Happy Birthday To Me Giveaway! Flying Girl Flyaway!

Flying Girl and the Whale, or Messages from Below
11/19/08 AEDM #18
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper, 5"x7"

Flying Girl and the Ship, or Messages from Above
11/19/08 AEDM #19
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper, 5"x7"


Happy Birthday to me! Happy Giveaway to you!!!!!

My first giveaway. I'm so excited. I still do not have my tech up to get down to business and open my etsy store (although I believe we are getting close), BUT I really wanted to thank all of you who have visited and appreciated what I am doing.

So I painted a thank you!

I did these both this morning. Last night I was so tired I could not paint, and was disappointed, because I had been planning my surprise party giveaway for a while. But this morning, these two sisters rose out of the depths (or came down from above, depending on which sister) and demanded to be listened to.

They are both originals, not prints. I will give one of them away... you just get to choose which one. So here's how you can win.


1. Choose the sister who speaks to you. (Flying Girl and the Whale, or Flying Girl and the Ship)
2. Tell me in the comments what she is saying to you.
3. Make sure you leave a way for me to get in contact with you. (Look at that, you don't even need a blog.)
4. Be lucky... because I will draw numbers randomly. One entry per person.
5. Be timely, because the giveaway will end at midnight, Eastern Time, November 26. I will post the winner on Thursday, November 27th-- coincidentally Thanksgiving Day.

Yay! I'm so excited. Let's get this party started!!

PS I'm choosing these paintings for the Illustration Friday prompt of "opinion," because these sisters see things from different perspectives, and boy does that seem to influence their difference of opinions. Plus, you are offered a choice/opinion between the two.

Comfort, or Cat

Comfort, or Cat
11/17/08 AEDM #17
Prismacolor Watercolor Pencil on Paper, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2"

Comfort is here to remind you that, like a cat, you are at home in your own skin. The cat exists in the present. She does not worry about tomorrow or about yesterday. She never tries to do more than one thing at a time, other than sleeping and soaking up some sun. This cat could be in her own garden, or trekking across the world, it does not matter where she is, she is comfortable in her self.

Are you trying too hard to be something you are not, right here in the moment? Never mind that you might some day be that thing, maybe even tomorrow... if you are not there now, be HERE now. Eat when you are hungry. Run when the urge strikes you. Pay attention to the moment as it moves through you. Play with the butterflies as they flutter. Love the nap. Enjoy your own sensuousness, your sensuality, your senses. Eat your meal of fish and milk and lick your whiskers with satisfaction. Feel the briskness of the cold, or the warmth of the heat. Recognize that you are you, and where you are is where you are. Accept it. Enjoy it.

In the reverse, maybe you've been a little too self indulgent, lately. Maybe you really have forgotten that you must find a warm place for when the snows and rains come. It is time to enter the world with the rest of us, and expand your meaning to something outside of your own skin. Welcome new ideas. Open up your communications with others. Work for the future. Plan. Remember the people and places you have come from. This all can come together and create a full life and purpose.
***

Lately I have been realizing that I can not do everything, every day. Things fall through the cracks. The laundry, potty training, projects I have been meaning to do. I didn't even know there were comments on my other blog. I just wasn't paying attention.

Not only do I lose little bits of my living, but I also get very frustrated with the moment. I am not getting enough done, I always think, even if the moment is chock full of beingness and doingness.

Maybe I need to cut back on the multi tasking. Maybe I need to schedule in some single tasking.

I single tasked with Nano yesterday and broke through the plot rumple. I don't know if it's brilliant, but it got me out of the jam. The good thing about nano is that you just have to keep going, even if you're stuck, and oftentimes, if you keep going, you get unstuck. What do I mean, 'oftentimes?' Always. There's no room for whining about not being able to write when you are chasing 50 thousand words in a month.

I enjoy the chase... like a kitty cat enjoying the butterfly chase? Maybe more like enjoying the bird chase, with the possible end point of the-cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.

nanowrimo total 36641

Nox, or Sleep

Nox, or Sleep
11/17/08 AEDM #16
Golden Fluid Acrylic

Nox is the Roman/Greek goddess of the night. She comes in the beginning, out of Chaos, and from her, a world of gods and goddesses are born.

