Using the past to build the future
Happy New Year, everybody!
I was going to write a big lengthy post about my 2012 goals, and my 2011 recap but... I realised I generally hate reading those things. I'm not one for writing new years resolutions anyway, but still... Writing them is always fun and educational from where I'm sitting, but you know, kinda boring to read when it's completely unrelated to you. (Unless you're a friend, in which case your blog about your goals and lessons learned last year will be devoured!)
Instead of talking about my goals for this year, I'm going to instead talk about different ways of keeping my motivation up in order to get me there. I realised that, my problem isn't really the lack of motivation, but lack of self confidence in my ability to get me there. Most of last year I put photographs up of things I wanted to achieve, magazine clippings of where I wanted to go, and I didn't really get anywhere. Now, instead, I've got a whole wall in my bedroom covered with things that make me happy, photographs of myself with friends, certificates of acomplishments, a whole wall dedicated to reminding me what I can achieve and the things I've done in my life. It's already done wonders for my self confidence, a constant reminder of my abilities. I still have the pictures of things I want to do as well, but that's on a different wall.
If you'd have asked me a week ago whether or not this was a good idea, I'd have laughed and said "Don't be stupid, looking in the past is a terrible idea", but now I know better. Now I know it's important to display your achievements as well as your future goals. Otherwise it becomes overwhelming, displaying so much of the future, when it's our memories of the past that help us build the very future we're walking towards.
I wish you all the best of luck in the end of the world!
NaNoWriMo on the iPad
I blogged last week about different tricks I was using to stay afloat in NaNoWriMo, and I realised afterwards that I'd missed out an important point that I'll rectify now. The importance of choosing the right tools for your writing.
As I intend to have a fairly scheduled writing experience - writing 500 words at four independent slots, I want to be able to write absolutely anywhere, and still have access to word counts, backing up, and my other tools (like my Word Count Checker). Luckily for me, I have an iPad 2, which will be my out-of-home writing tool of choice.
I've got two different apps for writing, both of which have been tested this month to see if they can endure my writing habits, and the clear winner is the very lovely "My Writing Spot" for iPad (and for iPhone, android and so on, but I like iPads so shh!) It might not sync brilliantly with google docs, it DOES sync fluidly with the My Writing Spot website. While on my laptop I prefer to write in MS Word, but with a quick copy+paste I can sync my most recent work with My Writing Spot and carry on working from my iPad... then do the vice versa once I'm back at home.
Perfect! All I need now is a bluetooth keyboard...
How I intend to survive NaNoWriMo
I've been feeling calm about NaNoWriMo all month, probably because I've been focussed on other things. Like being in Majorca, or attempting to wake up at an ungodly hour every day. Then, over the past couple of days as this week has drawn to a close, I've started to feel a creeping sense of panic. This is probably due to the fact that,
1. I, midway through this month, decided to change what story I'd be writing from a cutesy fun adventure story, to a story that's been sitting in my mind brewing for years and absolutely terrifies me;
2. Whenever I write anything, it's never more than a thousand words and I have to really push myself to get past the 1500 count;
3. I have to push myself to write every day, and often don't write unless I'm "inspired" to do so...
4. I'm unemployed and still have to find a damn job while writing this thing!
Taking number four out of the equation for the moment (and even with it in), I'm left with a pretty bleak picture of how the month is going to go. Based on my current writing performance, it'll probably look something like this: Month starts off well, in second week writing doesn't get close to 1000 words per day, end of the month I've given up and am crawling out of a McDonalds seeking comfort and sympathy from the bottom of a chocolate milkshake. That is not what I want to happen.
So, I have devised a strategy for getting through NaNoWriMo, that well, if I'm honest, I have no idea if it'll help me at all. But with the idea of "failure to plan is planning to fail" behind me, I'm gonna go straight for it!
So without further ado, read my tools and learned advice for NaNoWriMo after the jump...
My foggy morning head.
It turns out that the only time I don't want to wake up at 6 am, is, of course, precisely at 6.00 am.
