I have been MIA this week. I missed my Tuesday update and here it is almost Tuesday again. A gang of sleepers from the land of Procrasti followed me out, cornered me on the side of the road, drugged me and dragged me back into town. I swear it was a trick!
A couple editorial notes are in order- I say "sleepers" because I dont know what else to say, not because I slept all week. And someone gave me "The Dream Giver" by Bruce Wilkinson (I can already hear the collective groan) so I am forcing myself to read a cheesy allegory and thus writing a cheesy allegory. I read books that people give me.
I have been a little discouraged this week. I went to a bridal show last weekend and was really hoping to make some good connections with other professionals in the industry. I emailed about 20 people whose cards I collected and only had 1 person respond. I did get to meet with her though, so it will be totally worth it if I et even 1 wedding referral from her.
I also learned from the bridal show that I have a good blog and website, and am a good photographer compared to some others. I don't want to diss anyone, but it was good to see how far I have come because I am usually only looking at where I want to be.
I was stood up for a (free) photoshoot this week and am dissapointed with the lackluster response to my engagement shoot giveaway so I have been a bit discouraged. I can't even GIVE my photography away! WTF?
I toyed with the idea of jacking my prices way up to punish the poor souls of my future, but decded to sit pretty for now. I realize that if you are giving someone something for free then they don't always see value in it so you run a risk of being screwed. The problem is, I dont have any clients on the books and I really love taking pictures, so I want to be out there doing it!
As you already saw (thanks for the comments- I heart them more than you know) I have come up with a cool way to dress up my business cards. I also went to a store in The Camp in Costa Mesa that totally inspired my crafty side, so I may be launching my etsy site this week. Or at least getting some stock created for it.
So, that's me. I really like this blog and that I am becoming closer to each of you through it. Just saying.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Stretegy #2
When I am trying to think through a problem (i.e. my current thesis statement dilemma) I begin in a monologue. But that goes no where fast. So the thinking evolves into an inner dialogue. And that's when things start to heat up.
Tasha's Strategy #2: One should embrace the multiplicity of voices populating the mind when engaged in the creative process. This must not be mistaken for schizophrenia. In most cases.
Tasha's Strategy #2: One should embrace the multiplicity of voices populating the mind when engaged in the creative process. This must not be mistaken for schizophrenia. In most cases.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Great Strategy for Productivity Enhancement
My favorite way to secure a productive evening is to cancel fun plans.
"Sorry, Amy & Larissa, I can't come to the international student dinner after all. I have too much homework. Oh, and I can't continue on to the salsa dancing club either. Yeah, that's right, Tasha Kolar is actually bailing on an opportunity to twirl."
"No, Jessie & Peter. I can't go to Local 16 for beers & bumpin. I have to write this project proposal. I know it's Friday night, but I have to."
Yeah, that's how my night went. Sigh. So much fun to be had, but I'm sitting on the couch searching Amazon for a suitable bibliography & listening to the Lykke Li Pandora station. It's been super productive tho! (As long as my prof approves of my topic... I failed to make an appt w/ her pre-proposal-due-date. Oops.)
Try the strategy out if you can bring yourself to it!
"Sorry, Amy & Larissa, I can't come to the international student dinner after all. I have too much homework. Oh, and I can't continue on to the salsa dancing club either. Yeah, that's right, Tasha Kolar is actually bailing on an opportunity to twirl."
"No, Jessie & Peter. I can't go to Local 16 for beers & bumpin. I have to write this project proposal. I know it's Friday night, but I have to."
Yeah, that's how my night went. Sigh. So much fun to be had, but I'm sitting on the couch searching Amazon for a suitable bibliography & listening to the Lykke Li Pandora station. It's been super productive tho! (As long as my prof approves of my topic... I failed to make an appt w/ her pre-proposal-due-date. Oops.)
Try the strategy out if you can bring yourself to it!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Early-Onset Insomnia
1am.
I tried going to sleep. I read for a while – Half the Sky, for class, and after just the introduction (“The Girl Effect”), I’m convinced each of you wants to read it. I’m not kidding, find a copy in Borders and read the introduction.
But it didn’t help me sleep. I sneakily cuddled with my sleeping husband… but didn’t doze. Twenty minutes and Joe half woke up; I rolled back to my side.
I can’t believe the insomnia is already here. Fall semester, it came in the final month. It’s now the second week.
Everything changed this month. My routine. My workload. The amount of time I see my husband.
I’m used to working hard, churning out, contributing. But internships are for soaking in. I spent the first freezing day of my internship interviewing marchers for life on the Mall. Kids who were raised believing life starts at fertilization. The Archbishop of St. Louis. College kids shouting, “Your MOM chose life!”
Since then I’ve stuck close to the office, following interesting people, asking leading questions so they’ll pull back the curtain of their jobs and let me learn.
Interesting, yes. Productive, in a way. But I’m going a little crazy. Let me edit this piece on government spending. Let me read the tag into the camera for News Channel 7 On Your Side in Jacksonville (and back to you, Leslie). Let me interview the Director of the Congressional Budget office on camera. Yes, yes, these are way over an intern’s head. But I want a role here. Other than observer.
So, I’m adjusting, as you can see. And I’m watching a lot of TV at work.
But I’m jittery. I can’t sleep. I get annoyed at one of my groupmates in documentary class. I freak out over choosing story topics.
If there’s one thing I should remember from last semester, it’s that everything comes together.
I just can’t see it yet.
I tried going to sleep. I read for a while – Half the Sky, for class, and after just the introduction (“The Girl Effect”), I’m convinced each of you wants to read it. I’m not kidding, find a copy in Borders and read the introduction.
But it didn’t help me sleep. I sneakily cuddled with my sleeping husband… but didn’t doze. Twenty minutes and Joe half woke up; I rolled back to my side.
I can’t believe the insomnia is already here. Fall semester, it came in the final month. It’s now the second week.
Everything changed this month. My routine. My workload. The amount of time I see my husband.