Nothing will get done if you do not rest yourself. Rest is about renewal. Rest is when your body gets to reenergize, your mind gets to sort and make sense of all the information of the day, your soul gets to take a time out before starting anew the next day. This image serves to remind you that you need to get some sleep. That can be literal sleep, or it can be a step away from a project or problem you are grappling with. Perhaps what you really need is to let your subconscious work on your issues. Perhaps you need to step into the world of dreams and desires, of mystery and what once was chaos. Perhaps you need to trust that if you set a thing down and step away, it will still be there for you when you come back to it.

Just because night falls, does not mean we will never see the sun again. Night points to the necessary darkness in life, the necessary down turn, the necessary winter, the necessary shadow of the light. After night, the morning will come, I guarantee you. So let go, relax, and fall into the sleep that is calling.

If this image is in the reverse for you, it is time to wake up. The universe is sending you a message that you have been away from your life long enough. Time to shake off the sleepies and get yourself the metaphorical coffee. Allow the energy of the morning into your body and your goals. Take the steps out onto the clearly lit path of action and doing. You have gotten your eight hours, and now it is time for you to get going with your day.

I did not paint last night. Nope, not a bit. After putting the kids to bed, a took a rest on my own bed for a minute, and fell asleep for the whole night. That was 11 hours of sleep. I never got my down time to watch tv or to write, but I did get some sleep. It might mean I am catching something, but then maybe I am just burning out on how hard I am working and the fact that daylight savings time is getting my kids up an hour earlier than they did before.

Anyway. I slept a lot. I let the nightly clean up go. I did not paint. I did not unwind, I just sank into a deep sleep. And then, I opened my eyes to a three year old climbing up into my bed, yelling, "WA'E UP!" (That's Gspeak for wake up.)

So technically, I did not paint at all yesterday, but my day does not go until midnight to midnight. It goes from nap to nap. So when I swiftly painted this while the kids were watching Sesame Street, it counts for me as yesterday.

Nano: nada. (total wc still 34 thousand and change)
I read a book all day instead of working. I'm beginning to think I need to work, not everyday, but every week day. I think I need to have two days off a week, just like someone with a real job that gets a pay check.

In my search to have a balance between living and art, in my search to find a career in creativity and still take care of my kids, I am looking for sustainability, not a November crisis surge of writing/painting and then burn out. After I do nano, I still have to revise my novel/novels. And I still want to continue the work of being a professional artist. If I haven't managed to do this yet, it's because I am not looking at it quite as a job, but more as a personal challenge. I will get there. And I will do it the way I do everything.

Baby step by baby step, baby.

Fairy, or Believe

Fairy, or Believe
11/15/08 AEDM #15
Golden Fluid Acrylic

Not everything has to be so serious all the time. This is the Fairy Princess, she of little girls sparkle wings and flower dresses.

Fairy points to the power of imagination, the power of looking for the magic in the everyday, the joy of finding beauty in small things. This image says take it easy, have fun. Remember what it is like to dance in a circle and laugh until you get weak. Lay in the grass and hunt for clover. Watch the clouds change shapes and look for the dragon in them.

This is the card that reminds you of the power your mind has to create happiness and loveliness. It reminds you that summer is wonderful, but fleeting, and so you might as well make daisy chains while the flowers are there. Indulge your girlie side and have fun with sparkly things and cupcakes. Let the child in you free and build a cushion fort or a crown of fallen leaves or a fairy house in the woods. Revisit childhood favorites, like The Wizard of Oz or The Wind in the Willows, or Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup with fish crackers.

Stop trying to be so serious all the time.

But of course, there must be a dark side to this card. Reversed, this could mean that you have let your fantasies take over and no longer have your feet on the ground. It might be time to grow up a little, even if it is just enough to learn to do what you say you will do. Flowers are beautiful, but they are too delicate to build on. Remember that even in your joy and imagination, fairy houses are not for real live people. People need tougher stuff to live on. Focus some time on taking care of things, people, jobs, goals, laundry... whatever it is you have been ignoring for the pretty things. There is room for both imagination and reality in a balanced life.

Oy. I need more fun in my life.

This card came to me when I was anguishing over what to paint. So many ideas and I felt like none of them were right. None of them were perfect. (You'd think I'd have learned that perfection is unattainable by now.) And then I just felt like smacking myself in the head.

LIGHTEN UP! I said, and saw a fairy sticker on Ivy's potty chart after they went to bed, and said, hey, why not? I'm not really a fairy kinda gal... not the pretty girly kind, anyway. In my imagination, if there are faries, they're darker kind of creatures of myth and danger, not just pretty things flitting through the fields. But, hey, not everything has to be dark. Sometimes we can just have fun and make things in pastels and flowers. If I'd had glitter, I might have thrown that in there, to boot.

