This is my day job.

Out of focus and all.

It's my night job, too. I may still be on duty, at 8pm, after bedtime. You never know when I'm getting the call... "MOMMEEEE!"

This is what it means to be a mother and an artist. I try to squeeze my work in whenever I can, in little bits and pieces. But mainly, I have to be disciplined and organized.

Is that my nature? I don't think so. If it were, I wouldn't have to work so hard to get to a place where I can write every day, paint every day, get dinner done every day, get the kids potty trained every day, get some sleep every day, be nice to myself every day, do it all every day. Seriously, I have to plan and practice and backslide and take breaks, and I still don't know if doing it every day is the best way for me to accomplish my ends.

But if I want it, I gotta do it. And I can't give up. Ever. Even when I fall and get wrapped up in whatever drama is in my head or in my life, I've got to pick myself back up and get back on the horse.

I found this blog that posts the Daily Routines of writers and other creative folk. It's very interesting to see what successful artists do to keep it working.

Today, they posted about John Grisham. To be honest, not my favorite writer, but it doesn't really matter the way he writes, the thing to look at here is how he gets it done.

His goal: to write a page every day. Sometimes that would take 10 minutes, sometimes an hour; ofttimes he would write for two hours before he had to turn to his job as a lawyer, which he never especially enjoyed. In the Mississippi Legislature, there were "enormous amounts of wasted time" that would give him the opportunity to write.

"So I was very disciplined about it," he says, then quickly concedes he doesn't have such discipline now: "I don't have to."

The part that I particularly connected with was not the part where he woke up at 5am [shudder] but rather the part about having to be disciplined when he had the daily responsibilities of being a lawyer. I don't know which job is more trying, mothering two toddlers without help or lawyering, that's not really the point. The point is what it takes to get it done when your circumstances have you spending the bulk of your time doing other stuff.

I was talking to a college friend who is a published author, and I mentioned to him something about my schedule for writing. And he was impressed. "Now that's discipline," he said.

I never thought about it that way. It's necessity. It's the only way it's going to get done, if I really want it to get done. And like I said...

I really want it to get done.

What are the routines you are building into your life so that your art can live?

Inquiry: Living into Life

I took yesterday off. Except for a few details drawn in this piece. that I've been working on for a couple of days. This collage in my journal reminding me to live my life, to use my art to enrich my life. Life comes first. Riches come next. That means I have to step back from the ambition sometimes and just BE there in the day, in the moment, in the body.

Yikes.

Yes I did. I didn't feel guilty about not writing (well, maybe a little, until I decided a Sunday without work wasn't a bad thing). I struggle with the concept of taking a day off as I work on developing my daily writing habit. That's the struggle right there. If I want a daily writing habit, then how can I take a day off?

But, more than anything, I want to have a sustainable writing habit. What good is an everyday habit that exhausts me so I give up writing in a month? There has to be room for me to let go, if I am going to keep it up, I think.

Maybe if my day job was one where I had a couple of days off it would be a different story. But I barely get any non sleeping hours off of my day job. And my boss has a tendency to wake up with poopy diapers and/or crawl into bed in the middle of the night, so there's no guarantee I get time off during sleep, either.

On an interesting note, I wrote 3500 words today. Maybe if I log details like this, I will find out if my productivity increases regularly after taking a rest.

Anyway, it's interesting that during the Portfolio Project, which seems like it should be about PRODUCT, I am renewing my interest in process and in living. Living, not doing. Being.

Hey. I just had a thought.

When I teach, the portfolio is not simply a body of work. It is a record of the work the students have done, the things that they have learned, the struggles that they have overcome. Perhaps this version of a portfolio has influenced me more than a professional portfolio of work to sell or image to market.

I think my portfolio for me, right now, is not about that creating of a professional portfolio, but a document of my INQUIRY into how to become a working artist. How to live an artist's life.

