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So sorry, Disgruntled Peony. I hope that someday this can truly be grist for the mill for your writing. In the meantime, if writing it out in one way or another isn't therapeutic for you, don't add guilt to the mix for not writing. Take care of yourself, okay?
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Sorry to hear this Disgruntled Peony. Advice? I found walking in what you might call the woods on windy or stormy nights cathartic. But, I am odd. Other than that, take care of yourself before anyone else.
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Things are better today. Had fun with friends, took a nap when I got moody, and felt better when I woke up. I did manage to get some writing done this morning, and am continuing to do so now.
(It's not that I've felt guilty for not writing, exactly; it's more that I've really wanted to, but haven't felt up for it. It feels good to finally be able to work on the things I've had running through my mind all week.)
Posts: 745 | Registered: May 2015
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The spark that sets ablaze a bonfire for me is realization of what's really going to happen from my design, that is, different from character's expectations and means and ends. The best laid plans go awry for mice and mortal. Life intervenes, and misapprehended designs. Every contingency cannot be prepared for; those missed contingency preparations are ripe fruit for drama.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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Ugg, some years back I noticed within my dreams I had a hard time running. Needless to say, this led to a stint of experimentation in lucid dreaming because the slow running became my trigger.
when I had a very successful attempt it scared the heck out of me because of waking still in sleep paralysis. So I gave it up.
But even to this day I still have moments when I trigger waking too soon, and even though more experienced in dealing with it, my mind still while trying to wake myself up teases me that I am really dead or paralyzed. That 30 seconds or so stuck in paralysis is an eternity as you try and force your limbs to move/wake but nothing happens.
It creeps me out. Had one of those nights last night.
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Each of three days in a row received a job notification for someone not known to me. Replied the first time, No one by that name at this number; please check the number and try again. Sad. But for a phone number transposition, the job wanted was lost.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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The past few months, I've been emotionally off balance and no clue why. The other day, I figured it out. Aside from the seasonal hard sell that annoys me no end, I realized a woodwork accident had scared me and delayed any woodwork.
The saw cut a finger severely enough to warrant a bandage worn for two months, not severely enough to warrant a clinic visit. The injury foreclosed any woodwork for three months while it healed, delayed, too, due to diabetes. Trepidations about the tools were background thoughts though came to bear when the finger healed and kept me out of the shop. The proverbial they say get right back on the horse if it throws you. Couldn't due to the dominant hand index finger seriously injured.
The other day I got back on that horse and that felt like a burden lifted. Then I realized why I was in such an off-balance state, not before. I was afraid of the tools, was before, still am, but got back on that horse. I'd missed the woodwork sorely, and that made me doubt, fear; and angry and depressed. Meantime, though, writing pursuits saved me from utter despair.
This event showed me something I'd seen about writing in my other arts and in my life: doubt, and etc., arise when forward circumstances stall. Grief cycles: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance, and cycle through and through. When motivation and preparation, and perhaps a cognitive leap, build to surmount stalls, movement begins again.
Made a cognitive leap about my woodcraft, want so much to more develop decorative appeal without sight lost of utilitarian appeal. The time expended on planning to get back on the horse developed into a plan revision for when or if I did. Got it, for the next woodcraft growth phase anyway and a new thought about writing, too: Doubt can, might could be a useful tool if appreciated in its doldrums as a phase that fosters renewed reflection and that shall pass in its time.
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There are insights here that not only apply to artistic endeavors and writerly struggles, but can also be applied to characterization and plot complications in stories.
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I'm glad you were able to get back on the horse, as it were. I'd like to see some of your woodwork sometime, if you're amenable.
Posts: 745 | Registered: May 2015
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My published woodworks are listed under my name; I don't want to associate that identity with my Hatrack one. I could e-mail a few sample photos.
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From online most lookup hit counts, Merriam Webster's word of the year 2016 is "fascist." Dictionary.com's, "xenophobia." Oxford Dictionaries', "post-truth." Cambridge Dictionaries', "paranoid." Collin's, "Brexit." (The Writer's Chronicle. Feb 2017:46. Print. Online for Associated Writing Program registered members.)
A consciousness stream runs through those -- a possible topic for timely-relevant public interest appeal prose!? Where forth doth cometh from the squint-eyed alien monster invasion, where forth doth goeth they? Judges 19:17 paraphrase.