NANOWRIMO: 34059
I'm easing up on my word count goals for nano, as I work through some sticky concepts. If it goes on much longer, I'm just going to skip ahead to the next scene, where I know what I need.

Really, I was trying to get my main character to meet a "goddess." Or at least the consciousness of a planet. Oops... did I give away my plot twist? Anyway, I decided that she has not earned that meeting yet. She has far to go on that journey. Still don't know how I am going to convey the information I need to convey in this scene. I am heading into skip-it territory. That might be the Fairy path. Fairy's a little flaky, maybe she doesn't always handle tough stuff... but she enjoys it while she can. And anyway, let's say I do handle the rough patch like a Fairy and float over the thistles... that's not to say I can't come back like some... lawnmower later on and mow those weeds down.

Nothing, Continued

So, yesterday, after writing my post, the kids finally went to bed and I got some chores done and ate and then took a shower, washed my hair, got dressed... you know the maintenance of daily living. I then sat down to write my word count for the day and was...

flumoxed.

I found myself in a place of plot jumble. And a place of exhaustion. I sat there, in my writing corner, for a while, mulling over what I had written. I pounded out a confused 790 words mostly on a scene that I will probably delete/hilight in red for deletion after nano. I stared out the window. I took some self portraits of me in my writing "studio." (That's my inspiration board/altar you see behind me, with flowers, tower of stones, a small cardboard house that I made, paintings and prints, art supplies, magazine clippings and the cat who likes to bless the altar/inspiration.) I had a tootsie pop from the kids halloween stash. And then I decided to take a nap.

During writing time. I don't take naps, so it's a reflection of how tired I was. But more than that, it is about giving myself some space to do nothing. I have been working really hard for a long time now, leaving not much for rejuvenation.

So I decided to do nothing (or as much nothing as I could) for the rest of the day. I took a magazine with me when the kids played in the garden, and I flipped through it, rather than trying to draw or write in my journal or even do a photo shoot. I let the kids choose their own dinner and ended up with a mishmash of sandwich/snacks/leftovers. I watched a good movie on the big screen, lights off, instead of painting during tv time.

I feel better today. And today is starting my weeklong 38th birthday week. My mom is taking the kids out to shop for my birthday present and I am going to sit in a coffeeshop and write and draw and read magazines and be a non mommy for a few hours. Tee Hee. I don't do much to celebrate the actual day, so I like to indulge myself a few times and relax for the week.

I wonder if my productivity will come back with energy because I gave myself room to do nothing, to let my subconscious free, to dream, to sleep, to play, to relax.

I tell you, it wasn't until I was thinking that I'd have nothing to post today that I realized how the image from yesterday had influenced my whole day. Very interesting. Nothing can really be powerful.

nanowrimo total 32950
AEDM # 14 (Self Portrait in Writing Studio)

Eclipse, or Nothing/Everything

Eclipse, or Nothing/Everything
11/13/08 AEDM #13
Golden Fluid Acrylics


This is the card of nothingness. In nothing, there is everything. In silence, you can hear the speaking of your soul. In the calm of breathing, you can discover all your hopes and strength and the truth of what is really there.

This image speaks to your need to let go. Do not hold on to your list of To Dos. Do not grasp onto your idea of everything you SHOULD be. Let go of the past and all the voices telling you who you are/were/will never be. Release the clutter. Purge your garbage. Don't hold on to things because they might be meaningful some day. Get rid of that fear that no longer serves its purpose. Become empty. Become ready.

In order to receive what the universe has to give you, you must leave an opening. The emptiness waits to be filled. In the nothing, there is nothing that can stop you.

Nothing reversed, speaks to, not a zen beingness of now, but a refusal to face the emptiness, and thus a rebellion against meaning.

If life seems to have become meaningless, then you need to address the fear and pain that is keeping your from what is really important to you. If you have lost hope, face the pain of your heartbreak, and realize your strength even in the face of failure. If there is a lack of love, face the fear of loss that is always a possibility, and love anyway. If there is a lack of money, address your feelings of undeserving. This emptiness is not true emptiness, but a crowded space filled with hurt. Address the hurt, accept it. Release it. Be Free.
***
I had nothing to paint last night. Pages of ideas in my notebook and a pencil and sketches at my disposal and NOTHING felt right. My brain was full of nothing.