You know what else I just did? I opened up my planning and idea notebook and made a list of questions I had about the business of art. Questions like what queries should look like, if I needed a business license to sell art, what to do about taxes. Maybe, just like I had my students do, I should do an idea web taking stock about what I already know about the business off art. I bet it's more than I thought I knew. That would give me a base to start on to BUILD the life I want to live, even in the areas where I am the most insecure.

And it is about building.

There is no way to have that castle in the sky dream without having the structure underneath it to hold it up.
City in the trees, or How We Rise
1/11/09
Pitt Artist Pens, White Gel Pen, Golden Fluid Acrylic

Coincidence that I drew this little city in the trees? No. I don't think so. Do you see all the building verbs in the trunk? I imagine the roots of the tree to have words about my past and education and experiences and all the things that have gotten me to the point where I can start building my little tree house of life.

I like to think that building a life takes all the elements that it might take to grow a tree, the fire of passion and the sun, the water of soul and fluidity, the earth to ground us, and the air that allows us to breathe, to think, to imagine.

My Creativity Log

This is my weekly log in my beloved planning/ideas book. The illustrations are not mine, but by Jill Bliss. The book is put out by Chronicle books and I loves it. This is my second one. Luckily I found it at nice and ubiquitous Barnes and Noble.

Ah, but I am not here today to talk about the wonderful pages (some of which are grids... my favorite notebook format after plain pages). No, I am here to talk about the plan of my creativity.

Aside from the normal daily To Do lists and long term goals for life and shopping lists or outlines or whatever it is that I'm trying to pin down so I can get it done, I have found that, as an artist, and as a mom, too, I need to keep track of what I actually HAVE achieved. I need to pay attention to the steps that I am taking so that i can see how far I am coming.

Particularly with writing a long piece like a novel, it is easy to think you are getting nowhere, because you're still writing the damn thing, and you don't actually HAVE a novel to show for yourself. You have bits and pieces and the hours spent twiddling the words and dreaming up characters and writing this line and taking out that one.

The thing is, it's all that invisible and small work that leads you up to the big work of a novel.

So to feel like I am achieving something, not just shouting into the void and wasting my time, I mark down exactly how many words, how many pages I've written. How much of the book I've revised. How many hours or minutes I sat at my desk and worked.

I can watch my word total go up and up every day. I can watch as the pages pile up. Three pages doesn't seem like a lot to write, until you add up a hundred days of three pages each. Then you have the body of work. Voila, like magic. Like magic that goes at a snail's pace and is like pulling snail's teeth every squoosh of the way.

Another bonus to keeping a creative log, is that you can keep track of the mechanics of your creative process. When do you write? How often? How long are your creative sessions? How long does it take you to finish a piece or how long do so many words take you? Is there something that you always need to do first? Or afterwards? Also it's a good place to write notes or questions for the next time you sit down at your work.

Plus, it's a prod. I really want to write in my log every day, and I can't if I don't do the work. And I can't let those non-productive days slip away unnoticed... because they are evidenced in those unmarked slots.

A have a different log when I am doing nanowrimo, or solely focusing on writing, which is more detailed, with separate slots for separate writing sessions and adding up details as to how I got my writing done. But for these twelve weeks coming, I'm looking to find balance in my activities.

What I can see just looking at my log today is that I have only missed two days of writing this year (that's 7 out of 9 days writing). I thought I was doing much worse than that. Interesting. Another thing I notice, is that my pace is slowly picking up. Not steadily, but it is. Perhaps I am getting my writing practice back, even if it takes some limbering up to get there (and it does). I am also noticing that my revision process is going slower than my first draft process. I had hoped it would be the reverse, but oh well. You can't really force the process. Maybe it will get quicker when I get to the parts of the book that I want to keep, rather than where I am which is almost all new material.

I'm used to keeping a writing log, so none of the writing revelations are that new to me. But I'm learning some things by keeping track of my other projects and aims.

Here are my categories (they aren't all in this photo, because I adjusted the Week 2 log to fit better into my life.)

Me. (Me comes first. I think that's very important.)
Writing.
Art.
Blog.
Business.
Kids.
Creativity Project.
Misc./Home (this is only a half column which shows you my priorities)


Here are the things I am learning from the rest of my Creativity Log.