I’m used to working hard, churning out, contributing. But internships are for soaking in. I spent the first freezing day of my internship interviewing marchers for life on the Mall. Kids who were raised believing life starts at fertilization. The Archbishop of St. Louis. College kids shouting, “Your MOM chose life!”
Since then I’ve stuck close to the office, following interesting people, asking leading questions so they’ll pull back the curtain of their jobs and let me learn.
Interesting, yes. Productive, in a way. But I’m going a little crazy. Let me edit this piece on government spending. Let me read the tag into the camera for News Channel 7 On Your Side in Jacksonville (and back to you, Leslie). Let me interview the Director of the Congressional Budget office on camera. Yes, yes, these are way over an intern’s head. But I want a role here. Other than observer.
So, I’m adjusting, as you can see. And I’m watching a lot of TV at work.
But I’m jittery. I can’t sleep. I get annoyed at one of my groupmates in documentary class. I freak out over choosing story topics.
If there’s one thing I should remember from last semester, it’s that everything comes together.
I just can’t see it yet.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Account Ability
This check-in post always seems to happen right after I hang up the phone with my brother Eames. He functions as my other half in the creative process. (I think I have effectively stopped nightmaring about his death. And am focusing on appreciating his pulse. Which is good.) He made my day yesterday, when he texted to suggest we start helping our youngest brother, Sean, with SAT prep via group skype... and make weekly conference calls to our nana & g-ma/g-pa. Awww, isn't he sweet? I accused him of turning into Michael Bluth, which is quite possible because he's been marathoning Arrested Development lately. Like I have been marathoning Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It is my soulmate of a TV show. I have never loved a series with more of my heart muscle. I would marry it, if I had to marry a TV show. Have you seen it? It's on Hulu. The theme of The Creative Process is at the core of its winning premise. Checkitout if you feel the spirit move you. Can't say it helps me in my journey away from Procrasti, though...
***Commercial Break***
I find it challenging not to start every sentence in a blog with the pronoun "I." I am constantly finishing a sentence, and then going back and changing the beginning. I make that my personal challenge - to start most sentences NOT with "I." I have ignored that instinct during this commercial break to prove how annoying it feels to start every sentence with an "I." And scene.
So...
1. Eames is going to get back to me tomorrow on the quote for a prototype for our bible verse in the shower stickers.
2. He decided to co-write the rest of my screenplay, and is going to try to establish a system in which we are both seeing the same computer screen & can write together while I'm in DC and he's in LA.
3. My professor is finally sending me her feedback tomorrow morning. I kindly cornered her after class tonight. She said the words "It's a good paper. You'll be fine for the ESRI Conference." She implied I wouldn't be fine for a non-student-research venue, and confessed all proposals are accepted. But she said it was a good paper. Clinging to that.
4. My uncle is coming to pick up all my cousin's furniture & decorations from our apartment, so she can move home to CA. Which means I will need to do some art projects to put on these walls... I have a 3'x5' hardboard I want to paint & graffiti write some of those Oblique Strategies @ creativity onto. That is my first step. More decorating projects to come.
5. My classmate Justin agreed to partner with me and prepare an analytical response to a case study for a contest. If it's acceptable, we will present our response via PowerPoint at the ESRI conference, and answer panel questions. Scary but exciting. My comfort zone continues to expand...
6. The Volunteer Coordinator position for GW's International Education Association became open last week, and I was elected to fill it. New responsibility. I hate responsibility. Avoid it at all costs. At least I used to. This is the new me. Full of energy and hope and excess initiative.
7. I skyped w/ Eames & Steve about their screenplay, they revised it, and I will read the new copy this weekend before a second round of edits.
8. I need to come up with questions for my interview w/ Eric @ One World Education on Friday. The goal is to write an article about the curriculum this org develops for a homeschool mag. It's time (tomorrow) to research potential magazines to query & other articles published about OWEd.
***Commercial Break***
I find it challenging not to start every sentence in a blog with the pronoun "I." I am constantly finishing a sentence, and then going back and changing the beginning. I make that my personal challenge - to start most sentences NOT with "I." I have ignored that instinct during this commercial break to prove how annoying it feels to start every sentence with an "I." And scene.
So...
1. Eames is going to get back to me tomorrow on the quote for a prototype for our bible verse in the shower stickers.
2. He decided to co-write the rest of my screenplay, and is going to try to establish a system in which we are both seeing the same computer screen & can write together while I'm in DC and he's in LA.
3. My professor is finally sending me her feedback tomorrow morning. I kindly cornered her after class tonight. She said the words "It's a good paper. You'll be fine for the ESRI Conference." She implied I wouldn't be fine for a non-student-research venue, and confessed all proposals are accepted. But she said it was a good paper. Clinging to that.
4. My uncle is coming to pick up all my cousin's furniture & decorations from our apartment, so she can move home to CA. Which means I will need to do some art projects to put on these walls... I have a 3'x5' hardboard I want to paint & graffiti write some of those Oblique Strategies @ creativity onto. That is my first step. More decorating projects to come.
5. My classmate Justin agreed to partner with me and prepare an analytical response to a case study for a contest. If it's acceptable, we will present our response via PowerPoint at the ESRI conference, and answer panel questions. Scary but exciting. My comfort zone continues to expand...
6. The Volunteer Coordinator position for GW's International Education Association became open last week, and I was elected to fill it. New responsibility. I hate responsibility. Avoid it at all costs. At least I used to. This is the new me. Full of energy and hope and excess initiative.
7. I skyped w/ Eames & Steve about their screenplay, they revised it, and I will read the new copy this weekend before a second round of edits.
8. I need to come up with questions for my interview w/ Eric @ One World Education on Friday. The goal is to write an article about the curriculum this org develops for a homeschool mag. It's time (tomorrow) to research potential magazines to query & other articles published about OWEd.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Broad Strokes
I feel embarrassed about that giant post, am almost ready to take it down.
In the last week or two I made frantic notes toward a story I have been mulling for maybe a year now. I thought of a way to combine it with elements of a creative nonfiction essay I wrote two years ago for a workshop class. People liked the essay but lamented its plotlessness. This story has a plot but felt fakey to me. So if I combine the two... !