That was too easy, I thought. That couldn't count as creating, as art, as meaning. That was just laziness. The image of a circle on a black background kept coming back. I looked up at the ceiling for inspiration, and the fan spun in circles. I turned to the tv and ads for Heroes were full of "eclipse." I closed my eyes, there was the ring.

And this is my second try with this concept, after I got a reference photo of an actual eclipse. Did you know that when the moon blocks out the sun's light you can see better the shape of the actual sun, and all its flare ups and storms? Nothing turns out to be really hard.

So here's my nothing.

It's already helped me maintain my patience in the face of multiple puddles and screaming, giggling, dancing messes. And it helped me get up and dance with them.

I wish nothing for you today, too.

nanowrimo total: 32160

Superhero, or The Ideal

Superhero, or The Ideal
11/12/08 AEDM #12
Golden Fluid Acrylic.

This is the Superhero, our perfect ideal of life, ourselves, a mate. This is all the potential we can find in life. This is all our powers. We are indeed superheroes inside our skins. We have the ability to do startling things if we just unleash our inner superhero. We can save our own day. We can fly across the skyline. We can put out fires with our irrepressible spirit.

If you were to pull this image, then the universe would be telling you how powerful you truly are and to trust those superhuman insights, those heroic endeavors. This card is your "YES YOU CAN!" card. This card is the sign that you are at the point where you have the ability to achieve those dreams you have been dreaming. That's how strong you are. That's how amazing you are.

However, if you were to pull this in the reverse, the unbalanced version of the Superhero, you are put on notice that your perfectionism is harming your forward motion. There is no way to be perfect. There is no way to do it all without sacrificing anything. There is no reason for you to expect superhuman anything, because you are, in fact, human and gorgeously flawed, like every last one of us. You might also be aware that you are expecting too much of the people around you. They too have flaws. We cannot learn the ways of the world without stumbling and making mistakes.

As for me, when I posted my Superhero picture, I saw how flawed my photograph was. But understanding the other superhuman tasks I have ahead of me today, I let it go. I don't have time to go back out to my porch where the best light is, and take more pictures, down load, upoload, wait for the tick tick time going by before I could get the perfect picture. Even superheroes don't do it all. Superman is super strong, can fly and see through walls and stop time with his breath, but he can't do anything around kryptonite, and he isn't super stretchy like Elastigirl. And frankly, even if Superman is nearly perfect, I always thought he was the most boring of superheroes.

And another Superhero thing, today. Potty training. I'm afraid I have been expecting my babies to be instantaneously potty capable. Without realizing what a feat learning to use the potty is. Gaining control over your bodily functions, understanding the signals in time, keeping a constant eye on when it's time to go, mastering your own disappointment when you make mistakes.

The boy is making steps, but the girl just looks bewildered when she makes puddles on the floor. I think the puddles are inevitable. I have to remember that she's not already a grown up Superhero capable of holding in the weewee until she gets to the potty. She needs to make her mistakes, learn the signals, connect the dots so that she can be her own PeePee Girl, power of the Potty! And I have to let her learn her powers, not force them on her. And I have to practice my own Power of the Patience.

Okay, this is silly. :)

But another of my Superpowers

SUPERMOMMYWRITER
3036 words yesterday! Even though the boy refused his nap screaming until he woke his baby sister who then began yelling herself, at which point the boy fell promptly asleep. Grrrr! And yet, although I could hear kids playing and/or yelling in their room the entire time I was writing, I went from 9oo words to 3000 without quite knowing how I did it!

I am going to glory in my mysterious superpower a little longer. Hopefully there will be a repeat performance this afternoon. I've already vanquished The Messmaker Team, who escaped the confines of their room to spill a bottle of water on mommy's bed and make pen and jewelry soup out of my bedside stuff holder. I don't hear them any more. I'd better get to my novel. I will tackle the Fortress of Messitude later.


nanowrimo total w/c 30098

The Diver, or Memory

The Diver, or Memory
11/11/08 AEDM #11
Golden Fluid Acrylic

This is The Diver. She plunges into the depth of our past, our dreams, our subconscious, our memories and recovers our lost loves. The things that we have lost, the things that have slipped through the cracks. The things that we tried to hold on to but were unable to as we traveled the road that is our lives.

She recovers these things so that we can remember what is the real treasure. It is not the things, it is the experience. Not the details, but the emotion. Not even necessarily this person or that person, but the relationship you created together, the connection forged.

When we recover these things, we can create a more meaningful life. This is where poetry is born, from the detritus of living. This is where traditions are created, from habits of the past. This is where meaning and identity is solidified. Share your old loves with the world and allow them to live again in their new form.

