Art Every Day Month 2011: Day 12

 

I had a long Saturday with not much going on, so I took the opportunity that I was presented with to create some art. I haven't dabbled with photomanipulation for a long while, and I thought I would give it another go. Altogether, I'm pretty pleased with it considering I haven't done anything like this for a while. 

The idea for the scene came to me on my way home from work. I was driving one of the long stretches of road and there were these huge, dark thunderclouds rolling in toward me as I drove closer to home. It felt like a challenge, almost. 

Here's to being a wild, warrior woman. 

Credits for stock go to the following: 

Model: night-fate-stock @ DA 
Beach: eastop @ stock.xchng
Clouds: dimitri_c @ stock.xchng 
Grass: faestock @ DA
Lightning brushes: redheadstock @ DA

Life is too short to force words from my fingers.

I’m doing it again.

It’s silly. So very silly.

I stare at the blank Microsoft Word document. Tension in my shoulders. Ache. Ouch. My eyes are itchy and watery. It’s getting to be that time of year again. There’s too much dust at my desk. I should wipe it off. That would help. That would help me -

Focus. Squeeze my eyes shut. Suck in a long, deep breath that stretches to my toes. Release the exhale on a shuddering quiver. It seems only two seconds and then the tension is back in my shoulders again. I clench my fists in frustration and resist the urge to just scream.

I can’t relax. I can’t enjoy this. What is wrong with me?

Writing used to come so easy. I remember when that was all I could seem to do - even when I wasn’t supposed to. I was a good multi-tasker. I could listen to my eighth-grade history class lectures, answer questions, and record the stories in my own head all at the same time. And when I wasn’t writing, I was dreaming about writing. I was thinking about what story I would scrawl into my newest, fresh notebook as soon as I could pick up a pen again.

Now I still dream. I still hoard empty, new notebooks like I’m some sort of troll or dragon who lusts after fresh paper instead of gold. But when it comes time to sit down and write, I get that tension in my shoulders. That little, nasty voice in my head.

What’s wrong with you? Where did it go? Why can’t you write anymore? Don’t you have anything to say? C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Time’s a-wastin’. We don’t have all day!

Now even more so. I don’t need that NaNoWriMo word count total in front of me to know that I am failing dreadfully. The panic rises up, because I’ve always been so very good at demanding more from myself. What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me?

But then that quiet voice speaks. That soft whisper in my chest that cuts through all the frenzy and the inner critic. My mind’s dialogue quiets instantly, and I feel relief in my shoulders and my back.

Life is too short to fill your free time with unnecessary obligations. This is supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, you’re doing it wrong.

I am reminded of a podcast interview I listened to recently with the fabulous Danielle LaPorte. It’s a hell yes, she said in her usual blunt manner, or it’s a no thank you.

In this moment, writing isn’t a hell yeah! It’s something I drag my feet to do. I want the idea of writing. But when it comes to it, the word counts - the requirement - makes me sick to my stomach with pre-conceived disappointment. I don’t want more stress. I don’t want the deadlines. 

No. What I really want is the opportunity to be more creative. An excuse to fill my free time with creative endeavors.

And just like that, the stress is gone. This NaNoWriMo challenge is whatever I want it to be. And right now, I want it to be a daily practice. I don’t care that I might not reach the word counts each day. I care that I sit down each evening to write something - anything. A paragraph or a novel. I don’t care.

Life is too short to stress myself out over something that should be gloriously and fantastically fun. I won’t fall into that trap.

It’s only then - with my own permission - that the words finally begin to fall from my heart.

The Nifty List: November 4, 2011.

Welcome to my nifty list. I like lists. I like nifty things. Thus, the nifty lists were born.

• I always like finding new ways of using the artistic mediums available to us. I used motion in my senior thesis when graduating from the photography program because I wanted something different. I love the concept and execution of these cinemagraphs. So pretty and interesting!

• If you’re the type to drool over amazing wedding photography like I am, then you’ll probably adore Green Wedding Shoes. I’m particularly in love with this Tim Burton inspired engagement photoshoot, shot by Jani B Photography.

• Are you reading Danielle LaPorte’s blog? Have you visited WhiteHotTruth.com? You should. You should also read this article that she wrote recently on how  giving up hope is a good thing.

• Sustainably Creative is the artistic home of Michael Nobbs. He is awesome and thoughtful and profound and oh-so-soothing. His downloadable book Start to Draw Your Life is also pretty rad.

• Maureen Johnson is a YA author who writes really awesome books. She’s also a twitter celeb and her tweets make me snort out loud at my cubicle job. DO IT. I particularly like this tweet and this tweet. 

 

• This week was Halloween - also known as one of the best holidays all year long! I can’t let a holiday pass by without showing you these amazing, Halloween-themed wedding  (Shot by Kristen Marie Photography) and engagement (Shot by Paige Newton Photography) photoshoots.

• Have you heard of Art Every Day Month? It's like NaNoWriMo, but for artists - or any creative individual! It's hosted by Leah Piken Kolidas at her blog. And it's never too late to join!