Three alarms are set to 6.00 am every morning, and every morning they wake me up, I turn them all off and then clamber back into bed and go to sleep for a couple more hours. Although I've been getting up a hell of a lot earlier than I used to (11 am is no healthy get-up time), it ends up being more like 8 am, and that's at best.
I need a new routine.
I've read quite a lot of information on the art of getting up as soon as your alarm goes off, and my favourite website on the subject is StevePavlina.com/. Steve used to be in my exact position, and has since trained himself to automatically get up at 5am; as soon as his alarm goes off. I know exactly what Steve talks about when he talks about "Fog of Brain", and I don't know many people who haven't experienced it. So I'll try out Steve's method to getting up straight away.
And, if you read it, it sounds bizarre. The idea is, practise getting up when your alarm goes off, but NOT in the morning. So, at 1pm when the last thing you want to do is sleep, you set your alarm for a couple of minutes, lie down and get up as soon as the alarm goes off. Eventually, your subconscious will be so used to getting up when the alarm goes off, that you'll just do it naturally.
So here goes. I've got 2 and a half weeks left to get this down, so I'll give you another progress report next week!
Preparing for NaNoWriMo
Okay, so remember last November where I was all "I'm gonna do NaNoWriMo!" and then we never heard anything of it again ever, because I gave up within about 2 days? Well, this year I'm attempting it again, but this time I'm planning ahead.
And I'm pretty terrified. I've been planning on writing Third Time Lucky, as I've not written anything for that other than character notes, a brief outline and other little notes on what I think might happen, and the themes of the story. But whether or not I'll be able to pace myself properly over the 30 days... I have no idea if I can accomplish that.
You may have noticed lately that I've been blogging a lot more often lately, and that's partly because I want to get into the habit of writing as much as possible, so when November comes around I'm comfortable with sitting down on my laptop and writing out a blog. I'm actually considering purchasing a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad so I can write my novel anywhere, which will give me a lot more freedom than sticking to my laptop, something I only use in the evenings. But I'm going to need to really boost my word count as at the moment I'm only writing about 200 words per post! Though I do write a lot more than that in total over the day, including things like stories and tweets and so on.
November is going to be a very anti-social month...
I’ve Been Naughty
Yesterday I did some filming for a short series of films I wanted to do. It was a lot of fun (except the part where it was terrifying) and I felt like I did a good thing because I'd done something. But I realised later on that evening that I'd actually been naughty because that's not what I'm supposed to be doing right now. I already have a script I'm meant to be working on.
I started writing this script about a month ago, and I decided that, this will be my film project for now until it's finished. I won't work on any other of my projects until it's completed. Working on other peoples film projects is fine, but I can't start anything else for myself. And then I went and started writing this new script and even started filming some of it!
I'm forgiving myself a little bit because at the end of the day, I had fun, it was enjoyable to get those ideas out and to get started on something was really rewarding. But I'm not going to work on that project until my main script is completed. I do have other projects in the works, so my scanner-brain can be happy doing several different projects at a time, like my illustration project Third Time Lucky.
It feels good to get back on track actually, I feel a little as though I was distracted and getting focused on this again has given me some more direction, so I'm quite glad this little experience happened.
The Quarter Life Crisis
For the last two years or so, I've been experiencing a sort of nagging pain that has grown more and more as I've gotten older. I hit 25 about a month ago, and the feeling escalated and the only phrase I've found to deal with the bizarre feeling is that I'm going through a bit of a quarter life crisis. I've even found that a lot of my older friends have been experiencing a similar crisis for a few years, something I could never relate to, and now am feeling kind of foolish for not understanding what they meant.
Image courtesy of the something awful forums
I've read up a little more on the quarter life crisis, first of all just to find out if it even exists. It turns out it does, and I was quite worried to find that a great deal of people had decided that it was nonsense, not real and everyone claiming to experience such things should "get over it and enjoy their youth". Oh dear. My guess is, most of those commenter's are over a certain age and idealise the 20s age bracket. Your 20s are supposed to be full of fun and frolicking without any responsibility, right? Who has a life crisis at that age?