But beware of being too caught up in the past. If the Diver stays too long in the land of things lost, she herself will be lost. This is not a place for living. If we hold on too tightly to things past, instead of living in the reality of the present,then we can be drowned by them. Regrets, grudges, grievances must be released in order to breathe deeply and walk strong.

Also, do not become too fixated on the treasures of the past... your glory days, a relationship that does not serve anyone any longer, a way of looking at the world that is now outdated as the world has changed. If you continue to hold onto outmoded ideas, you are in danger of being drowned as the past rises like the sea.

This very idea is one of the ideas that has led me to creating these images. It is one of those things that would not stay buried as time past, and continued to resurface again and again. So when I felt Flying Girl becoming a stale and a little rote, I decided it was time to release it and follow the fluidity of change. It is interesting how the ideas of the past and the actions of the present combine to become something entirely new.

Perhaps also my fear of not being good enough, that past fear, that old way of doing things is no longer quite as apt. I do see this project as going into the future. Coming from the past, going into the future. I wonder what an image representing the future would look like? I must consider that. I have already begun to collect ideas for more Flying Oracles, without knowing which will really resonate and which will have to be thrown back into the soup for recycling into better ideas, later.

nanowrimo total: 27062
bad day of writing. only 953 words. I have met NOBODY'S minimum. But that's okay. I was ahead. Now, if only the kidlets would stay asleep long enough for me to write. Of course, that also means I have to not procrastinate, gambling on a long nap, like yesterday. I lost that bet.
Oh well.

The Universe, or As Above So Below

The Universe, or As Above So Below
11/10/08 AEDM #10
Golden Fluid Acrylic, Pitt Artist Pen, gel pen

I like the way all things in the Universe run on a pattern. A tree can have the same basic shape as a river delta, or the veins in a hand or a vein of mineral in stone. Atoms make the same motions as solar systems. A mushroom grows the same as the spiral of cream that I pour into my coffee.

Look to where the patterns of your life repeat. What do you choose to do with your day? That is the direction of your life. If you spend your day in the pursuit of materialism, that is what your life is about. If you pursue daily the sacred, that is your life.

The things that you love, the things that are important, the ideas the fill you up, the images or colors that strike you, they will appear again and again, if you are willing to see them. If you capture them, and give them your attention and energy, they will expand.

Where is synchronicity at work in your life. According to The Universe, there is no coincidence. There is pattern. Pay attention to the patterns and follow them to find your heart's desire.

In the negative, think about where patterns might interfere with becoming the best you. Do you get angry at small things, when you are really angry at yourself? Do you procrastinate because you are afraid of being made responsible for actions? Where are you being self destructive? Drink, drugs, poor eating habits? Follow these patterns to find the root of it. Discover the shape of your traumas and work to heal those.

Above all, remember this. Negative or positive, the patterns that make you up make the universe up and they create a wondrous place of creativity and experience. Living is about experiencing these patterns and creating the meaning to the shape.

All in The Universe is, cosmically speaking, a part of the pattern.

***
How does this relate to my day? I have no idea. Only, I borrowed my step father's guitar yesterday and started to learn to play, something I have always wanted to do, and as I am learning to finger the keyboard and I am developing a callous on my pointer, the string snaps!

Boing!

Sigh. Why does it always seem like when I am on a roll and excited about something, there is always a SNAP?

Is it a pattern? I am afraid I think that it is the Universe messing with me, sometimes. Laughing Ha Ha at me whenever I have a success. But then, maybe that's not the pattern, and it's just my silly little trauma that reads my life that way.

Maybe the reality of that pattern is that progress always comes in fits and starts. Maybe life is made up of hurdles and tests to our desires. Maybe it is the will that we show, the strength in overcoming difficulties that make our wins so valuable.

For instance, just because some people think that other people shouldn't have civil rights does not mean that they will never have them. Perhaps it is a lesson to us all not to take for granted what it means to HAVE these civil, even human rights. At a time where a member of one group FINALLY reaches the highest office in the country, another group is denied the right to a pretty basic civil state.

Perhaps it is a reminder to us all to remember the blessing of what it means to be self aware. Perhaps it is a reminder that in order to be free, we often have to fight for the rights of others to be free.

Hmm. Patterns. Small and personal or global and political.

And the pattern of my novel is continuing on.

nanowrimo total wordcount 26109. Over half done. I must soldier on instead of procrastinating, like I really want to do today.

