Creative Every Day Check-In Time...

The first week of 2014 has been fairly creative I feel.
I've been taking daily photos as planned.
I've done a little writing.
I've done some embroidery on an art quilt in progress.
I made curried split-pea soup.
I made mocha chip muffins (vegan).

All in all not too shabby, especially considering that it wasn't even a full week!

A collage of the 5 daily photos...




Each photo is also on my tumblr under the daily photo tag...

New Year, More Hope

Happy New Year!

Here's the last art quilt finished in 2013 and the first photo taken in 2014...

2014 Word of the Year: Hope

 I like the whole word of the year thing.

I picked a word for 2013 but didn't end up doing much with it.
I picked "open" and by the middle of the year it wasn't resonating with me much at all.

But I am not going to let that stop me from trying again for 2014.

For 2014 I knew what word I wanted a month ago. It wasn't like last year when I had to brainstorm for what felt like ages as the new year approached. No, this time I knew I wanted "hope" to be my word.

It didn't even make the list of possible contenders last year. It's something that I'm not comfortable with but I've been inspired by my new favorite TV show: Once Upon a Time.
One of the major themes of the show is hope and it is something I want to explore more. Something that I want to learn to do more. To hold on to more.

Which is why the imperfect hearts art quilts have had some sort of "hope" message on them. I've already started working with the word.



Another one of my imperfect hearts. This one was a gift for my mother so I couldn't post it earlier.

Imperfect Hearts

I've started making art quilts again.
I've also started a new series of art quilts called the "Imperfect Hearts Series".
I draw out hearts that aren't perfect and make them into applique designs.
A do a new one for each art quilt. No repeats.
At the moment I've been embroidering "hope" on them.
That may change as this series evolves or it may not.






The first one is a gift for someone who isn't online at all.
The second one I kept for myself.
I've made a third one but I won't be posting that until after the holidays because it is another gift.
I've also made a differently themed art quilt that I can't post quite yet.

It feels good to be back at this. 

Is This Winter?

I still don't have the tree up, but I did move the printer off the table where the tree will go, so there has been some progress.

I took this picture outside on the porch the other day.
Not sure when, I only got it off the camera tonight.



We got a tiny bit of snow mixed with rain the other night.
It's still not really looking or feeling much like winter in New England right now. Sure it's a bit on the cold side but not that cold. Not really.

I don't mind. Winter isn't exactly my favorite season.
Though I do like the excuse it gives me to stay in and make soup and bake cookies.
Not that I've been doing those things but I plan to. Soon.

I've been working on an art quilt and they take so much time and it's been a while since I've worked on one. It's a gift for the holidays so I can't say much about it.
I am enjoying the work. Which is nice since I haven't been inspired to do this sort of thing for a while. 

Thinking Ahead

I need to put up our little tree.
The holidays seem to be just sneaking right up on me.
Maybe it was because I was so busy with NaNoWriMo in November.

I'm working on an art quilt at the moment that will be a gift.
The first one that I've worked on in a while. I'm enjoying it but I forgot how long this takes. Writing is so much faster.

I've been thinking more of the year ahead than the winter holidays themselves.

Looking back on my early plans for 2013 is kind of sad and disappointing.
There was only one goal that I stuck with and that was writing.

So many other things got left behind. Not really out of apathy or neglect but out of a conscious decision to let those things go for a while and maybe that was okay. Maybe that was what I needed.

I don't feel that 2013 has been bad. It has been productive with the writing even if it wasn't with much else.

I have plans to get back to photography with the coming year as well as with art. I don't want to let go of the writing either though.
I need to find a way to bring it all in. To balance it all.
Or as much as I can anyways.

Rainy Wednesday

Pictures and Finishing Things.

Picture from Tuesday...




Cuteness and inspiration on my desk.

I finished my NaNo novel on Tuesday in the early morning hours. I ended up writing close to 4k words in about four hours. Which made my wrists sore but brought me to the end at a little over 75k.

It feels a bit weird to be done, but good too.

No Photo but a NaNoWriMo Update Instead.

I didn't take a photo today and I've decided not to beat myself up over it.
I'm just going to try and take daily photos but not go crazy with it.

I'm still working on my NaNoWriMo novel and I'm almost done. Really close. I'll finish today I think.

I'm at over 72k now. I'm not going to validate on the site until I finish the novel.

It's so rough and rusty but I'm really proud of it. It's the longest work I've written so far and I am happy about it.

And honestly I've been so out of my comfort zone with this work. It's fantasy and not urban fantasy modern world stuff. But it's the story that wanted to get told so I went with it.

Day 11 Photo and NaNo talk

Day 11 Photo...

This is a sneak peek into one of the places I've been keeping track of how much I've written on my NaNo novel each day in November...




The one day I didn't get any words in was the worst pain day in a three day migraine.
So yeah, I had an excuse!

Other than that I've written each day in November.
I'm at over 67 thousand words now!

Dusting

Day #10 Photo: Winter Begins...




Just a light dusting of snow tonight.

Day #9 Photo and a Day off from Writing

Day #9 Photo




Not a very productive day because it has been a bad headache day.
I actually took the day off from writing which I haven't done since NaNoWriMo started. But I'm at over 63k now, so I think I've earned the break.