• I am a twitter-aholic. I use it on my cellphone. I use it on my personal laptop. I use it at work. My new favorite twitter app? TweetDeck for Chrome! I can tweet from multiple accounts at the same time if I want to! And there’s no software download necessary. Heart, heart, heart.

• I want to make this scarf - found via Kevin & Amanda because it looks warm and fun and a delightful use of part of an afternoon (and some old t-shirts!).

• I would also love to be able to create this authentic chai tea recipe some weekend. It looks and sounds delicious! 

Slogging through creative black puddles.

(Psst! My Art Every Day Month submission for day one! I am oodles of crazy for doing two challenges at once! Wheeeeeeeeeee!)

I stumble into these knee-high black holes every once in a while. It used to be far worse, of course. A very kind, very talented artist who attended the same church as myself and my family for a time once inquired after me to my mother.

Lacey is so artistic, she said knowingly. Sometimes us artists have a difficult time with our emotions. I hope Lacey doesn’t have that problem.

My mother only laughed a little, smiled, and said that I had my struggles but that I was doing fine. I can’t always differentiate between the rough roller coaster that was my emotional ride back then between the now. I only know that it’s better. It’s an amusement ride that I can stomach, instead of merely clinging with terrified fervency to what remained of my public stoicism. (I never have liked roller coasters.)

Now the bouts of discouragement aren’t whirling vortexes that consume my entire being and drag me under. They’re more like little puddles of darkness that get my favorite autumn boots wet. Annoying - but I can rise up and shake off the cold and wait until the heat dries the dampness.

The difficulty is that I’m not very patient with myself. I don’t want to wait until the lingering mopiness gradually fades. I want to be happy and I want to be happy now. I want to be successful and productive now. I want those big dreams now, without the pain, without the work. I want the universe to hand me a platter of truffles and say, Here. Pick one. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t even have to want it. Here you go. Take it. It’s yours.

The bouts of discouragement are...more like little puddles of darkness that get my favorite autumn boots wet.

But alas. Life doesn’t work that way. For the rare few, sometimes dreams fall into their lap out of nowhere. And while I desperately wish that, yes, the fates would smile on me in that way, I know that I can’t let my entire life go by while I sit and hope for something to happen for me. Part of being an artist means having to motivate myself through the dark puddles of creative blocks and personal discouragement. I’ve found a few tools in the journey, and I’m sure there are more to be found in the years to come.

1. Allowing myself to want - I think sometimes that the dreams are so very big that they scare me. A life so far of being “realistic” has frightened me away from wanting things that I deem to be too big for me. Too good for me. Sometimes I even dare to believe that I don’t deserve those things. But a realization has occurred to me: If I don’t allow myself to even want these dreams, then they most certainly will never, ever happen.

Nothing dispels my despair more than the sweet, pleasant ache of wanting a dream so badly that it fills up my entire being.

2. Breaking dreams into baby dreams - Half the reason those ambitions seem so huge is that I don’t look at them as a process. I’m a dreamer - always have been, always will be. I see the end result and what I think it will look like, but I don’t necessarily want to think about the fine-grained details that it involves.

But when I break that huge, gianormous dream into smaller steps that I can actually accomplish? Suddenly, everything seems so much more manageable and possible. Gloria!

3. Do it - This may seem like a no-brainer. You have a plan? You do it! But those who are reading may not know me. And the fact of the matter is that I can come up with any reason not to do something. As far as procrastinators go, I don’t believe I’m the worst.  But five years in college has certainly given me some experience in the matter.

I think the method of doing something can be different for each individual. Some of us prosper the best when we have a plan and every step is mapped out. Some of us need a deadline. Some of us need to not have a plan at all and just do it all in two days with no sleep and a bucket of coffee.

I think I’m still figuring out the factors that motivate me best to do something. Sometimes I need a strict plan. Sometimes I need to do something in a crazy, minimal amount of time to pull off my best work. I think it depends on the situation. But the ultimate point is to know yourself. To know what motivates you and gets you excited and gets you going.

4. Let go and let God - Another area in which I struggle. Being a perfectionist, I want something to be absolutely, one-hundred percent the way that I envisioned it before I let it step out into the big, scary world. I learned that this method wouldn’t work in my university classes. If I let that term paper wait until the last two days before I turned it in, there was no way it was going to be perfect for the eyes of my professor.

But I suppose there’s a huge difference between a term paper about Communication Theory (Don’t care!) and the latest novel I’ve written or the most recent painting I’ve put onto canvas (I care immensely!). But at some point, I have to acknowledge that there will always be changes I want to make before I consider it perfect. I have to consume the truth that perfection doesn’t exist.

Not really.

At some point, I have to let my creation go and hope that God has the best in mind for it. I have to hope that it was meant to be created for a reason and just leave it at that.

So I’m keeping these four things in mind as I begin the process of writing a 50,000 word novel in thirty days for the sixth year in a row. I’m allowing myself to want and letting myself break it into manageable steps. I’m prodding myself gently in the back to work through the blahs of a momentary writer’s block. And I’m not waiting on perfection to come.

I’m going to put it out there in the universe. I’m going to let go and let God. In the end, whatever plans are meant for that dream will come true.

 

I have to consume the truth that perfection doesn’t exist. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go brew some more tea and write some more fiction.