I wonder what it is I am avoiding? What fears are rearing inside that haven't made it to the surface, yet?

How are patterns operating in your life lately? Are you using them to move forward, or are they taking over your own free will?

Can we change these patterns?

La Maestra or She Gives

La Maestra or She Gives
11/9/08 AEDM #9
Golden Fluid Acrylic

This is the first in a relaxation of a constraint I had placed on myself. I am expanding out from the Flying Girls, but I am still inspired by them, and might still do a FG now and then. Or maybe I'll go back to FGs, I don't know.

These new paintings I like to think of as having a slightly different orientation... Portrait, instead of landscape. Also the orientation is towards expanding the subconscious elements out from flying girl. Maybe the idea is to expand out from myself. FG has been on MY journey, but the word is wider than just me. I would like to try adding in some masculine figures, although I will have to find a way to represent them. I would also like to try being influenced by the classic tarot, as well as contemporary archetypes.

I suppose this might be a kind of brainstorming period of creating my own oracle cards... hence the portrait orientation.

So here is my first attempt.

La Maestra.
The Teacher. And if you think you have influenced my creation of this, you are correct... especially you Miss D'arcy. Along with other teachers, my own experiences, my colleagues and work mates and class mates and soul mates.

Let me do a little deconstruction/analysis/reading of this image.

You see La Maestra gives of her heart. With open hands and eyes turned towards the inner needs of her students. She takes her wisdom, like pearls, and gives to all her students, charges, friends, clients, tutees (whoever turns to her for understanding.) The pearls spread out, sometimes as hard and beautiful as a real pearl, as organic, built up of layer after layer of understanding, sometimes as light as delicate as a soap bubble. Sometimes the pearls are tiny things, that you think can not be of influence, but they can grow and lead to the greatest of epiphanies and effects. The pearls lead outward in strings, also. Sometimes it seems like there is no connection to the teacher herself, but the wisdom she has given out is passed on to others, by her very students, expanding the wisdom of the world.

The colors are gentle, and a limited palette, as the best teaching is eased into the heart and mind of the student, not harsh or jarring or forced. The student is led to the place where they are best able to accept the next lesson. And La Maestra, with her open hands, also knows that not only are her hands open to give what she has, but also to receive the lessons that she learns from her students.

Now I was a teacher, and you might ask of this Maestra, where is the concrete? Where are the deliverables? Where is the feet on the ground, get down and get dirty, get things done and get in your paperwork on time teaching in this image? And ideally, if La Maestra is balanced, she does indeed have the technicalities and daily tasks of teaching down, although the heart of her teaching comes from this place of giving and wisdom. If La Maestra is unbalanced, perhaps she should remember the concrete, and learn to be more aggressive, understand her own authority and needs, and make sure that she is not giving away all that is hers without boundaries. Make sure also that she values what she has to give and does not allow others to take advantage or abuse her.

It is a beautiful thing to give of yourself. Your impact on the world is immeasurable, because it spreads out from all who you touch. However, you must be careful not to give AWAY yourself, and you should remember that aside from heart, you must DO with the strength of your own hands.

This image is not just for literal teachers, either. This is the idea of La Maestra. I know that I have learned so much and witnessed so much wisdom here in blogland, some taught by actual teachers, but some in the generosity of regular people. We all have La Maestra inside of ourselves.

So here is my first Flying Oracle. Working title of the series. Originating images that I'm sure I will refine. And initial analysis of the images. A first draft, if you will.

Speaking of first drafts.

nanowrimo 23534 words. 2257 words yesterday, although I didn't even think I would make it to the nano minimum of 1667wds a day. My personal minimum challenge is 2000, my goal is 2334wds a day... which would make my November total 70k. 2500 is my happy word count. All the other years I've done nano, I've reached for 5k a day. I have too much going on to do that now, and I think my current reach is better for staving off burnout.

One thing I've found about myself is that it can be a real challenge to get started and reach 1000 words, but by the time I get to the 1667 count, I am on a roll and can keep going until 2k, so I do.

Have you learned anything about your own creative process in your personal challenges this month? What is AEDM or Nanowrimo or Nablopomo (or any other daily challenge you've taken on) teaching you about your process?

Oh hey! It went back to teaching. Heh heh. I love when things come full circle.

What are the pearls of wisdom you are getting from this process? Take stock of what you are getting, and remember to value how far you have come so far, even if you think you are not getting as far as you "should" be.