Nanowrimo Ate My Blog (or it might have if I'd actually been blogging)

Alley and Wires
watercolor and pen on paper
8.5"x 5"

Yipes! Where have I been? Not blogging, that's for sure. And not painting, either.

But I have been writing.

I am not going nearly as fast as I have gone in the past. No five thousand word days for me. I have not gotten so far ahead in my count that I am on track to be done by the fifteenth.

I have actually been writing my minimum. No, not my minimum, which has always been two thousand words a day. I have actually been writing the suggested nanowrimo minimum-- 1667 words a day. More or less.

It makes me nervous to not get ahead, to not have the word cushion. But, I have decided that if I keep going at a good pace, a moderate pace of 1667 words a day, more or less, then I am doing pretty well. If I fall behind, which has happened, I know I can catch up with a 3k word day, or three 2k days. More or less.

I'm wondering what will happen after nanowrimo is over, when I haven't burnt myself out by overachieving and ignoring all other responsibilities. Maybe keeping a more moderate pace will actually help me build a writing practice that I can continue with through out the year. I have been disappointed in my ability to keep it up. I go in jags. No writing at all, then a few months of intense writing. I don't really like that work pattern, but my life has had other ideas, and it ends up not actually being about what I really like.

As for AEDM, I have not been creating Art Every Day this Month. Sad face. But that's ok. Going along with my gentle treatment of myself, I am not going to freak out over not reaching my goal. I am, however, going to keep trying to get back into art.

I recently decided that what I'd like to do is get back into art journaling. I miss journaling. That might have been part of why my writing practice and my blogging practice fell off... because my journaling practice has been pretty lame.

So. I'm going to draw pictures in my journal, paint a scene, like today's drawing. I based it on a snap shot I took on the way to work. Then I sat in the break room at my job and sketched it out. Finding my minutes of creativity anywhere I can.

Well, I've written my two thousand and some catch up words this morning. I did some doodling at work. I did a pencil drawing this morning before I started writing, as I sat at my desk and stared out the window. I also added some drawings to a background that I prepped in my journal. Truth be told, I don't know where my directions in art will go. I'm just going to open up my journal every day and see what happens. Or a couple of times a day until I catch up on all the drawing days I've missed.

Switching up the pace might be good for me.

10 Tricks for Writing 50k Words in November

Believe

acrylic and gel pen on paper

8x5"

It's the beginning of nanowrimo and the beginning of AEDM and I am off to a satisfactory start. I have not even started my piece of art for AEDM, but I am planning to do that during Glee tonight. But then I knew I wouldn't have art in time for posting, if I was going to blog today, so I planned ahead and painted a companion piece to the last one, the self portrait with writing hat.

This is it together in my moleskine.   It's about taking charge of my own dreams, knowing what I want and taking action. That's what the hand is about, it's about self determination. This is your hand. It does stuff. What do you want it to do? Do it. Believe in your ability to get it done. 

This is me in my writing hat, getting ready to sit down and win nanowrimo. That's my Work In Progress on the laptop. That's my desk. That's my semi-clean porch out the window. Those are my reading glasses, because at 40 I realize I have trouble focusing on something that is in front of me when I sit for long periods of time. Plus it keeps me from gazing out the window at the now fuzzy world beyond my glasses.

I figured that since this is my sixth year of doing nanowrimo and I have won 5 out of 5 tries, I'd like to write about some of the tricks that I have used to actually hit 50k words (and usually beyond.)

1. Aim for 2000 words a day, not 1667 like it says. 2000 is a nice round number and it gives you a bit of cushion. It also makes you feel good and productive when you are doing better than you need to do on that little graph thingy on your nano page.

2. Remember that November is often a very busy month and you might have external commitments. A birthday coming up? Count that in. (Is it YOUR birthday, ask for time to write, or tools to help you write, or a writing date!) Do you have to cook dinner for 20 on Thanksgiving. Plan around Thanksgiving. Maybe add in a few extra hundred words for each day, knowing you will be out of commission for a couple of days. Is work a busy time? Write notes on your lunch break to keep your head in your novel.