When I write something down in the Me category, I acknowledge that I am taking care of myself so that I can fulfill my other roles better. I take seriously some things that I would otherwise have thought were a waste of time, although they are, in actuality, about recharging.
I also remember to take time and do things for my mental, physical and spiritual health.

I am writing whatever I do that day in regards to painting , drawing, collaging... or whatever. Actually, I'm going to have to think about all the things that go into visual art here-- like looking at other artists. This is helping me because I'm not doing the "painting a day" challenge like I was before, although I am trying to paint or draw every day. Writing down that I did a sketch reminds me that I am being creative here, even if I don't have a Finished Flying girl to show for it.

As to Blogging, I am trying to do it everyday-- but I am not putting attention into my other blogs, and I would like to, in a different manner. Maybe not so much theory and process. Plus, I'm writing down the titles/subjects of the blogs, so I can see it all right there.

And oh, Business. I can see in this Log how I am ignoring you. There is my prod to not let you slide into the shadows of fear and disappear to the daily doingness. Get to work there, Ro.

I remembered to put my kids on the Log. I want to acknowledge the large role that parenting has in my life right now, and that I am doing that almost every moment. I also want to keep track of where I am being creative as a parent. I'm not just putting potty training on this list. Although that's a HUGE deal. It's a reminder to me that creativity does not stop at painting and writing, but it's about LIVING creatively. I'm finding these tiny notes here are also reminding me to capture moments of joy.

When I added my new section on the Creativity Project, it was because I had just realized that while I was documenting my process with this Portfolio Project, I was also starting my Creativity book that I have been wanting to write forever.

Something I want to do with this log is put things in more than one category. A blog entry could also count as the Creativity Project. A Kid entry could also be a Me entry.

All in all, I am pleased with the format of my Creativity Log. I might adjust it later. I like that even more. That I can tweak it according to my living, rather than following some agenda planner or calendar. Who needs straight lines, anyway? It gets the job done rather remarkably.
This about making life explicit. And paying attention to it.

Treehouses, Unfinished

Treehouses, unfinished.

My tree houses, play houses, dream houses, art shacks, writing rooms, creativity cottages. Yes. Unfinished. So many little projects with so little free time. But plenty of dreams.

I'm looking forward to finishing it tonight. Not that I have much brain power, right now. I've been sitting in front of my computer for an hour trying to figure out how to write this post. Uhm, make that two hours.

But it all just seems so momentous again. So many things to do, so many projects to take on. So much work so much work. So hard to pull my brain away from taking care of kids and the tv playing in the background and finding something to eat and worries about how the money situation will ever make sense again.

I'm getting lost in the list. The list of things to do and desires and musts.

So.

Take it all back to the core.

Art to center myself. To understand. To breathe and to be.

Why do I have to keep reminding myself of these things? Why do I get overwhelmed with the task of making it something REAL. (which in my psyche means, paid for. Silly psyche.)

Why do I ask why and struggle against the process of beginning, or overwhelm? Why do I forget that it's all the way it's supposed to be.

Gosh darn it,
because that's the way it's supposed to be.

Okay. Here's where I am:
After 38-- fine, 33 years (since kindergarten) of being an artist, and 23 years of trying to be a novelist, and 20 years of being a poet, and 10 years of being a teacher, and 3 years of PPD where I lost it all, and one year more of getting it back... I'm ready to take it global.

No. I'm not ready to take it global, but I'm ready to GET ready to take it to the rest of the world and make it a career, not just a calling.

And it means I get frustrated and confused at the immensity of it all. And I get scared about not being good enough to be a professional, and the echoes of my poetry advisor saying I couldn't do it get louder and the panic sets in. And that's all normal, a normal part of the process. And it means I have to take it back to the scaffolding of the thing to remember why I've been doing it all in the first place.

It's about me, and understanding myself, and it's about the world, and helping others to understand themselves. It's about saying yes instead of no.