I have been working like a mofo on my painting. Cutting out letters for it. It is a big canvas of words - first I was going to use these rubber stamps with paint - but the quality control was verrry iffy. So then I fretted about it, went to sleep not knowing what I'd do, and woke up the next morning knowing, somehow - I printed all my sentences in 100pt font, mirror image, and then painted the backs of the pages different colors. I am in the process of cutting out each letter, and then I will glue them all to the giant canvas I bought and painted midnight blueblack! Perfect. It is somehow not irritating to cut out all the little holes in letters. I have put my headphones on and done it very blissfully.
OH the show that this painting is going to be in was generically titled "Women in Art" before, but is as of today titled... BROAD STROKE: WOMEN IN ART. Yesssss.
Also today at work I brainstormed etsy shop ideas.
I'm happy with what I've accomplished. I made myself a painting of a Yoko Ono quote. I promise I will post a picture of it soon.
In the last week or two I made frantic notes toward a story I have been mulling for maybe a year now. I thought of a way to combine it with elements of a creative nonfiction essay I wrote two years ago for a workshop class. People liked the essay but lamented its plotlessness. This story has a plot but felt fakey to me. So if I combine the two... !
I have been working like a mofo on my painting. Cutting out letters for it. It is a big canvas of words - first I was going to use these rubber stamps with paint - but the quality control was verrry iffy. So then I fretted about it, went to sleep not knowing what I'd do, and woke up the next morning knowing, somehow - I printed all my sentences in 100pt font, mirror image, and then painted the backs of the pages different colors. I am in the process of cutting out each letter, and then I will glue them all to the giant canvas I bought and painted midnight blueblack! Perfect. It is somehow not irritating to cut out all the little holes in letters. I have put my headphones on and done it very blissfully.
OH the show that this painting is going to be in was generically titled "Women in Art" before, but is as of today titled... BROAD STROKE: WOMEN IN ART. Yesssss.
Also today at work I brainstormed etsy shop ideas.
I'm happy with what I've accomplished. I made myself a painting of a Yoko Ono quote. I promise I will post a picture of it soon.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Oblique Strategies
From this website, courtesy of Brian Eno and a bunch of other people:
___________
Accept advice
Work against your better judgement
Ask your body
Be dirty
Breathe more deeply
Courage!
Cut a vital connection
Decorate, decorate
Discard an axiom
Do something boring
Don't break the silence
Don't stress one thing more than another
Emphasise differences
Emphasise the flaws
Give the game away
Give way to your worst impulse
How would you have done it?
Is it finished?
Just carry on
Listen to the quiet voice
Look at the order in which you do things
Repetition is a form of change
Reverse
Simple subtraction
Tidy up
Turn it upside down
Use an old idea
Use filters
Water
What mistakes did you make last time?
What would your closest friend do?
What wouldn't you do?
Work at a different speed
You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas
Take away the elements in order of apparent non importance
Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list
Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate
Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify/magnify them
Humanise something free of error
Honor thy error as a hidden intention
Don't be frightened to display your talents
Don't be frightened of clichés
Don't avoid what is easy
Distort time
Discover your formulas and abandon them
Disconnect from desire
Destroy the most important thing
Define an area as 'safe' and use it as an anchor
Change nothing and continue consistently
Are there sections? Consider transitions
Remove a restriction
Abandon normal instructions
Which elements can be grouped?
What are you really thinking about just now? Incorporate
Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
Trust in the you of now
Use an unacceptable colour
Cascades
Emphasise repetitions
Fill every beat with something
Ghost echoes
Go slowly all the way round the outside
Infinitesimal gradations
Into the impossible
Mechanicalise something idiosyncratic
Use fewer words
What is the reality of the situation?
You can only make one dot at a time
Intentions -credibility of -nobility of -humility of
What are the sections sections of? Imagine a caterpillar moving
Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events
Faced with a choice, do both
Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
Do the washing up
Get your neck massaged
Put in earplugs
Spectrum analysis
Tape your mouth
Twist the spine
Be extravagant
Disciplined self-indulgence
Always first steps
Not building a wall but making a brick
It is simply a matter of work
The most easily forgotten thing is the most important
Move towards the unimportant
Idiot glee (?)
It is quite possible (after all)
Lost in useless territory
Revaluation (a warm feeling)
Always give yourself credit for having more than personality
Only a part, not the whole
Retrace your steps
Be less critical
Go to an extreme, come part way back
From nothing to more than nothing
Make it more sensual
Slow preparation..fast execution
Think - inside the work -outside the work
When is it for?
How would someone else do it?
Try faking it
What to increase? What to reduce? What to maintain?
Where is the edge?
Is the style right?
Use something nearby as a model
What is the simplest solution?
Gardening, not architecture
Make something implied more definite (reinforce, duplicate)
______________________________________________
I apologize for the length of this post.
I made a small painting of one of my favorites of these today: It is a light orange background with light blue letters that spell: "Don't avoid / what is easy". I used these clear rubber stamp letters that I bought and didn't end up using for a different project.
If any of these strikes any of you as particularly helpful, I will make you a painting of it. Just pick one and paste it into the comments and then... send me your address in a message on Facebook... and I will happily make you a painting of it. You can even request what colors you'd like.
(Is me doing this a form of procrastination? May be. But. Using art projects to procrastinate is like... the only acceptible form of procrastination, in my book. As long as it doesn't get out of hand. Like, I am not posting this on Facebook and offering to make paintings for all 200 of my friends on there.)
___________
Accept advice
Work against your better judgement
Ask your body
Be dirty
Breathe more deeply
Courage!
Cut a vital connection
Decorate, decorate
Discard an axiom
Do something boring
Don't break the silence
Don't stress one thing more than another
Emphasise differences
Emphasise the flaws
Give the game away
Give way to your worst impulse
How would you have done it?
Is it finished?
Just carry on
Listen to the quiet voice
Look at the order in which you do things
Repetition is a form of change
Reverse
Simple subtraction
Tidy up
Turn it upside down
Use an old idea
Use filters
Water
What mistakes did you make last time?