3. Do you have specific days free? Take as many hours as you can and just write write write. Get ahead of yourself.

4. Get a timer. Set it for 15 minutes and start writing. Do not stop writing until the timer dings. Do not stare out the window. Do not puzzle over choosing the right word. Do not anguish over some bad writing or a plot twist you didn't plan. Just keep writing.

5. As for those unplanned scenes and plot twists... if you find they have taken you off course, do not despair and do not delete. Find where the story went awry and hilight the naughty text. You will take it out later in the revision stage after you read it over to see if there's anything salvageable. Now start over again, as if the naughty disagreeable writing didn't happen. Word count is still word count. It's still part of your novelling process, it will simply be removed in the revision process, along with many other words. Don't worry, that's part of the way it works.

6. Back to that timer, when life outside of nano starts to weigh on you, and you know you have to take care of washing dishes or doing homework or spending quality time with someone or calling mom, set that alarm to go off in 15 minutes. Take care of that life business, call your mom, scrub the bathroom, finish that homework, then when it goes off, you can get back to your writing, knowing that you are not so neglectful of your life as you were 15 minutes ago. If you have still more life stuff to get to, set your alarm so that you can write for 15 minutes, and then when that is done, do another 15 minutes of chores. Frankly, life can definitely move forward in small baby steps of 15 minutes. Sometimes the smaller chunk is less stressful.

7. Race yourself. Try to beat yesterday's word count. If you hit your word count, but are only 302 words away from a nice round number grand total, go for that round number. If you get that grand total and then realize that you are only 87 words away from reaching 3k for the day, you stretch for that extra 3k. This self competition technique has actually bolstered my count hugely on a daily basis. I can't bear to "just" miss some nice juicy number, so I push myself. I mean, really 87 words is not much at all, and I usually do far more than that, and then there's another nice number to hit after that.

8. Write during commercials. It sounds crazy, but prime time television is how I wind down, and sometimes, not always, I can manage to get a few hundred to a few thousand words simply by writing in those few minutes. This does depend on my mood and ability to focus for the day. If it isn't working, forget it. Put the novel aside. Get some down time. Go ahead and watch tv or whatever it is that recharges you. You don't have to stress yourself out and work all the time. Give yourself a reward for being on track, or for hitting a daily word count. Or for catching up. Or whatever.

9. Speaking of other things that recharge you, sometimes I like to exercise my other creative muscles. Painting gets my brain going in other ways, but the creativity is still going. What gets you going? Dancing? I can see that recharging the body and the mind. Exercise? If you need it, don't neglect it. It's quite possible that giving your brain a time to go on autopilot while exercising will allow your brain to mull over plot points and character development without interference, anxiety or stress. Take a break from writing. Take a shower. Go for a walk. Meet friends. Just remember that you have to keep your word count going.

10. Keep track of your progress in a visually satisfying way. I have a graph in my notebook that keeps track of my daily word count. For every 100 words, I hilight one square. I have lines for each day marking the various word count goals... the bare minimum 1667, my personal minimum of 2k. 2500 which would make a more hefty 70k word novel, the I-can-relax goal of 3k, which means I don't have to write at all that day if I don't want to, and the happy happy celebration goal of 5k. I only hit that a couple time in a nano, but it's a good feeling. Every time I mark my graph, I feel a sense of accomplishment. This is how far I've come. And because I can see the progress, I do not feel as discouraged, even when I don't always get as far as I want to. And I can also see when I am slipping, and that encourages me to get back to what I know I can do.

These are my word count goals. There is no padding in my stories like I've seen some people do. There are no make believe forced in plot lines just to keep writing. This is just about getting myself to sit down and write, because that, I've found, is the part that is the hardest.

Putting On My Writing Hat

Put On My Writing Hat
acrylic, sharpie, on paper moleskine

Yesterday, I decided to do some sketching. I drew a self portrait from a quickly snapped digital picture. I know the chin is too prominent, but that's what happens when you use sharpie. You're stuck with it, more or less.