I just joined another group. Yes, another. Now on top of The Portfolio Project, and on top of Creative Everyday, I am doing a book blog based on the book The Twelve Secrets of Highly Creative People. Not to mention the third draft of my novel (this is the one I'm going to show people) and trying to get an etsy shop up. It's another 12 week project and I'm getting a little overwhelmed, but I know my motivation here. My motivation is to....

What's my motivation again? Am I trying to whip my creativity into shape? Harness her up to my goat cart? Prod her down the road of commerce? Yipes.

Maybe. And that might be why I joined this new group. To focus on my creativity for myself, not for making a living so I don't have to go back to teaching when the kids start school. To make paintings based on my insides, not some market. To open up the skin and get deep.

Oh yeah, and to have some fun, to do some playing, to center and breathe, to get messy with paints. And write about those people who have been living in my head for three years. And to take care of myself. And to have fun with the kids. And to live. Oh yeah.

Live.

Build Joy, or Play

Build Joy, or Play
1/06/09
Prismacolor Watercolor pencils, Golden Fluid Acrylics, Pitt Artist Pens, White Gel Pen

I had some technical difficulties yesterday, both computer and brainwiring.

Here are my lessons. First, if you can't upload photos, turn the computer off and on again and check if it's okay then (because this morning it worked fine). The same lesson works for digital cameras, celphones, dvd players and all those other indispensable electronic gadgets that didn't exist 20 years ago.

Second lesson: Don't stay up to watch Night of the Living Dead with your uncle so that you are then falling into bed with zombies running through your head, and decide to open up the last book of Harry Potter to chase the zombies away, but instead get caught up in the climax at Hogwarts, not closing the book until 3am. Because on that night, sure as tooting, the babygirl will wake up at 6:30 am and your day will be shot.

On to the story.

The story, my friends, is about play. That is the optional theme for the month over at Creative Everyday.

The last few days, in my "exploration" phase of my Portfolio Project I have been trying to reconfigure my head around what I REALLY wanted out of the project. All the work I had been doing before was more like what I thought I needed to get where I wanted to go... but what good is that if you are blocking all joy from entering???

The first thing I did was get all gloomy, because that's what I do.

The second thing I did was go on the internet and look around at what other people were doing. There was one about by Shayla about hiding in a tree. There was a video about doing an art journal a month at Suzi Blu's and there it was, it all came to me.

I didn't want to just do disconnected pieces of art to sell. I wanted to go back to who I used to be, the girl who carried a journal everywhere and filled it up at the drop of a hat, with poetry and art pieces, collages, inspiration, pages and pages of thoughts.

Granted, my life has changed, and I'm lucky if I have 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to finish a thought, and web logging has replaced much of my handwritten rumination, and yes, I want finished works that I can sell, BUT I still want to do the work that filled me up all those many years ago.

A lot of that was my play. My exploration. My sitting on swings and getting dizzy with the world going by. My leaning on a tree and looking up at the branches, watching them sway, reveling in the dappled light and the smell of growth and decay. My staring out the cafe window at the people passing. My getting messy with paints and glue. My digging moments out of my dreams and my past and bringing them to life again. My collecting images that capture me. My talking to friends about what it all means.

Oh, exploring and wondering and getting dirty and skinning knees, wandering and getting lost and found at the same time, reading and movie watching, dancing and listening to music, learning new things and getting obsessed with new loves.

I decided this week that I don't want my project or my life to be all about work. I've decided that I want my project to be about my life, and out of that, the work will flow.

So to remind me, I drew this treehouse, and the largest word is BUILD, and it turns into JOY and then into PLAY. It's not about Building a business (although it is) it's about building a life that is worth living. Work is a part of that, but if I focus everything on product product product commerce commerce commerce, I'm afraid that I might just freeze up and start shrinking.

And do you know the work it was to make this treehouse? It took me most of the week, including the times I had to set it aside and stare at it in dissatisfaction. It started out just a drawing with watercolor pencils, which I could manage while the kids watched Sesame Street. And I didn't like it. Then I painted it all with a layer of cream acrylic. And it was still too pink. And I stared and stared and stared and decided it needed definition, so I finally went in with a pen to pin down the thoughts and the words and the forms. There it started to take shape. I drew in the house. I added details. I added more thoughts in the leaves with white pen. Slowly it became something although it still didn't feel right.