What would your closest friend do?
What wouldn't you do?
Work at a different speed
You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas
Take away the elements in order of apparent non importance
Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list
Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate
Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify/magnify them
Humanise something free of error
Honor thy error as a hidden intention
Don't be frightened to display your talents
Don't be frightened of clichés
Don't avoid what is easy
Distort time
Discover your formulas and abandon them
Disconnect from desire
Destroy the most important thing
Define an area as 'safe' and use it as an anchor
Change nothing and continue consistently
Are there sections? Consider transitions
Remove a restriction
Abandon normal instructions
Which elements can be grouped?
What are you really thinking about just now? Incorporate
Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
Trust in the you of now
Use an unacceptable colour
Cascades
Emphasise repetitions
Fill every beat with something
Ghost echoes
Go slowly all the way round the outside
Infinitesimal gradations
Into the impossible
Mechanicalise something idiosyncratic
Use fewer words
What is the reality of the situation?
You can only make one dot at a time
Intentions -credibility of -nobility of -humility of
What are the sections sections of? Imagine a caterpillar moving
Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events
Faced with a choice, do both
Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
Do the washing up
Get your neck massaged
Put in earplugs
Spectrum analysis
Tape your mouth
Twist the spine
Be extravagant
Disciplined self-indulgence
Always first steps
Not building a wall but making a brick
It is simply a matter of work
The most easily forgotten thing is the most important
Move towards the unimportant
Idiot glee (?)
It is quite possible (after all)
Lost in useless territory
Revaluation (a warm feeling)
Always give yourself credit for having more than personality
Only a part, not the whole
Retrace your steps
Be less critical
Go to an extreme, come part way back
From nothing to more than nothing
Make it more sensual
Slow preparation..fast execution
Think - inside the work -outside the work
When is it for?
How would someone else do it?
Try faking it
What to increase? What to reduce? What to maintain?
Where is the edge?
Is the style right?
Use something nearby as a model
What is the simplest solution?
Gardening, not architecture
Make something implied more definite (reinforce, duplicate)
______________________________________________
I apologize for the length of this post.
I made a small painting of one of my favorites of these today: It is a light orange background with light blue letters that spell: "Don't avoid / what is easy". I used these clear rubber stamp letters that I bought and didn't end up using for a different project.
If any of these strikes any of you as particularly helpful, I will make you a painting of it. Just pick one and paste it into the comments and then... send me your address in a message on Facebook... and I will happily make you a painting of it. You can even request what colors you'd like.
(Is me doing this a form of procrastination? May be. But. Using art projects to procrastinate is like... the only acceptible form of procrastination, in my book. As long as it doesn't get out of hand. Like, I am not posting this on Facebook and offering to make paintings for all 200 of my friends on there.)
The Rundown
Getting excited about some class projects... Mainly in trying to think of how I can use/market them in the real world.
1. My partner, Audra, and I have been talking about ideas for our cross-cultural training program. We are psyched on the idea of designing a program for international college/grad students called Academic Integrity in U.S. Universities. She is a Ph.D. student @ American University, and very ambitious, so we would ideally market the training to colleges/universities in the area to present during their int'l student orientations. We would also ideally present at the GWU orientations (which I am responsible for planning in my current job).
2. Mallie & I talked about making a documentary for our final class projects (in my global citizenship class & her doc filmmaking class). Kind of a longshot, but could be AMAzing.
3. I have to write an institutional profile for my global citizenship class, and would like to talk to my prof about letting me write an article instead to submit to a local paper or an education magazine. I found an organization I really like (oneworldeducation) and almost interned there this spring, but instead set up an informational interview with the director for next Friday.
4. For that same class, I would like to maybe write an essay/book proposal exploring how global consciousness has been nurtured in students within Christian education institutions throughout history. The main focus would be how it is being approached today. focus on missions work? global citizenship? anti-environmentalism? global politics (pacifism v. war on axis of evil)? But that would necessarily be informed by the evolution of Christian global education.
Also, I now know I need to write another 50 pages-ish of my screenplay to make it feature length. I'm toying w/ the idea of begging my brother to sign on as my co-writer and Git'er'Done. Or I just need to wait until I graduate. There's just not time right now to take that on. I could notecard this semester though.... that could be good. I actually wrote the whole thing I have right now in 2 days, after notecarding for 3 months. Hmmm... that could work. =) It's so fun to fall asleep with potential scenes in a comedy playing on the movie screen of your mind.
Also, I decided to give up on waiting for my Prof to write me back. This is an educational academic conference. I will be getting feedback from the panel I am submitting my paper to. The essay is an essay. It's not a Mona Lisa, and that's ok. If it doesn't get revised before submission, I believe it will still have merit. Ahhh, peace.
Lastly, I will be videoconferencing w/ my brother & Steve this afternoon on their smutty college town horror script. I'm excited. I love being involved in the creative process WITH people. =) I hope to collaborate on a project with each of you at some point in my life, because I deeply respect your art. Brava.
1. My partner, Audra, and I have been talking about ideas for our cross-cultural training program. We are psyched on the idea of designing a program for international college/grad students called Academic Integrity in U.S. Universities. She is a Ph.D. student @ American University, and very ambitious, so we would ideally market the training to colleges/universities in the area to present during their int'l student orientations. We would also ideally present at the GWU orientations (which I am responsible for planning in my current job).
2. Mallie & I talked about making a documentary for our final class projects (in my global citizenship class & her doc filmmaking class). Kind of a longshot, but could be AMAzing.
3. I have to write an institutional profile for my global citizenship class, and would like to talk to my prof about letting me write an article instead to submit to a local paper or an education magazine. I found an organization I really like (oneworldeducation) and almost interned there this spring, but instead set up an informational interview with the director for next Friday.
4. For that same class, I would like to maybe write an essay/book proposal exploring how global consciousness has been nurtured in students within Christian education institutions throughout history. The main focus would be how it is being approached today. focus on missions work? global citizenship? anti-environmentalism? global politics (pacifism v. war on axis of evil)? But that would necessarily be informed by the evolution of Christian global education.