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Well, well finally put up my two calendars. Yes two, I couldn't make up my mind if I wanted Eagles-the wild birds-or Star Trek:Ships of the Line, so for the last five years I have both near my computer.
Actually I am ahead of last year, I didn't even order the second one until 2016 had started.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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We got Rain. Yep, the word should be capitalized. Hopefully snow at the higher elevations. Looks like it when the clouds went away for a little bit.
Not too chilly though. Somewhere in the 40s in the mornings. Late 40s I think.
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Sign of the Season: I just spotted one of the dancing Statues of Liberty---a little late in the season 'cause they usually start much closer to New Year's Day.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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The unseasonably seasonal weather hereabouts prompted a miscreant or two to make off with a large and valuable portion of my woodwork art material stockpile, probably for firewood. They got away with two hundred board feet of beautifully figured cedar still in the rough, worth raw about $$$, and finished into ware about $$$$. Axe-swipes. Cedar's not even good firewood, like oak.
My share of responsibility -- the hiatus of inactivity while healing from the wounds mentioned above. If only I'd milled the cedar and got it into secured storage. They didn't touch the holly, cherry, maple, myrtle, or pecan on an adjacent stack. Nor had I set out the black walnut from my car trunk yet. It is coming inside.
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Thank you, my friends, for the compassion. The wood is gone one way or another and not thing one to do but somehow replace it.
I mean, wood does grow on trees; the exceptional figure of the lost material is uncommon, though. I'm a responsible harvester, only dead wood and with express timber rights owner permission, so getting a useful supply comes along every rare now and then.
The figure -- wavy streams of deep purple-red, bright orange-brown heartwood, and vanilla cream sapwood long grain wound around numerous small and large hard-tight knots. The last wares I made from the cedar netted a good piece of change. A visualization of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" sky in cedar's color palette, the knot stars darkest. Some of the cedar didn't walk away -- five board feet of raw and two feet milled saved inside the drying kiln.
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I have pictures of most of my works from the past fifteen years. Few posted online at this time -- ones posted by local news media that won art show awards. Thanks for the sympathies.
An odd factor for the cedar I want is that it is usually from weed trees that were unmanicured, nonornamental plants, volunteered from wild seed, and grew out there where they were mostly just scrub bushes and into either nuisance trees or were totally neglected. The waxwing bird is the usual seed spreader. They eat the juniper berries when ripe and somewhat fermented, get a buzz, then expel the seed stones from pole perch wire rests and such.
Wilderness cedar, though, is out of bounds and not as decorative a grain figure anyway, due to few lower branches development, where desirable knots form from the heartwood. Cedars that have full sunlight exposure all around grow lush lower branches.
I have a standing request for a call with a few tree crews if they come across any cedar, maple, cherry, walnut, beech, chestnut, or holly, at quid pro quo exchange. Unfortunately, shade tree crews make additional funds from selling the downed wood as firewood. The big bog tree companies just run it all through an industrial chipper and sell that for mulch. When I come across a crew working, I have a look-see. They're all usually generous about letting me grab what I can carry away in the car trunk.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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I had my first prescient dream in more than two decades last night. I must be wary of a dark haired woman in a white dress with small red polka-dots. She will complicate my life. For good or ill, I am uncertain.
Phil.
[ January 25, 2017, 05:50 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Sep 2012
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I've decided to build a website, because... websites are useful? And fun? And stuff. XD (The site itself isn't ready yet, but I purchased the domain name and the hosting. It's been over a decade since I last played with HTML, so I've got a lot of re-learning and catching up to do.)
Posts: 745 | Registered: May 2015
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After I don't sign on for ages, I come to Grist for the Mill and see that this entire page 81 is filled with posts by names I recognize. You all feel like old friends to me. =)
I've been in business school getting my MBA and I can't focus on writing because my head is full of businessy things. Bleh. There's my bit of grist for the mill...
Posts: 252 | Registered: Feb 2013
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So, apparently Windows 10 has this wonderful feature where it can do a partial reformat by resetting your Windows settings without deleting your personal files. I am super happy about this, because my computer recently started glitching terribly (my existing Antivirus seemed to have disappeared after I installed an update and ran a scan, we couldn't reinstall it or any other Antivirus, and most other programs refused to open or work properly). Resetting the PC seems to have fixed it, and all of my various story drafts are fully intact.