Daily Photo #8 and NaNoWriMo

Today's photo isn't very exiting really.
It's a photo of part of the rudimentary map I sketched out for my NaNoWriMo story.
It's on tracing paper so it doesn't photograph all that fun but it's a peek into my writing world.
I'm basically pantsing (vs. plotting) my NaNo story.

I started with a basic idea for the story and the world and a four main characters and a beginning scene. I also know the ending scene now but didn't until after I started writing.

I didn't draw this map until after my characters moved off the main island and I had to figure out the rest of the area.

Daily Photo #8

The Return of Daily Photos

I've been doing daily photos again after neglecting the practice for too long. Around trick or treat I when I was taking pictures of my daughter and husband on their way out I noticed how out of practice I was.

 It felt weird trying to get the right focus and settings when before it had been almost second nature. My hand wasn't as steady at it anymore either.

It was then that I realized how important that daily practice was, even when I was taking pictures of silly things around the apartment and was seemingly so pointless at the time.

So I'm seven days in with the daily photo thing again. And I'm still out of practice and I'm inside much of the time and my photos have been mostly less than interesting but that's okay. It's all part of the process.

I've been posting them to tumblr but I'm not sure that's the right place for them so maybe I'll try to revive this blog. After all I have some other things I've been up to that I might want to talk about here as well.

I've been writing again. Doing NaNoWriMo. November is so fun. But I'll post about that later.
 For now here are the seven photos I've taken for the daily photo thing...

Day #1
 
Day #2
 
Day #3
 
Day #4
 
 Day #5
 
Day #6
 
Day #7
 

Writing Update

I haven't written here in a while I guess. I was busy with the novella I was writing. That handwritten project. It's done. I've been done for several days now.
I'm glad that it's done. Later I'll go back, type it up and edit it.
But for now it will sit in the notebook and I will plan for the next project.

The next project will be for NaNoWriMo. After nearly two months of writing slow, I want to write fast. This month I will create some characters, the world and maybe do a bit of outlining.

Writing Update

I ended up starting over the story I was writing from a different character's point of view and I switched to writing in a notebook instead of on the computer. Old school pen and paper style. So far it seems to be going well. I'm thinking that it is probably more of a novella and not novel length at all but I guess we'll see.

Just wanted to pop in and say that I was still writing. I'm also thinking of starting back up with my daily photos and maybe trying to fit in other art as well. We'll see how that goes. The month is almost done. I'll start any new projects in September I think.

A Return of Sorts

I've been trying out wordpress.com for a bit and keeping a bit of a writing journal over there but there are a lot of things I just don't like about it there.

So, I'm giving this thing a try here again. I added the few writing posts I made over there to this blog. All backdated and everything. Maybe I can do an all around writing, art and photography blog here.

Lately I've been posting the few photos I've been taken over at Tumblr. I'm going to try and get back to taking more pictures, maybe even daily again and posting some  here too.

Doing the Work

I’ve been writing. Slowly but I’ve been doing it. I haven’t really been feeling it but I’m making myself get the words out anyway. I’m a little over 7k words at this point on the story. I keep wanting to give up and work on something else though and I’m not sure if the POV is working and I need to try and just get it out and know that later I can fix it all. If I still care.
That’s the problem though, I usually don’t care enough later. Okay, really I don’t usually finish. Sure I’ve done NaNoWriMo many times now and have hit that sweet spot of 50k most of them but only a couple of times did I actually finish the story I was writing. And both of those were fic of some type or other and I wrote them just to write them.
The original stuff I’ve tried my hand on? I hit the 50k, maybe go a little over and then get bored. November is over and I tell myself I’m just going to take a little break for the holidays and then get back to the book and by then I don’t care anymore.
I get bored too easily and that has always been the problem. Or one of the many problems.
Which is why I question me doing this writing thing as it is. Why do it? What’s the point? It was an old dream I had a long time ago when I was younger and still believed in having dreams, so why bother now?
I’m not sure what the answer is. I need to try I guess. I need to see if this is still something I want or not. Life is short and I’m not getting any younger.
I want to keep doing the work. Keep writing and actually finish some things and then around my next birthday I can see where I stand. I can then ask myself if I want to be doing this or if I need something else.
I haven’t made an art quilt in ages. I haven’t played with paints in a while either. Earlier in the year I was taking photos obsessively on a daily basis and now I can barely bring myself to pick up the camera.
I’m not sure what is going on beyond the usual depression/anxiety happy fun combo. I need to do the work though, even if it seems pointless. Maybe even if it is pointless.

Hello August

I got a little over 1k written on the story. I have finally begun. I also continued with writing more character development stuff later in my notebook as well and I wrote a couple hundred words of some stuff from another character’s point of view that I wanted to get down even though it won’t be in the story because I’m going with first person with this one. I just needed to write the other stuff though to get it out of my head so it’s in the notebook.
I must have done less fucking around online today because I’ve gotten some good reading time in as well

Not Enough Hours in the Day

I did more work on the story with background and character and new side characters and the name of a doughnut shop. I have a bit more work that I want to do and I want to be able to read before bed though there won’t be as much of that as I’d like. There just aren’t enough hours in the day really.
Well I could spend less time fucking around online. That might be helpful.
I’ve got the start of an outline for the beginning stuff too. I think I really will start the writing part later today after sleep. I will also keep working on more world building and character fleshing out as I go. I think that might also work to keep me interested and invested.
Okay more work, then popcorn and then fun reading time.