Also, I now know I need to write another 50 pages-ish of my screenplay to make it feature length. I'm toying w/ the idea of begging my brother to sign on as my co-writer and Git'er'Done. Or I just need to wait until I graduate. There's just not time right now to take that on. I could notecard this semester though.... that could be good. I actually wrote the whole thing I have right now in 2 days, after notecarding for 3 months. Hmmm... that could work. =) It's so fun to fall asleep with potential scenes in a comedy playing on the movie screen of your mind.
Also, I decided to give up on waiting for my Prof to write me back. This is an educational academic conference. I will be getting feedback from the panel I am submitting my paper to. The essay is an essay. It's not a Mona Lisa, and that's ok. If it doesn't get revised before submission, I believe it will still have merit. Ahhh, peace.
Lastly, I will be videoconferencing w/ my brother & Steve this afternoon on their smutty college town horror script. I'm excited. I love being involved in the creative process WITH people. =) I hope to collaborate on a project with each of you at some point in my life, because I deeply respect your art. Brava.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Anxiety Tries to Send Me Back to Procrasti
I'm tweaking a little. My ESRI Conference paper is due next Friday so I need to fix it all up this week (among other things) but am all anxious & unconfident. I've been waiting on feedback from my prof, but all I've gotten so far is "Yeah, it didn't turn out how I expected. I'll email your some comments." But she hasn't emailed me, and it's been many moons. I got a 95% on the paper, so I felt really good about it. Now I'm under the impression it's a waste of paper & needs to be completely reinvented (but how? I wish she'd tell!). I feel like I can't start editing till I get her comments... but time is running out! What to do, what to do!?
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, Monday
Did you guys ever hear Mrs. Miller? Now I can't get her version of that song out of my head!
I have lots of progress to report for this last week. First of all, I had a 2nd interview for a potential job today and a 3rd scheduled for Thursday. It would be basically doing the same as I was doing before, but working from home 4 days a week (and commuting to La Jolla 1 day). AND I would make about $7,000 a year more. Stoked! I love the idea of working from home because I think it would give me more flexibility to continue to pursue my passions of photography and sitting on the couch with Davey Pickle curled on my lap.
Secondly, I taught myself enough of Photoshop this week to re-brand the website! I think it is SO MUCH MORE ME! I liked the white one, but not totally and I didn't think it represented my personality at all. I also learned a lot about myself because I was asking friends and family how they viewed me and my photography.
I was planning on going with a very earthy, "rainy day spent under a tattered quilt" organic look for the blog but ended up with something a little more "Mexican beach on a rainy day" look. Which is funny because I wasn't planning on that look, but my house is decorated way more like that and it came naturally so I trust that it is my personality.
I also learned how to get rid of the "undefined undefined" thing that was on every post. Huzzah!
This is probably a really boring post to anyone whose not me.
I couldn't find Mrs. Miller's "Monday, Monday" on Youtube, but here's "Act Naturally" to liven up this post.
Happy Monday!
I have lots of progress to report for this last week. First of all, I had a 2nd interview for a potential job today and a 3rd scheduled for Thursday. It would be basically doing the same as I was doing before, but working from home 4 days a week (and commuting to La Jolla 1 day). AND I would make about $7,000 a year more. Stoked! I love the idea of working from home because I think it would give me more flexibility to continue to pursue my passions of photography and sitting on the couch with Davey Pickle curled on my lap.
Secondly, I taught myself enough of Photoshop this week to re-brand the website! I think it is SO MUCH MORE ME! I liked the white one, but not totally and I didn't think it represented my personality at all. I also learned a lot about myself because I was asking friends and family how they viewed me and my photography.
I was planning on going with a very earthy, "rainy day spent under a tattered quilt" organic look for the blog but ended up with something a little more "Mexican beach on a rainy day" look. Which is funny because I wasn't planning on that look, but my house is decorated way more like that and it came naturally so I trust that it is my personality.
I also learned how to get rid of the "undefined undefined" thing that was on every post. Huzzah!
This is probably a really boring post to anyone whose not me.
I couldn't find Mrs. Miller's "Monday, Monday" on Youtube, but here's "Act Naturally" to liven up this post.
Happy Monday!
Give & Take
Ok, this is kind of cheating, but I made some progress! (i.e. My friend Steve just wrote a treatment of my screenplay & gave me a lot of feedback!) I'm trying to decide now whether to flesh it out and add about 50 pgs to make it a feature length script (it's only about 50 now), or cut out some subplots and make it a TV pilot.
I don't want to write any details about it on here, because I'm paranoid someone will steal my baby. But Nicole if you have any thoughts, email me? I know you know the script by heart ;) Mallie, what do you think? Erin, I know you are already inundated w/ my fiction, so you're off the hook, but maybe one day you'll read it. Speaking of which, send me some of your work to read, Little Miss Makeup!
I just had to post this because I am so excited. Sometimes in order to get something done, someone else needs to get something done. So procrastination, in my life, often involves Failing to Ask People for Help. But this time I asked, and Steve did me a huge favor. But I must also take this moment to honor the Pay It Forward Method (I heavily edited a script Steve & my brother wrote last year, and now Steve has returned the favor). Generosity will be rewarded. And if it's not, that's okay too, because it makes your soul lovelier!
I don't want to write any details about it on here, because I'm paranoid someone will steal my baby. But Nicole if you have any thoughts, email me? I know you know the script by heart ;) Mallie, what do you think? Erin, I know you are already inundated w/ my fiction, so you're off the hook, but maybe one day you'll read it. Speaking of which, send me some of your work to read, Little Miss Makeup!
I just had to post this because I am so excited. Sometimes in order to get something done, someone else needs to get something done. So procrastination, in my life, often involves Failing to Ask People for Help. But this time I asked, and Steve did me a huge favor. But I must also take this moment to honor the Pay It Forward Method (I heavily edited a script Steve & my brother wrote last year, and now Steve has returned the favor). Generosity will be rewarded. And if it's not, that's okay too, because it makes your soul lovelier!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Our Boys on Procrasti
Procrastination is a lot like masturbation.