Every time I sat down I added. I considered. I altered. I built this drawing much the way one might build a real play house. Starting with a foundation, a structure, adding the walls, adding the trims.

And then there came a time where it was close enough to being done that I could look at it and see where my discomfort had been the entire time. It was just too pink, too pastel. And I took out my medium dark pens, tan, green, beige, and gave it the definition I wanted. And then it was there. The way I wanted it. Take to places I hadn't quite intended, but being closer to what I felt than the original vision.

The truth is that while I am generally an optimist, I am not a pastel pollyanna. I need some weight to my bright, some shadows to the pink and green. Maybe the entire time, I wanted something a shade darker in my Play and my Joy. A little darkness to define the dawn, a little cold Winter to show us the soft Spring.

Flying Girl Whispers or I Will Give You A Home

Flying Girl Whispers or I Will Give You A Home
1/05/09
Golden Acrylics, Pitt Artist Pens, Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils

Yesterday I was confronted by the conflict between my ambitions and my reality. This painting took three days. Or was it four? I started it days ago, and left it sitting, not wanting to show it to anyone because it was just WRONG. Blech. The colors were jarring and it just was somewhat awkward. But I let it sit, rather than posting it wrong. I let it sit. I thought about what I was really wanting to do with my project, with my life, with my work. Then last night, after bad television and more hours of lack of ambition, (oh and a glass of port) I took my paint to the WRONG picture. I am actually really liking the layers of paint, lately. I'm enjoying glazing on top of what is already there and even more so, scumbling... which is glazing with opaque or semi opaque layers of a lighter color. So I tried it out with what was already there, and the words came to my head (probably due to my "gatherer" mindset this afternoon, as I scooted about the internet looking for inspiration and focus) and voila, everything came together in meaning.

The painting only succeeded when I gave up my expectations for it, for myself, for my project, for my productivity. I had to stop trying to PRODUCE, I had to stop trying to be PROFESSIONAL and come up with PERFECT (oh, lord, there it is, that's why I've been having so much trouble. My old nemesis, perfectionism) art so that I could sell it and make money.

The reality is life is what it is and my process is what it is and my time and energy are limited and I can't just WILL myself to so something that does not fit into the life I have. I had forgotten about the initial babysteps, or perhaps I thought I was "over" needing to take babysteps, because I had already come so far.

But it doesn't matter where you've already been, when you start something, you're always starting from point A. I thought I was at point C.

HA HA HA HA.

Luckily, I am watching many people as they struggle with their Portfolio Projects or their personal challenges or their New Year's resolutions or whatever it is we all have decided to tackle in this post holiday, pre the rest of the year period. It's not lucky that everyone is struggling, it's lucky that we are sharing our processes and through that sharing, learning that this is normal. Part of the process. Necessary. Expected.

Yay, we're normal.

So, let's back up a step. Let's not even think about what we really want to produce with everything we've taken on. Let's think about where we ARE. Where we have come from, and what we want to get out of this work, what we want to learn, how we want to grow.

Where have you come from? What is your experience with your work?

I grew up the child of artists and was supported in my art and writing from very young, both at home and in school. But I have always had it in my head that making money off of art or writing was nearly impossible and you had to be a genius to succeed and even then, The Man could always stop you. A couple of bad critiques and a couple of rejection letters later, and I shied even more away from publishing or selling work. From 92-97 I was poet, painter and novelist who waited tables and infrequently showed, performed or sent work out. From 97-03 I taught HS and wrote and painted when I wasn't working (yay summer). After that I bartended for a year and worked on my art and writing career again, then came the babies, and all art disappeared. Kaput for 3 years. This last year has been spent recovering that art and working my way up to where I could start over from where I was before getting pregnant.

What do you want to gain from your work? (Not what you want to produce, but what you want to gain out of taking this work on.)