Sketching turns out to be a good way to start my day. I don't know if I will make it a habit, I only have so many minutes before I have to get going on my regular days, and there are always so many different things that I'd like to start off with. But this day, a day off of work, turned out to be a good one.

Getting ready to nano, I am starting to get my outline together. It's never as much time as I want, but it's what I have. I put my hat on, my "writing hat", before I got started. It kept my brains from wandering all over the place when I was trying to write. I know it's probably silly, but I also think that it might be a good sense memory-association to cultivate. Hat goes on: girl goes writing.

I took my hat, pulled together a writing folder, gathered up my index cards, collected my pens, printed out my previous notes, and headed to the cafe, where I stared out the window, drank a latte and ate coffee cake, and began a snowflake outline.

The funny thing is, I only had a couple of hours to write, but while I wasn't writing, I got so much else done. Cleaning and cooking and working with kids and painting and blogging.

It is so terribly hard to sit down and start writing when you haven't been writing and you are out of practice, but when you actually get started, the momentum can carry you forward in all sorts of productive ways.

And that's what I'm working on, getting a creative momentum going, building up those good writing habits, pulling together the supplies I need, getting out the ideas so that I am not stopped by "what do I do next." And staring out the window, mulling things over. That too.

What do you do to get your creative momentum going? Do you have creative habits? Talismans? Schedules?  Routines?

The Girl, Creation and Destruction

The Girl,
acrylic on paper
8.5" x 5"

Since I have decided to both work and stay home (it's a fancy trick, involving part time and weekend hours and  a sometimes babysitter) boy oh boy is it hard to get creative work done.

To be honest, this is probably why I haven't been keeping up with my blog as much as I used to. I just have a load and a half on my plate. The kids, oh the kids. You know, it never really gets easier... or it does, but then their needs change and you have to adjust everything all over again.

But for all the frustrations, and for all that a kid can wreck your living room and anything left within reach of grubby little hands, a kid is also a fountain of creativity.

Since having kids, I have learned how to do all sorts of things that I always wanted to and had never bothered to sit down and try. From baking a chicken to making a stuffed animal to writing a novel and taking it through the draft process, I have never been more creative.

Well. Aside from the three years of pregnancy and infanthood, and these last few months that have not been kind to my writing or painting. Ok, so periodically, the creativity hasn't been that good, but overall, parenting has added a whole new level of creativity to my creating.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and when you're a mother, everything is about necessity.

I NEED to have something creative for myself outside of creativity. I NEED to leave something for my kids, a body of work or an example of work ethic. I NEED to make something for dinner though I haven't been to the grocery store. I NEED to use my childfree time productively. I NEED to make something cute for Christmas presents. They NEED something to make them feel special. They NEED a fun birthday party despite a slight budget. They NEED to allow their imaginations to run free. They NEED that toy they see so it's lucky I can figure out a way to make it.

Really, the needs are endless, and it's those needs that inspire my creativity. Sometimes the needs are their's, sometimes they are mine, but since becoming a mom, my life has been much, MUCH less about what I want, and much more about what I and my family need.

Right about now, I need to get back to my writing, to remember my creative routines, and to take myself more seriously as an artist and a writer. I'm not really sure how I'm going to balance this need with the needs of sticky fingers, and hungry bellies and clingy arms... but I need to figure it out.

The Boy, Inspiration and Frustration

The Boy
acrylic on paper, 5"x8"

Ah, inspiration. And frustration.

Here I am, thinking about being creative again, wondering how to get back to the daily practice that I used to have. Trying to remember bits about who I was and who I am, and daily, I have these little beings running around, getting in the way, teaching me things, demanding stuff, making me bigger, shrinking my life down to size.

Art and Transformation. For me, that is what it's all about. It is a spiritual practice that centers me and grounds me and allows me to experiment and explore. It helps me believe in myself. It helps me understand the world. Art allows me to interpret my life, it also allows me to share with the world my thoughts and feelings and spirit and energy. Art builds us up. My life is built upon art.

But I can't separate this art from my children. I can't separate myself into the mom and the artist. Sometimes I wish I could. I wish I could go back to when it was just me and I could spend hours, days, weeks, even months in the pursuit of my various artistic tendencies.

