrive and then they don't and still we continue until one day the piece, the article, the novel is complete and we know it is ours alone. So we bow our heads or lift our faces to the sky and give thanks. This is what it is to be a successful artist, a creative spirit.
Towns and cities are stuffed full sculptors, painters, composers and writers who wait tables, check groceries, answer phones, and drive taxicabs to pay the bills. Very few of us are paid much for our creative work and passions, so it gets squeezed into the in-between hours. Our books get written in between loads of loads of laundry, soccer practices and homework. Our short stories are written in waiting rooms, parking lots and at bus stops. We paint in our studios through the night and work in our darkrooms in the wee hours of the morning. It's hard to think of ourselves as artists under these circumstances, but we are. It is our creative work that carries us to life, feeds our spirits, nourishes our souls and sees us through the darkness. We often feel alone but we are not alone. There are literally hundreds upon thousands of us trading stolen moments and sleep for the serenity of creating.
There are many things we may not have in life, but time is not one of them. It is really the only thing we do have. We have this lifetime to produce a catalog of art, a collection of articles, a book- a body of work that says, "This is how I see the world around me". Indeed, our art, our creativity, is worthy of whatever time it takes.
Just got back from Escapade Tuesday and it is amazing what four days on the beach in the sun will do for your atittude. I love my girls' weekend in Cali every year and when I missed it last year, I could really FEEL it. Nothing like talking smack about guys, computers, writing and slashy goodness. Also, got to visit my friend Dail who gave me Vala way back in 2000. She still has two harlequins and they're both so much smaller than mine. I'm wondering why the big difference. It can't simply be the food difference.
I did a bit of on-line shopping before I left and most of it was waiting for me at home when I returned. The results of my Retail Therapy (I got the jacket in shades of brown):
I also got a stone colored linen long skirt but I can't find a picture of it now to save my neck.
Anway, new clothes!! :)
See, about a month ago I challenged my good, friend and fellow artist, Morgaine, to make art everyday and then I promptly got sick so I am behind. She however, has been quite prolific and I urge you to go check out her terrific art!
But I got back in the saddle and have been working as close to
everyday as I can. These are the first 8 in a new series called Small
Works. These are original cabinet cards of altered with painted, stamps
and embellishments, accented by fun and whimsical words. They've been a
lot of fun to do. As usual, click on the images for a larger version.
What do you think?
WTF?!
Whatever
See more here.
A furnished rental apartment and B&B? I think that's what we have.
We're putting the finishing touches on the basement apartment, writing up the ad to post on Craigslist for a regular apartment for rent. Then we started thinking...and planning...and well, that never ends well. Because I really really really want to do this other project, that requires we have the basement space at least a few times a year, we're going to just make the apartment a temp/short-term rental. BUT, it will be fully furnished, complete with linens, kitchen accoutrements, TV, stereo...you name it.
There actually seems to be a pretty good market for such accomodations in the Denver area, so this just might work out (unlike many of our other hair-brained schemes). Traveling nurses, law students, people moving away from Denver but their homes are already sold, and so on. I'm actually in communication with a couple who work up in Antarctica and they're looking for a place to summer in Denver! How cool would that be?
So, I put that ad in Craigslist today because I know if I don't have it posted to the universe that this place will be available April 1, we'll still be needing to hang doors and lay carpet come that date. You take your motivation where you can get it, right?
My life, it is so interesting.