But it's real, and I know because I'm experiencing it right now. It turns out, when you're 25 you actually have a lot of decisions to make. When should I start a family? What do I want to do for a career for the rest of my life? I've never been one to think "I need money to be happy!" but it certainly takes money to support a family, and to do the things in life that are fulfilling while still having a house and family. I'd kind of like to be living a pretty good life when I hit my 40s, and it feels like I have to make all these decisions right now. Hense the quarter life crisis. It's weird because my usual outlook on life is "no regrets, everything I did that was stupid had a good reason behind it at the time" but now I'm looking back thinking "I really should've planned more," "Why didn't I take that job offer?" and other stupid questions.
So, in order to combat this random age-fuelled panic (I filled out a form today and for the first time realised I was now in the 25-34 age bracket - a discovery I did not appreciate) I'm reminding myself of everything I discovered growing up before I hit 23. That regrets are pointless, I can change things around right now if I wanted to, that I'm in control of the rest of my life and a whole bunch of stuff I'm not going to go into or else this blog will go on forever...
Have you experienced the quarter life crisis? Do you even believe it exists? Let me know in the comments 
Lack of organisation
I've recently moved back in with my parents. I WAS living with Mike but felt the need to move back with my folks after experiencing a lot of stress and depression, and so now I'm back. Moving back in with your parents after living with a partner for 3 years is a bit strange. We treat each other like we used to before I moved out which doesn't work too well of course because I've grown up a lot in those three years, but somehow living here has transformed me back into the teenager (well, 21 year old) girl I was when I left.
Take my room for example. I'm not the tidiest person in the world and it's quite easy for me to get distracted because of some huge project I've decided I'm going to finish right now, which means my room ends up in a bit of a mess. It wasn't quite as bad when I lived here the first time round because I had the big room with lots of places to hide my rubbish and most of my stuff got put in drawers and boxes and cabinets, hidden away never to be seen. But now my room has room for a bed and a dresser and that's it. There's a small cupboard in there too, but that's full of stuff-that-isn't-mine and I can't really start putting stuff in there.
My solution for this so far has been my usual one - find a surface, any surface, and dump everything onto it. If it's off the floor, that counts as tidy. With the amount of paper, notes, scribbles and doodles I do on a daily basis, you can imagine what my room looks like. I need a new solution.
My new solution, which I'm slowly putting into action is this:
- Every week, sort through JUNK.
- Sort junk into two piles - "keep it" or "bin it".
- Sort through "keep it" piles into catagories and organise them appropriately onto Evernote.
- Review Evernote regulary! (Using my ipad, which will make life easier)
I'll let you know if this works.
Something on it’s way to being finished. Maybe.
Guh, I finished the script and the panel breakdown for my comic. Which means it's ready to be DRAWN. Which erm. Means I need to pull my finger out my ass and find an artist to work with me. I've been avoiding rewriting my pitch for this reason. Lots of "Oh, I should draw it myself" guilt. I get so completely inpatient whenever I draw comics myself though! Case in point, my last "finished" comic:
It's finished in the sense that, the dialogue is done and you can tell whats going on but there is still a bit of work to be done on it, and I really don't want to finish it. But I'm learning that my problem isn't laziness, but I just don't enjoy the procedure of making a picture look perfect. I want to give the general idea of what it is, and then... get someone else to finish it for me. Someone who enjoys the process more than I do. And, really, they can redraw the thing entirely if they want to, as long as the credit for the idea comes back to me.
I wonder if there are any other scanner types who feel similar to me in this; that you'd rather just create a bunch of stuff and get someone else to finish it? I know the main reason I draw is because an idea for a story or character is stuck in my head, but if I could write it out and get someone else to portray it visually, I'd get them onboard in a heartbeat.
All I know is, I started drawing so I could express my ideas, but I often find I express myself much better in writing than in imagery...
Hi, I'm Sarah and thanks for checking out my blog! I'm currently taking photographs of a Bunny sitting on various peoples heads, trying to figure out my life and blogging about it as I go! Join me for the ride, it should be fun :) You can learn more about me by reading my About Page...
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