It feels good at the time
But in the end, you're just fucking yourself.
-Joe
Procrastination is the natural assassin of opportunity.
-Bruce
It feels good at the time
But in the end, you're just fucking yourself.
-Joe
Procrastination is the natural assassin of opportunity.
-Bruce
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Successful Friday!
Goals for Friday:
1. Edit TASER article, find a new ending…
DONE!! Thanks to Tasha for the company and encouragement at Peregrine Espresso... I emailed the first page to my contact at the Washington Post (Style Section), so hopefully she'll receive it on Monday! I also emailed the article to the subject of the story - my friend Natalie. She says she liked it! Check that off the list for now! Just got to wait to hear back from my contact... then potentially pitch it to the Hill Rag if it's a no.
2. Edit/rework California Donor Transplant Network stories
Ummmm... no. A little overwhelmed by this one. I need to start with one per day. Maybe I'll get up early.
3. Finish my thank-you notes for wedding gifts (I’m late)
SO DONE! HOORAY!
Bonus: Finished what I could finish on some paperwork that may open some doors for a side job later. Procrastination was the name of the game for this one, so I feel relieved to make such headway!
Thanks for the moral support, Writing Community! Seriously - wouldn't have been nearly as productive a day without you. I feel MUCH better going into the semester.
1. Edit TASER article, find a new ending…
DONE!! Thanks to Tasha for the company and encouragement at Peregrine Espresso... I emailed the first page to my contact at the Washington Post (Style Section), so hopefully she'll receive it on Monday! I also emailed the article to the subject of the story - my friend Natalie. She says she liked it! Check that off the list for now! Just got to wait to hear back from my contact... then potentially pitch it to the Hill Rag if it's a no.
2. Edit/rework California Donor Transplant Network stories
Ummmm... no. A little overwhelmed by this one. I need to start with one per day. Maybe I'll get up early.
3. Finish my thank-you notes for wedding gifts (I’m late)
SO DONE! HOORAY!
Bonus: Finished what I could finish on some paperwork that may open some doors for a side job later. Procrastination was the name of the game for this one, so I feel relieved to make such headway!
Thanks for the moral support, Writing Community! Seriously - wouldn't have been nearly as productive a day without you. I feel MUCH better going into the semester.
Kolarova #2
Don't see myself having a chance to post this weekend, so thought I dial it in now.
My brother's contact who owns a printing company can't make us a prototype of our project, but is checking elsewhere for us. I'll check in with Eames next Friday to see if he's made progress.
I sent my screenplay to a friend who is a scriptreader/writer, Steve. He said he'd help me out w/ a treatment & give me ideas on how to get it "out there." Also talked to my friend Adam about it, who told me it needs to be 2x as long to be a feature length script, which I already knew but was kind of in denial about. He told me to shorten it a little and make it a TV pilot. THEN, to try to go through contacts to find someone Holywoody to champion it, and get it read. So I guess that's my plan. Eek. Mallie agreed to read it and help me re-work it into a pilot. Hopefully soon before the semester swamps us.
I spoke with my advisor briefly about the essay I'll be presenting. It was slightly disheartening. All I got was "It didn't turn out how I thought it would." And she's really busy & doesn't know when she'll be able to fit me in. Sigh. I'm hesitant to rework it before I TALK to her more, so I plan to get AHEAD in all my coursework so I'll have time in early Feb to work on it & the PowerPoint prez.
Therefore I aim to devote this week to figuring out which of 3 internships to do for the semester, and getting ahead in my coursework.
Blessings to you ladies who make me feel well. Exhale.
My brother's contact who owns a printing company can't make us a prototype of our project, but is checking elsewhere for us. I'll check in with Eames next Friday to see if he's made progress.
I sent my screenplay to a friend who is a scriptreader/writer, Steve. He said he'd help me out w/ a treatment & give me ideas on how to get it "out there." Also talked to my friend Adam about it, who told me it needs to be 2x as long to be a feature length script, which I already knew but was kind of in denial about. He told me to shorten it a little and make it a TV pilot. THEN, to try to go through contacts to find someone Holywoody to champion it, and get it read. So I guess that's my plan. Eek. Mallie agreed to read it and help me re-work it into a pilot. Hopefully soon before the semester swamps us.
I spoke with my advisor briefly about the essay I'll be presenting. It was slightly disheartening. All I got was "It didn't turn out how I thought it would." And she's really busy & doesn't know when she'll be able to fit me in. Sigh. I'm hesitant to rework it before I TALK to her more, so I plan to get AHEAD in all my coursework so I'll have time in early Feb to work on it & the PowerPoint prez.
Therefore I aim to devote this week to figuring out which of 3 internships to do for the semester, and getting ahead in my coursework.
Blessings to you ladies who make me feel well. Exhale.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
You Have a "Genius"
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html
This talk is encouraging to me, as I strive to be a diligent writer.
That being said, I am a bit into Eat, Pray, Love and don't like it yet. I still respect the author's powers, perspective, and commitment to the craft though.
This talk is encouraging to me, as I strive to be a diligent writer.
That being said, I am a bit into Eat, Pray, Love and don't like it yet. I still respect the author's powers, perspective, and commitment to the craft though.
Marguerite Duras, exceprts from the essay "Writing"
The only judgement Raymond Queneau ever pronounced [on her writing] was this sentence: "Don't do anything but write."
Writing was the only thing that populated my life and made it magic. I did it. Writing never left me.
To be without the slightest subject for a book, the slightest idea for a book, is to find yourself, once again, before a book. A vast emptiness. A possible book. Before nothing. Before something like living, naked writing, like something terrible, terrible to overcome. I believe that the person who writes does not have any ideas for a book, that her hands are empty, her head is empty, and that all she knows of this adventure, this book, is dry, naked writing, without a future, without echo, distant, with only its elementary golden rules: spelling, meaning.
This is what makes writing wild. One returns to a savage state from before life itself. And one can always recognize it: it's the savageness of forests, as ancient as time. It is the fear of everything, distinct an inseparable from life itself. One becomes relentless. One cannot write without bodily strength. One must be stronger than oneself to approach writing; one must be stronger than what one is writing.