Now, when I create, I always have to consider my children. They are always at least in the back of my mind. I have a timer waiting to go off, to tell me that it is time to be a mom again. Or I have toys scattered around my house, even on my desk, reminding me that I have duties.

Once, I was told that it was impossible for a woman to continue to be an artist once she has kids. That is not true, I thought then, and continue to believe now. It is possible for a woman to be an artist with children, but the way she is an artist changes. What are the changes? Who does an artist who is a mother, a mother who is an artist have to become in order to synthesize her double identities?

I think art may help me understand. I think if I didn't have my art, I might easily be swallowed by the role of mother.

But then, maybe this kind of struggle is not limited to being a parent. Sure, being a mom is kind of an all encompassing state, not just personally, but culturally, too. The role of motherhood is huge. But don't all artists have to struggle with balancing their artistic lives with their real lives? I had a similar struggle as a teacher, or as a younger woman living my life, falling in and out of love, searching for happiness and meaning.

Perhaps accepting that being an artist and living our human lives can be a struggle, a balancing act. We all have external demands and internal demons. How do we handle them all to create a creative and personal life that is fulfilling?

How do you balance your life and your art? Where do you struggle?

La Frida, or Remembering My Heroes

La Frida, Articulated Paper Doll
with diego, monkey, flower, apron, heart, and shawl accessories.
Giclee Print, metal brads and embroidery floss

You see this here? This is my commitment. Two posts in a row. Sometimes I forget that I have made a commitment and I get lazy and sit around watching tv or surfing the internet. Sometimes my laziness has a purpose and I am really stirring some sort of pot inside of myself, waiting for the ingredients (that have already been added) to come to the right temperature, to meld, to transform into just the right kind of stew.

Right now, I think I'm kind of in the taste testing phase of my stewing.

Is this the right flavor? Has it been cooking long enough? Do I need to add something? Am I missing an important ingredient? Am I patient enough? Am I stirring it enough? Heat too high, too low?

How do you like my metaphor?

Well, yesterday, I posted a picture of my La Pintura paper doll, the artist inside of me. The desire to create, to throw myself into new images, messy paint, visual passions, color, etc. Today, I show my little Frida doll. She, I suppose, represents those people who have inspired me in my life. If I'm speaking artwise, it's not just Frida Kahlo, but also Van Gogh, Lucien Freud, Kiki Smith, Klimt, Egon Schiele, Degas, Rothke, Chagall, Rousseau, Basquiat, Alice Neel, Gaugin, and many other artists that I've loved over the years.

Today, I've spent time on my pinterest boards, looking at art, paintings, photographs, portraits... I love to let what I love inspire me to create. This is part of what my art is made of. Those that have come before, those that have influenced me at different times of my life.

But if I want to be creative again, I can't let myself stop with just looking at what other people have done. I can't just be a consumer of art (and writing and movies and tv and music) I have to actually start using my rusty creative muscles. Not only should I consume, but I should also produce.

And here is where the difficulty happens.

How to get from the unformed, stewing ideas to the active creation?

What else am I doing today?
I am writing lists.
I am brainstorming.
I am sketching.
I am using exercises or prompts to start low stakes projects.
I am crossing media lines, going from art to writing to photography and back.
I am joining communities to support my creativity.
I am doing, not just watching and waiting.

It's time, I guess. Do I have it figured out? No, but am I taking the steps to make my ideas concrete? Yes.

This is where my stew metaphor falls apart. Oh well. I have to get back to work, I guess I can't fuss with the stew anymore.

Is anyone else joining nanowrimo or art everyday month in November?

La Pintura On The Way Back

La Pintura, articulated paper doll.

paper, giclee print, metal brads

Long time no see.

I've been in hiding. Well, not really in hiding so much as in a fallow period. Busy with daily life and silent on the outside. But at the same time, I feel a lot of work has been going on under the surface, even if my forward momentum seems to have stalled.

But the way my life works, I've found this is actually a normal part of the process. Again and again, I've gone through quiet, struggling periods of life, where art is silent and the transformation process is dark and quiet.