I want to get to the point of my life where I have an infrastructure set up for being a professional. I want to know how to send work out and who to send it to and how to manage all the technical details. I don't want to be afraid of art and commerce. I want to have a regular writing and art practice. I want to share my fiction with people instead of hiding it away. I want to be clear and explicit about my process as I continue to work on this project. I want to help other people be creative as I build my own work. I want to roll with the punches and not lose momentum because of bad critiques or rejections or disappointments. I want to understand my own process and allow my own dips and lulls while maintaining my creative practice. I want to have faith that the work will come.


I wanted to do this in a linear manner, with my goals and my lists, but it turns out, it isn't linear. And it's not about the product. It's more about the creative process, which is more organic, and it's turning into, for me, more of an Inquiry than a business proposition. Let me tell you, I was not expecting that. So as I work this process, I'm going to go slow and take it one step at a time, whether the steps take me forward or backward a little.

What about you? Where are you coming from with your work? Where are you wanting to go? How's the process been for you so far?

Portfolio Project, Week One: Explore

Painting in Process/Blank
1/03/09

Let me tell you. This week has not been as productive as I was planning.

Last week, my Pre-Portfolio Project was all about thinking and planning and coming up with expectations and goals and plots and making it all bigger and more ambitious and WOO HOO let's just reach for our dreams and what a great year it will be!

And then came January First, the prospective start day... and I didn't start. I made a log, though, so I could keep track of what I didn't do... and what I did.

And day two and I slowly started writing things down and trying out ideas and sketching a little. I even painted a picture that I had no inspiration for but I just tried it out and came up with something that I didn't even like.

And day three and I started to write, fewer pages than I had planned. And I messed with the blog. And I painted a picture... with inspiration... but in fits and starts, because it flickered on and off, that inspiration, like a flashlight with dying batteries. And it isn't done, that picture. This picture, with the flying house inspired by a video posted over on Secret Notebooks.

But in these three days where I have not reached my goals, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what this all is, this project and this process.

It is
1. Not going to go from 0-60 in 60 seconds. No it's not. I already knew that was not how productivity develops, but I guess I thought I had been so busy before, I could just translate that business into a new project, but I can't. You still need to take baby steps in the beginning until you are warmed up for the great strides.

2. Not going to turn out to be what you expected. Will I finish my novel in a month? Probably not. Probably not even the 2 months I had scheduled. If I manage it in the whole three month period, it will be a blessing. Am I going to paint my initial 60 paintings (like I originally proposed) or even 24 finals, like I had settled on after looking at the whole list of expectations? Some of those other goals might get knocked right out of the project. Don't know. But the project might even end up being MORE than I expected. In fact, I am beginning to think that the project might help me outline my non-fiction creativity book that I have been tossing around for the last, oh 15 years.

3. Tough. And it's not the project itself that is the hardest work. The hardest work is the work that goes on within yourself. Questions to ask that inform it all: Who am I? What do I really want? What am I afraid of? What are the most important things in life? What am I willing to give up? What drives me? What do I have to share with the world? How can I believe in myself and my work?

So last night and this morning I made the realization that this week (maybe longer, because this project will probably change over the course of 12 weeks) is about exploring.

In it, I am exploring the ideas that I set forth before hand. Exploring my ability to reach my goals. Exploring the creative projects and finding what shape they will have.

In that exploration, I am allowed to get lost. I am allowed to blunder around, trip over my own two feet, get turned around and go backwards, take a new path, climb a tree for a better view, mark a rock with a piece of chalk to show where I've been, take a nap and start out again.

In exploring the boundaries of my project, I am allowed to not be inspired. To produce crappy paintings, or ones that seem more unfinished, like last night's piece. What started out inspired and ended up being a cypher for what is to come. I am allowed to write 3 times as many words as I actually keep. I am allowed to snap a hundred thousand digital photos and erase them all. I am allowed to cut my hair and consider that part of the process. I am allowed to scrap half my project and stick in and even more ambitious piece. I am allowed to start keeping track of the things I do to take care of myself, not just my project.