A writer is an odd thing. He's a contradiction, he makes no sense. Writing also means not speaking. Keeping silent. Screaming without sound. A writer is often quite restful; she listens a lot. She doesn't speak much because it's impossible to speak to someone about a book one has written, and especially about a book one is writing. It's impossible.... Because a book is the unknown, it's the night, it's closed off, and that's that. It's the book that advances, grows, advances in directions one thought one had explored; that advances toward its own fate and the fate of its author, who is annihilated by its publication; her separation from it, the dream book, like the last-born child, always the best loved.
I think that what I blame books for, in general, is that they are not free. One can see it in the writing: they are fabricated, organized, regulated; one could say they conform. A function of the revision that the writer often wants to impose on himself. At that moment, the writer becomes his own cop. Bt being concerned with good form, in other words the most banal form, the clearest and most inoffensive. There are still dead generations that produce prim books. Even young people: charming books, without extension, without darkness. Without silence. In other words, without a true author. Books for daytime, for whiling away the hours, for travelling. But not books that become embedded in one's thoughts and toll the black mourning for all life, the commonplace of every thought.
Every book, like every writer, has a difficult, unavoidable passage. And one must consciously decide to leave this mistake in the book for it to remain a true book, not a lie.
I often find others' books "clean," but often as if they derive from a classicism that takes no chances. Inevitable would probably be the word. I don't know.
Personally, I'm like everyone else. I don't believe anyone ever turned around to look at me in the street. I am banality itself. The triumph of banality.
We never throw out flowers in this house. It's a habit, not a rule. Never, not even dead ones; we leave them there. There are some rose petals that have been in a jar for forty years. They are still very pink. Dry and pink.
It's the unknown in oneself, one's head, one's body. Writing is not even a reflection, but a kind of faculty one has, that exists to one side of oneself, parallel to oneself: another person who appears and comes forward, invisible, gifted with thought and anger...
If one had any idea what one was going to write, before writing, one would never write. It wouldn't be worth it anymore.
Writing was the only thing that populated my life and made it magic. I did it. Writing never left me.
To be without the slightest subject for a book, the slightest idea for a book, is to find yourself, once again, before a book. A vast emptiness. A possible book. Before nothing. Before something like living, naked writing, like something terrible, terrible to overcome. I believe that the person who writes does not have any ideas for a book, that her hands are empty, her head is empty, and that all she knows of this adventure, this book, is dry, naked writing, without a future, without echo, distant, with only its elementary golden rules: spelling, meaning.
This is what makes writing wild. One returns to a savage state from before life itself. And one can always recognize it: it's the savageness of forests, as ancient as time. It is the fear of everything, distinct an inseparable from life itself. One becomes relentless. One cannot write without bodily strength. One must be stronger than oneself to approach writing; one must be stronger than what one is writing.
A writer is an odd thing. He's a contradiction, he makes no sense. Writing also means not speaking. Keeping silent. Screaming without sound. A writer is often quite restful; she listens a lot. She doesn't speak much because it's impossible to speak to someone about a book one has written, and especially about a book one is writing. It's impossible.... Because a book is the unknown, it's the night, it's closed off, and that's that. It's the book that advances, grows, advances in directions one thought one had explored; that advances toward its own fate and the fate of its author, who is annihilated by its publication; her separation from it, the dream book, like the last-born child, always the best loved.
I think that what I blame books for, in general, is that they are not free. One can see it in the writing: they are fabricated, organized, regulated; one could say they conform. A function of the revision that the writer often wants to impose on himself. At that moment, the writer becomes his own cop. Bt being concerned with good form, in other words the most banal form, the clearest and most inoffensive. There are still dead generations that produce prim books. Even young people: charming books, without extension, without darkness. Without silence. In other words, without a true author. Books for daytime, for whiling away the hours, for travelling. But not books that become embedded in one's thoughts and toll the black mourning for all life, the commonplace of every thought.
Every book, like every writer, has a difficult, unavoidable passage. And one must consciously decide to leave this mistake in the book for it to remain a true book, not a lie.
I often find others' books "clean," but often as if they derive from a classicism that takes no chances. Inevitable would probably be the word. I don't know.
Personally, I'm like everyone else. I don't believe anyone ever turned around to look at me in the street. I am banality itself. The triumph of banality.
We never throw out flowers in this house. It's a habit, not a rule. Never, not even dead ones; we leave them there. There are some rose petals that have been in a jar for forty years. They are still very pink. Dry and pink.
It's the unknown in oneself, one's head, one's body. Writing is not even a reflection, but a kind of faculty one has, that exists to one side of oneself, parallel to oneself: another person who appears and comes forward, invisible, gifted with thought and anger...
If one had any idea what one was going to write, before writing, one would never write. It wouldn't be worth it anymore.
Goals for Friday
I haven’t picked my perfect posting day for writing. This week it’s Friday.
There’s something overwhelming about everything finally coming together. Like lying on a surf board and leaning back to let a swelling wave lift you 5 or 10 feet higher and sliding down its back into the deeper ocean. Ok, I got this. A little intimidating, but I got it.
I was waiting, overwhelmed with my semester’s ambiguity. Advanced Video canceled, Journalism of Conscience waitlisted. But the wave swelled up, and Monday evening I got a for-sure nod from NBC News Channel: quit your job, Mallie, you have an internship!
Tuesday morning I finagled my way into Covering Capitol Hill without the prerequisite. That night, the much-anticipated email popped up: I won a seat in Journalism of Conscience.
Whew, but I’m in the deeper ocean. I can’t quite see the bottom. Ok, but I got this.
I went to fill out paperwork at NBC yesterday. I followed the Managing Editor through a hallway of editing studios, creative energy and sound bites floating out of each doorway. In the main studio, televisions mounted around the room and stacked on cubicle desks added to the symphony of activity.
As I filled out my emergency contact information, bright lights flashed on behind me. I turned and saw a woman one cubicle-aisle over standing on a stool, reading about the housing market into a giant studio camera. I smirked. Am I cheating? THIS will be my work environment?