It would be easy to get stuck there, to think, "I have creative block," or "I give up," or "I just can't do it, my life is too difficult to allow these goals in." But the truth is, my goals as an artist and a writer are not just something that comes from the outside, they are a part of me. Even when I'm not painting or writing, I still feel that urge, and it gets stronger and stronger until I have to work my way back. Because I am just who this Paper Doll says I am. I am The Painter. And I am The Writer. I am the Artist even if she's quiet sometimes.

So here I am working my way back, trying to find the right steps to take me back to creativity and productivity. That's okay. Remember, this si part of the process. I'm beginning to remember creativity as a choice, a daily choice. I'm beginning to remember myself as the creator, even at the end of the day when I'm exhausted and have been taking care of other people all day long. Part of taking care of myself is creating things.

So.

So then. The baby steps I am taking are towards recommitting to art and writing. I have begun painting again, little things in my journals. I took out my new-used sewing machine for the first time and gave it a whirl. I went back to my old novels and read them over to get ready for a new commitment to nanowrimo.org.

Yes, I'm going to try to write a novel in November, again. I am very worried, to tell the truth. I've met the goals every year for the last five, but this year, my habits are so poor and my mind is so out of writing that I am concerned that I won't be able to get the writing juices flowing and actually sit down at the computer every day.

So I am afraid. And that means I have to do it. Is fear what has been stopping me all along? Am I just using busy-ness and fallow-ness as an excuse for not doing it?

Well, I'm going to try again. I'm going to go for the daily commitment. And I might as well do Art Everyday Month, too. Commit to a daily creative practice and it will come back, I know this. Because for all I've been "The Mom" all this summer and autumn, I really am "The Artist." I am "The Writer." I am "The Painter." It's just who I am, and I am going to find a way to integrate all these parts of me. I just am.

Wish me luck.

Alien Freaks aka Cute Li'l Guys

Alien Freaks aka Cute Li'l Guys

(all following) about 4" in diameter, felt, thread, rice.

designed by Gabriel, Ivy and me, sewed by me.

Here's a thought: Do we value the special unique qualities that make us who we are?

Or do we think those little quirks about us make us somehow wrong? Somehow not good enough? Freakish? Flawed? Ugly?

I made these beanbags, by hand, for Gabriel's 6th birthday party. The plan was to use them in a beanbag toss game and then let the kids take them home for a goody treat.

I had to squelch down my worries that they wouldn't want a dorky handmade goody treat. Or that my flubs in stitching would make these rejects. Or that no mom would want a kid to bring home a thing stuffed with rice. Or that the designs would not be cute enough.
But guess what? Every kid, from 4 to 11 snatched one of these little babies up. They picked the ones they liked best and those were owned.
Even the first attempts, the wonky little guys with wonky little eyes and wonky little tentacles.
And you want to know what? Even the one that was left over... I took it. Mine, I said, defending it greedily from six year old paws. Mine. I pinned it up over my desk. They didn't understand the delicate curlycues and the subtle color scheme, but that one was mine. The kids liked the wonky ones better. Go figure.
I'm even going to have to make replicas of some of the ones that went away for little girls who want friends for theirs.
What is this all about?

This is about trusting your own uniqueness, your own alien beingness, your own wonkiness. Someone out there will love you the way you are. Someone will love what you create with your own two wonky hands. And even if they don't, what you do is just the path towards you learning who you are, what you love, and how to make it.

Trust. Keep trying. Look with unbiased eyes at what you do. Look for the loveliness, not the flaw. Imagine your work was created by someone else and see it for what it is, without your own feelings of unworthiness and not-good-enough-ness getting in the way.

Loving yourself, is the key. Believing in yourself. Trusting in your vision and your process.

Saying yes to who you are and what you do.

What do you want to make of this world of yours?

colored gel pens, ink, sharpie marker, recycled menu

4x8"

What DO you want to make of this world of yours?

It is possible to make it, did you know that?

That's the first step to changing your world, to creating something new, to transforming yourself, to breaking out of your rut... believing that it is possible.

This is where art can help with transforming your very soul.