I am discovering this work. I am discovering my self. I am discovering the year. I am discovering the road as I go... in fact, not only am I discovering it, I am making it as I go.

Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace camino al andar.
(Traveler, there is no road. You make the road as you go.)
-Antonio Machado

What are you discovering this week about your project, your goals, your self? Take a chance and go off the beaten path of your intentions and discover something new. How is your path changing as you walk along it?

My AiAi

Listen, I'm not picky. I take my wisdom any place I can get it, even if it's from the under two set.

Ivy has this new thing. A thing that could easily drive me batty. She has taken to coming up to me a million times a day and asking me, "Mama, whatchu doin'?" All day long, when I'm putting a spoon in my mouth or getting dinner ready or fixing a toy or writing. "Mama, whatchu doin'?"

After a couple days of this new trick of hers, trying to answer each question as it came, I decided I'd try to turn it back around on her.

"I'm eating/reading/making dinner, Ivy. What are YOU doing?"

And do you know what her answer was?

"My AiAi." Which in Ivy speak means, "Me Ivy." Every time I ask, same answer. "My AiAi."

I think she is saying she is just being Ivy.

What is Mama doing? A long list of activities to fill her day or feed everyone or get her somewhere. What is Ivy doing? Just being.

And that's good enough. I don't have to chase one more page of writing to be successful, or cook better meals or even enjoy each day to it's fullest. I don't have to be supporting my family with my art in twelve weeks or add one more thing to my list of tasks completed. I don't have to worry about what tomorrow brings or what I have to make right. I don't have write the greatest novel in the world. I don't even have to hit all my marks in my Portfolio Project. I just have to be me.

I found that intersected nicely with a podcast from Jen Lee and Jen Lemen on the Portfolio project, where they talk about beginners mind and and giving yourself some space for care and nurturing, and about it being better even if we don't make every project step to be so SIGNIFICANT. Remember it's a game, just as life is.

Here's a good quote from the podcast (although I am not sure which of them said it, since I don't recognize their voices yet and they both had colds.)

"It's really okay just to be. Just breathe. Do your work everyday for three months."
-Jen L. or Jen L.

And that's how it all gets done. It is a tricky bit of balancing, this committing to a thing while still allowing yourself to not be hung up on its doing. I have all intentions of completing it... but along with those intentions I am practicing the release of my expectations.

Oh yes, it's that trickiest of all Buddhist concepts. Non-attachment.

I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

Warrior Girl Warriors On, and You Can, Too!

Oh, such a day trying to deconstruct my weirdness.

I finally got it whittled down to: "I am avoiding something that scares me, even though it's not that big a deal."

It took me even more time before I took action and called the person I needed to talk to and requested the assistance I had been avoiding asking for.

Then I felt much better.

Then all of a sudden I could begin.

I started writing out a new scene outline for my revised novel. It's changed so much, I don't really just want to sit down and start writing without being clear on story and all the things I want to get to in the first few scenes.

I sketched out an idea for a new banner. I've had a Springtime banner up there since, well, the Spring. And what I have up there now? Well, that's no good, so I decided I would try to draw something. That's not true. I decided I would draw something since I didn't paint a picture yesterday, and when I had started, I thought, well, hey, why not just make that a banner, since it was on my mind anyway.

Here's the sketch.

I think it's a good idea, even if the photo isn't that good, because I want to keep it just the way it is. And I've discovered that if I want to keep something for my own, then it's good. I will probably turn it into a painting, but I still like the sketchy quality. Maybe I will incorporate the sketch into an underpainting and use sheer glazes and some opaque scumbling. I've been experimenting with that technique with the portraits, so I wonder what it would do to Flying Girl.

Here's what I have learned about my process in the last couple of days (and 38 years).

1. If I am scared of something and avoiding it, I freeze up everywhere else. Except I might be able to make a log or calendar or graph. Because I do stuff like that.

2. Once I take steps on the scary thing, I get some light and air into my brain and I can move forward.

3. If I don't know where to start, lists often help get me going. Lists where I figure out what I have to do. Lists where I write about important themes. Lists where I remember my blessings. Lists of things to tackle. Lists of things I've already done.

