This is an amazing idea! Will you be watching?
Category: Inspiration
How to Feel Miserable as an Artist
By Keri Smith (you might know her from Wreck This Journal)
(via the Facebook page for Some Guy Who Kills People)
We’re Lucky to be Horror Fans
Last night I came across a blog about the atrocities of war. It’s graphic; there are pictures of the dead and brutalized victims of bombings, attacks, and the like. The photo that stuck with me all through today was of the aftereffects of a bombing: there is an eleven year old girl, screaming and blood spattered, and in the corner is a child who died smiling. I can’t get the image out of my mind.
It’s made me realize how lucky we are, us horror fans.
I live in Canada, and more often than not I take my country for granted. I don’t mean to, and I really do love being Canadian. It’s just that life here is…nice. People really are polite here (for the most part). We get all the seasons, so there’s something for everyone. The land is vast and largely green and just so damned nice. There really isn’t any other descriptor for it. And because it’s so lovely and safe, it’s easy to forget that life is not like this for most.
I can walk safely to my car in the dark (even though doing it drives my Mom crazy). I lock my doors out of reflex, but honestly? I probably don’t need to. I have never in my life worried about whether a bomb will hit my house. (I HAVE a house, in the first place, which is again more than many can say.) I grumble and bitch about my “bad days” like everyone else, but I rarely spare a moment of gratitude for the life I live.
It made me think: if you’re a horror fan (and if you’re here, there’s a good chance you are), you’re lucky too. No one in a war-torn country would welcome more horror. They have enough in their real lives. Those of us who can assume that we’ll return home unscathed at the end of the day have the luxury of “escaping” into horror. The monsters are different, but fear is fear. The difference is that we welcome the safe version, tucked cozily into our beds. The fact that we get to choose our horrors renders us lucky.
I don’t honestly know where I’m going with this. It’s just a thought that’s been with me today.
Today I am grateful.
I Need to Staple This to My Forehead.
First I questioned the fact that Stick Guy only has two (three?) cups of coffee. Then I realized the cups are as tall as his chair. Well played, The System.
Writing Game: Race the Commercials
Just a quick game, because I know you don’t have time.
In fact, that’s what this game is for.
Next time you’re watching tv, keep a notebook (or your laptop) nearby. When the commercial break starts, GO. You have 2 minutes and 20 seconds to scribble (or type) like mad. How many words can you get down? Can you write a paragraph? A whole conversation? I’ve read that an hour-long show ends up being only ~40 minutes when you delete the commercials. That’s 20 minutes of time you didn’t think you had.
When your show comes back, your pen goes down. You’re free to completely ignore your story until the next break.
You may find, like I did, that you’d rather work the story than watch the show. And that your 20 minutes of writing just became 40. But if not, you’re still 20 minutes ahead on your story. Congratulations!
Doubting Yourself? Keep Trying.
“We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us. The sooner we get them out the better.”
– Walt Stanchfield
“I think it takes about a million words to make a writer. I mean that you’re going to throw away.”
– Jerry Pournelle
Sometimes it feels like it’s never going to come together. You might be having an off day, or be stuck in the middle of a slump, and you feel like you’ll never get anywhere. It’d be easy to give up. It’d be easy to say that you’ll never get better, never be great.
But look.
Jonathan Hardesty began posting his sketchbook to ConceptArt.org when he was just beginning as a visual artist. His first posting looked like this:
Some people would get discouraged, would say that they’re not cut out for art. They’d look at a sketch like this and compare it to the work of practiced artists and conclude that they’ll never be as good.
But Hardesty kept drawing. And painting. And posting. He told the forums that he filled every spare moment with drawing practice. I seem to recall a story of his wife driving a long leg of a roadtrip so he could keep his hands on his pencils. He developed a singlemindedness that we could all learn from.
Eventually he posted this:
Then this:
What if he’d stopped at the green cylinder? What if you stop every time you get discouraged?
His sketchbook is still growing. You can find it here.
Jonathan Hardesty’s 9 Year Journey From Novice To Master Painter from Mark Erdmann on Vimeo.
Writing Game: Pick the Next Word
I was reading Pillars of the Earth last night (and I’m NOT FINISHED so no spoilers please!) I reached the bottom of one of the pages and noticed it cut off mid-sentence; the rest of the phrase would be on the next page. I caught myself guessing which word would complete the sentence. It so happens that when I turned the page, I was right!
What does it mean? Absolutely nothing! But it’s a fun little game to see if you’re on the same wavelength as the author. By guessing the next word, you’re putting on your writer-hat and interacting with the book and its language.
Maybe you can see right away why the author went with that particular word choice; it might have been used for brevity’s sake, or because it was the most descriptive. Maybe it’s a signature word the author uses frequently (Ayn “Sanction” Rand, I’m looking at you).
If you guessed a different word, does your word substantially change the meaning of the original phrase? Or are they synonymous? Do you like yours better?
Try it! I’d love to know how it goes.
Just Say No.
(via Ravelry)
Make Something.
Yesterday I was showing my husband the bracelet I made (and by “made”, I mean I savaged* a store-bought bracelet and added an evil eye bead). Part of the modifications involved bending a head pin. I did a…passable…job, for a first-timer.
He asked why I don’t just ask our chain-mail-making friend to do it for me.
Because it’s better to make your own stuff, is why.
There’s nothing nicer than making something. I don’t know if it’s ancestral memory of when we had to make everything ourselves, or maybe it’s the novelty of handmade in a world of mass-produced. But something about holding something that wouldn’t exist if not for you is wholly satisfying.
Granted, the bracelet I “made” was put together using stock parts, but still, my hand was involved in the final product. I make other things, too: I knit, I bake, I cross-stitch, I paint a teeny tiny bit. Oh, and I write, in case you missed that somehow (!).
Friends and family have seen (and read!) the stuff I’ve made, and the comment is nearly always the same:
“I could never do that.”
Of course you can! I taught myself to knit with YouTube. I learned how to bake bread by making some really shitty bread. I’m learning how to draw right now, and believe me when I say that my drawings suck mightily. But that only means I’m learning.
Do you ever wonder what happens to all the writing I talk about? The daily quota has to go somewhere, right? Some stories don’t come together and get put on hold. Some, frankly, suck ass and get tossed. But I’ve gotten better only by coming back again and again and making something. Every night when I go to bed I want there to be something I made that wasn’t there before. It’s a powerful feeling to leave your mark, however small, on the world every day.
Have you made something recently? Go on, do it: make, bake, saw, sew, glue, paint, grow, make a tremendous mess. Life is too short to be passive. Go create something that’s all yours.
*Yes, I mean “savaged”, not salvaged. I ripped that sucker apart.
sniderwriter 