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I like Windows 10, liked it when I saw it on a laptop I bought, but when I updated my Windows 8 tower I wound up having to get a whole new tower. Nothing important was lost (except maybe the end of one story file and I may simply have forgotten to save when I closed.) But it was a real pain to work through.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Haven't been here for a while. My fault, too busy with writing and Google+ and GoodReads.
One of the writing things is a certain nameless contest and Indie publishing a new book and getting another one ready. That one is almost ready and I need to decide if I should try a couple of Traditional publishers or just Indie it. I think it is my best but that may not be saying much. I have been doing some very short stories inspired by pics on G+ as well as wasting time there.
Tomorrow I want to do something I haven't been doing-got out of the habit of even thinking about it just like coming here-sending out stories. I hope to send out at least half a dozen.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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I haven't been writing today, but that's because I've been drawing. O_o Really drawing, for the first time in ages. It's been fun! I might link you guys when it's done (although I will give fair warning if I do, because there is mild artistic nudity).
Posts: 745 | Registered: May 2015
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Finally got around to sending out some stories. Only three though. It was suppose to be seven. But there was a glitch with one. So now to send the next four tomorrow. That includes to IGMS
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The last week or so has been super busy between work, family stuff, and trying to finish a story in time to make a deadline. I should be able to catch up on critiques after today. The spirit is willing, but time constraints have not been kind.
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Good luck meeting that deadline, Peony! You can do it! Also, please do share some of your drawing when you're finished. I'd like to have a look.
A friend of mine has finally decided to start taking her drawing more seriously and I've just persuaded her to submit an entry to Illustrators of the Future. On the back of that, I was wondering: does anyone here know of a good art critique site, similar to Hatrack but for artists or illustrators working in sf/fantasy art?
Posts: 76 | Registered: Sep 2016
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Keyword search terms "Online science fiction, fantasy art workshops," Facebook and blogspot groups pop up. I did not evaluate any group's efficacy. One did mention several important considerations.
One area not discussed that concerns what I consider the present state of the art is limited to no dimensionality, flat canvases and limited dimensional perspectives, so to speak. Orthagonal or single point perspectives can depict much more dimensionality than the usual media does. The visual arts technique foreshortened perspective is one method to enhance dimensional depth. Others include shades and highlights, chiaroscuro, degree of blur to focus, and comparative size.
A basic principle across graphic visual arts is, acronym labeled, CARP: contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity. Each of which speaks to the above methods. For example, an irregular line of utility poles start well-lit, cast distinct shadows, clear definition, and large in the foreground, progress toward the background, blur, indistinct shadows and lights, smaller sizes. Foreshortened compresses the progression.
Common dimensionality shortfalls I see is either too much detail (busy) or too little (flat) for the visual performance space's size, such that the dimensionality doesn't pop nor emphasize key subjects. An artwork meant for trade paperback publication page dimensions, 6 inches by 9 inches, 1 inch margins, like the Writers and Illustrators of the Future anthology, is an essential consideration. An art pad page size of, say, 14 inches by 22 inches might loose critical details upon publication translation. I don't see these considerations raised at online art workshops.
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Actually, it's often better to go bigger with the initial artwork, in my experience, so long as you keep the proportions correct. That way when the art gets shrunk down to the correct proportions there's more detail than if you worked at the same size. In comic books/graphic novels, at least, twice the size of the final product is preferred. (I wanted to draw comics for awhile. Still do, sometimes.)
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Several dozens of problems reproduction arts encounter between faithful to an artist's vision and house production values. I do that work, have for a number of publications and at print shops over the years, yet to come across an artwork that didn't need adjustments for reproduction translation purposes.
The custom of an original produced larger than a final publication product mitigates a few problems, though each mitigation causes a few more. For example, inexperienced artists crowd a larger canvas with content that mistranslates upon size reduction. Color match, gamma, histogram, contrast, intensity, washout, the list runs long. Digital technology itself mitigates a few of the older problems of monochromatic film cameras, though adds exponential more.
Reproduction artists are between artists and house production value expectations and must satisfy both and end consumers.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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The wee early a.m.s and waiting for the last part of a four hundred page job to arrive, expedited delivery due overnight on my end, due tomorrow close of business at the other end. The editing job is a med-mal suit and tedious and striking for the cross talk and subtext. The two adversaries have a nose altitude act that's a tense duel. Noses cross swords at face-to-face distance.
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I'd like to see some of your woodwork sometime, if you're amenable.
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No me gusta.
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