4. An outline helps me get my head back into work that I have not done in a while. The novel was far away, but when I started writing about what I wanted in the first chapter, so many other things came rushing back. A character sheet or place map or plot chart might do the same thing.

5. Sometimes I can't get my creative work done at night when I have scheduled it. That is okay. I can often still find a few moments the next day where I can keep the creative juices flowing. And even if it's not technically the same day, it still fits with my plan because I am flexible enough to allow room for my process and the reality of my day as a busy woman with no childcare and limited energy.

6. An awful lot of other people are going through something similar. I think it's part of the process of beginning. And that makes me feel like everything is going to be okay and I am not some sort of creative deficient who JUST CAN'T DO IT. Don't laugh. Everyone feels that way, even people who have been creating non stop for four months. And what that says is that even if you haven't created in four YEARS, you still aren't deficient and it IS normal to feel that way and everyone struggles through those feelings. So you can to do it, and so can I and it's going to be a great year even if, maybe because, we still struggle.

7. Oh yeah, and sometimes something you put on the back burner is actually bubbling away, not being ignored, and getting ready to be really tasty, if you just wait for the right time to stir it up again.

Happy New Year. Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life

So was yesterday. So will be tomorrow.

Again and again we are given the gift of starting over. Every minute is the minute when we could decide to change our lives, to REALLY go after our dreams, to live into our selves.

So why do we place so much emphasis on days like January First? Building it up to be the time, the day, the moment when we finally RESOLVE to fix whatever is wrong with us.

It's all a fallacy.

There's nothing wrong with us.

Our life does not end at the stroke of midnight and begin again in the next instant, maybe better if we have someone to kiss.

This whole life thing, it's an adventure. It's all about making mistakes and taking steps and learning what comes next. It's not about achieving, it's about trying. It's not about winning, it's about being.
Adventure,
Mixed Media on paper, 9x10, 2003

So what the heck am I talking about? I'm not sure, because I had a beer with dinner and lightweight that I am, it all seems to make so much sense but I don't. Haha, no I joke.

What do I mean? We put to much pressure on ourselves to start everything over new just because the calendar flips from one year to the next. We build it up to mean something. We make THIS the YEAR where ALL our DREAMS come TRUE. The problem?

Let's say we planned on finishing our novel in, oh, eight weeks, and yet the first day of the goal, we didn't sit down to write, but instead spent the entire nap/break on internet surfing. Let's say that happens. Is it a disappointment? Maybe. Why couldn't we TACKLE THE UNIVERSE on our brand new day/brand new us? Why couldn't we DO WHAT WE SAID? Does it make it that much harder to try again tomorrow, when we are already A WHOLE DAY BEHIND? Do we keep focused on our goal, or are we already thinking, "I can't do this I fucked up already? Why bother, I'm such a loser?"

But all these dates in the calendar? Well, they aren't real. What's real is your will and your ability to rebound from setbacks and your commitment to the goals that you have considered important enough to dedicate your next 12 weeks or 6 months or year of your life to having.

We aren't losers because we don't hit every expectation. There isn't something wrong with us because we don't manage to jump out of the gate like a racehorse with a flaming jockey on his back. Let's step back and take the long view. Are we talking about our lives here? Or just living up to some resolution?

If it's the life that's important, then we need to allow setbacks, sickdays, gentleness, self love, falling off the wagon, and any other moment when things just don't meet our expectations.

We can NOT beat ourselves up for our imperfection. Instead, we simply pick up our intentions, dust them off and start focusing on the next step we plan to take to reach our goals. Don't obsess over why we can't write. No, don't do that... the next step after that is declaring it a writer's block, which might never end. What we do instead is start thinking, "Hmm, I wonder what my main character would do if she encountered this?" Or start jotting down ideas for our next painting. Or making lists of the next adventure we are going to start on.

We've got to ride this wave, you see, my friends, and keep moving forward (even if forward motion seems to be moving backwards, for the moment).