geekery, drawing and then some
November awaits just around the corner of this week, and traditionally, in November I do Nanowrimo. Okay, not every year, most years since 2001 or so. This year I decided to participate again and I have not started anything yet. I'll see where it takes me.
I've also registered for the Sketchbookproject 2012 and hopefully this year I'll get the notebook in time so I can do a little bit often and fill the whole thing up :)
Looking forward to both projects.
Procrastinating from my Nanowrimo-novel (3471 words) I found Hugh Macleod's article ' don't worry about being an artist. just worry about getting the work made. '.
It reminded me of how I know some people that graduate in something or the other, and then say 'Oh, now I am a real \<insert random profession>'. When then asked what they really do then, they usually don't have an answer to that. But at least they can say 'I'm a \<insert random profession> now!.
Apart from these, a lot of people also seem to think that creativity (in any shape and form) requires talent. They don't really know what this talent actually means, but clearly some people have it and some don't. You get born with it, or maybe some fairy comes by at night and sprinkles it on you.
I don't believe in talent (or that evil cousin called 'luck'). I believe in (hard) work. I believe in doing. I believe that when you have an interest in a subject you need to dig in and put in the hours and hours of work to get 'good' or 'great' at it. Getting good / great requires work more than this vague talent. Sure, some people seem to do it more easily, however, most of these creative things take practice. And practice means work. It means failing and loving your failure because of the unexpected result. It means hating your failure and deciding you want to do the opposite. It means challenging yourself. It means stretching out to the borders of your sanity to see if you can, and then crossing it. It means stretching to the edges of your ability and finding you can go further than you thought you could go.
So I make this bold statement that you cannot be unless you do. You can call yourself a writer, an artist, a whatnot. But if you don't actually do it, then you just stuck a label on yourself. Ask yourself what you would like more.
This morning I got up and walked into the livingroom, finding Nano (looking smug) on the sofa with an empty chocolate-bar wrapper between her paws. I thought I had stored the bar away, 'cause I always do that. Not last night, unfortunately, so when I saw her looking at me and the leftovers of the wrapper, I freaked out a little. A call to the vet calmed me down (kudos to the other person on the line), as we calculated how much she had and what type. She had about half of the 'minimal toxic (not lethal)' dose, the vet said.
The vet told me to keep an eye on Nano, feed her some extra to dilute the chocolate somewhat and check to see if Nano drank enough. She drank a lot today, and spent some time on the sofa making small whining noises (I suspect a tummy ache) and seems otherwise fine.
This of course happens right after boyfriend suggested poisoning the dog in my Nanowrimo-novel.
This year I decided on a slightly different approach for Nanowrimo. Other years I'd jump in with both feet on November 1st, and this years I decided to do some pre-work (which, in other years, only happened in my head). I've made notes about my characters, a timeline, wrote part of the backstory that will not end up in the actual novel, and I made an outline. I haven't finished it yet, still have 6 parts to go. Once I have 31 parts I can use those to write one part per day (a 1667 words). I like this approach. Somewhere halfway I got a little stuck with how the story should go from a certain point and I let it sink in a few days and then came up with the answer. If this had happened during Nanowrimo I would have lost several days (or at the least, spend them in great frustration).
On to the last 6 parts! [progpress title="Nanowrimo Outline" goal="31" current="25" previous="20" label="parts"]
November lurks around the corner, so I had to join Nanowrimo again. I decided to try a different approach this year and have slowly outlined my planned novel. Initially I wanted to go for horror, with brutal murders and such (I blame this on watching the entire 'Friday the 13th' series, as well as 'Nightmare on Elmstreet', and ending it with 'Freddy vs Jason'), but my story seems to have converted more into a regular thriller with no supernatural murderer.
Ah well.
And it'll have a dog.