Art makes things possible. It creates them as a reality, even before they are a reality. As humans, when we imagine something, when we ponder how it could be created, when we mark down the boundaries of something, we are taking steps to make the ideas real.

Sorry to sound as if I am a text book, but I myself am trying to create something in my life. And I know the first step is to imagine it so clearly I can see the steps to take to make it real.

This very drawing/doodle/sketch I posted above is an exercise in creating what I want in the world.

Facing the empty page, I said, "what do I want to make in this world? what do I want to have? what do I want to see?"

What I wanted was positivity. What I wanted was energy. What I wanted was about giving, not taking. It was about belief and personal power. So I drew it.

And look at me here, today, the very next day, being positive, energetic (yes I washed the dishes before sitting down), sharing, and believing in the very possibilities I am creating.

Make the world you want.

Imagine it.

Believe it.

Take the steps towards it.

Live it.

It could be about a personal mindset, a zen belief in life, like here. It could be about creating an etsy shop. It could be about writing and publishing a novel. It could be about making an ice cream cake when you never have before.

See. I did that too. It was pretty tasty, although not perfect, and not without troubles in the execution. But I did it, and I could do it better next time.

Creating is about making the world you want to see, and it is about standing in your own power.

You can do it.

I Am Not Lost I Am Just In Camouflage

I Am Not Lost I Am Just In Camouflage

acrylic on paper, moleskine

5x7" 7/12/11

I did this yesterday. Took most of the day to paint and futz around with my art work. I did this one, and also, I've kind of been trying to figure out what style I want to paint portraits in. Sometimes it feels too cartoony, or not cartoony enough, too modeled, not modeled enough, too rough, too realistic, too pretty, too ugly.

I don't know if other artists have this sort of dilemma. Sometimes it feels like I am struggling with it because I am basically a weekend painter. Between the kids and the job and the house and the writing and the wasting time obsessions, I don't have enough time to dedicate to experimentation and creating and discovery-- the journey. But maybe that's just a story I tell. If you add together all the years I've been working on art, the moments after bedtime or the summers before kids, the painting sessions with my tiny watercolor set, the sketching while at work, the doodling while in meetings, the classes I've taken, the museums I've visited, the books I've read, the classes I've taught, the crafts I've concocted, the photos I've taken... this is the life of an artist.

Just because I don't do it as my full time job, or because I didn't get an MFA doesn't mean I'm not an artist. I've spent 35 years developing my art. I'm lucky because I was born to an artist and was encouraged even when I was very young, but I think we all have a tendency to devalue what we have achieved, our own personal journey, and only see what we do not have.

What makes us artists? I believe that all humans are inherently creative, an artist is simply someone who focuses their energy on developing that creativity, on growing and experimenting, on discovering who they are and what they have to say, and honing their skills.

We can be artists at any stage of development, and as artists, we might very well have different purposes for being artists. While one person wants to be the next Sally Mann or Kiki Smith or Chuck Close, another person might just want have an outlet for their personal self expression, with no desire to show or create a commodity at all. Me, I think I'm somewhere in between.

I would love to be able to make a career out of my art and writing, to not have a day job, but I also think that I would do it anyway, even if I never made any money at all. And more than making money for me, I want to be an artist who teaches and enlightens others.

I suppose that's what my blog has become. I share my journey, sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, but I do it so that I can shed a little light on the creative process, share with people who need inspiration, and perhaps find some sort of balance between living and creating. I don't know if I achieve that, but I try.

As for the painting, I am slowly developing a style of figurative work that pleases me. When I was painting the picture above, I went back to some old paintings that I wasn't satisfied with and adjusted the faces. Yes. What I thought was done, was not done. I might still continue to work on them. The process is never done. Or I suppose it is done sometimes, when you let go of a piece and send it out into the world or stuff it into a drawer... or maybe not, because you can revisit the images or ideas, they can continue on.

Oh just like life. Our process is ours. Our life is ours to develop, no matter what other people are doing. Just stay true to ourselves, try to be us, not someone else. Keep going. The journey is not over until we give up on it.

Keep on trucking.

(this painting inspired by this photo)