So now I know. Next week starts everything.
Before I get lost in the chaos of balancing school, internship, marriage and friendships, I have Friday. My last day off before the storm. Here are my goals:
1. Edit TASER article, find a new ending…
2. Edit/rework California Donor Transplant Network stories
3. Finish my thank-you notes for wedding gifts (I’m late)
There’s something overwhelming about everything finally coming together. Like lying on a surf board and leaning back to let a swelling wave lift you 5 or 10 feet higher and sliding down its back into the deeper ocean. Ok, I got this. A little intimidating, but I got it.
I was waiting, overwhelmed with my semester’s ambiguity. Advanced Video canceled, Journalism of Conscience waitlisted. But the wave swelled up, and Monday evening I got a for-sure nod from NBC News Channel: quit your job, Mallie, you have an internship!
Tuesday morning I finagled my way into Covering Capitol Hill without the prerequisite. That night, the much-anticipated email popped up: I won a seat in Journalism of Conscience.
Whew, but I’m in the deeper ocean. I can’t quite see the bottom. Ok, but I got this.
I went to fill out paperwork at NBC yesterday. I followed the Managing Editor through a hallway of editing studios, creative energy and sound bites floating out of each doorway. In the main studio, televisions mounted around the room and stacked on cubicle desks added to the symphony of activity.
As I filled out my emergency contact information, bright lights flashed on behind me. I turned and saw a woman one cubicle-aisle over standing on a stool, reading about the housing market into a giant studio camera. I smirked. Am I cheating? THIS will be my work environment?
So now I know. Next week starts everything.
Before I get lost in the chaos of balancing school, internship, marriage and friendships, I have Friday. My last day off before the storm. Here are my goals:
1. Edit TASER article, find a new ending…
2. Edit/rework California Donor Transplant Network stories
3. Finish my thank-you notes for wedding gifts (I’m late)
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Writing Exercise
I did this spontaneously last night without thinking about why I was doing it first. Then later I realized I had been coming up with piles and piles of material for fiction or even creative nonfiction essays, without realizing it, and while having lots of fun.
What I did was, I opened a Word document, went to my list of friends on Facebook, and wrote down a sentence or two about each of them. (185.) Originally I had their names in the document, but then I noticed a trend - I was writing either a nice, interesting, non-controversial memory, OR - I was writing the juiciest gossip I had ever heard about them, and as someone who listens carefully when people talk, I have got a lot of gossip stored up. So then I nixed their names and put ______ instead.
I don't know if I'm explaining this well. Here are some examples:
______ used to be in the carpool in high school and would sit in the middle of the backseat, lean forward, and talk a mile a minute. She has lots to say very quickly. She also once sang “Hotel California” really loud in the carpool.
______ was going to become a monk or something last I heard.
______ used to hold her forefingers and thumbs in two circles and put them over her eyes while opening her eyes exaggeratedly wide during the part of the Dixie Chicks’ song “Goodbye Earl” that goes, “Those black-eyed peas / tasted all right to me, Earl.” Everyone would sing the song together and that part was “her” part, the part where everyone looked at her expectedly and she did that and everyone laughed.
______ once sat next to me at dinner at summer camp when I was 14 and our knees kept rubbing together and I got turned on by it and I in one of my first confiding conversations with Jenn I told her that.
______ wanted to be loved for knowing a lot, not understanding that people love you so much more when you pretend to know so much less.
______ last I knew her talked about herself incessantly and was a horrible listener. I almost told her that’s why I stopped returning her phone calls but then never did. I doubt anyone has ever told her that.
______ used to read the morning announcements in the front office in junior high in the exaggerated voice you sometimes use to read to little kids. It was cute of her and no one mentioned it so she never got embarrassed about it or stopped doing it.
______ always dates Asian girls in tube tops with hoop earrings and eyeliner.
______ used to pretend her foot was a telephone and pretend to answer it and everyone thought it was hysterical. This was in junior high.
______ is my hairdresser and one time when I mentioned my hair has natural highlights he said in this very haughty way, “No it doesn’t.”
______ is cute in theory but he makes me uncomfortable, like he is bored by my stories. Marianne said after we hung out with him, “He seemed interested in what you were saying, but really bored by me,” and I said, “No! It was the other way around, I swear!” I can’t begin to analyze how you manage to give everyone that impression separately.
______ told everyone she “had bipolar” about five years before everyone was telling everyone about their bipolarity. She was a mess – alienated everyone without knowing she was doing it. A band girl. She used to hog up the bathroom for like an hour and only come out when I threatened to pee on her bed and then she’d come out and mention she’d been talking to herself in the mirror the whole time. I do that too, but sheez.
______ sounded so different when I talked to her at her wedding. Her voice was nothing like it had been when we were 8 years old. But then she laughed and sounded just the same, and tears sprang to my eyes, that person I knew is still in there somewhere and laughing.
______ is smug, so smug that I have almost blocked her status updates so many times, but I like pinpointing what it is I don’t like about a person so I keep hers up and think to myself, “Smug.”
______ once replied thusly to an aghast, “You can’t SWIM?!”: “No, but I can ice skate.” She said it really quiet and I was the only one who heard and I wanted to do a shitty cartwheel to celebrate how much I liked it.
______ wrote an essay about being asexual but I didn’t think she really was one. She even put things in the essay about hating it when people don’t believe her. Sorry though. I just didn’t buy it.
______ is caustic and dry and we could have, could have, could have, didn’t. Probably never will.
______ used to kick his own butt when he ran.
Eh? It's super fun and I surprised myself with what I came up with. There are a lot of anecdotes brimming toward the front of your brain and I feel like this plucks them out. If you try it let me know how it goes!
What I did was, I opened a Word document, went to my list of friends on Facebook, and wrote down a sentence or two about each of them. (185.) Originally I had their names in the document, but then I noticed a trend - I was writing either a nice, interesting, non-controversial memory, OR - I was writing the juiciest gossip I had ever heard about them, and as someone who listens carefully when people talk, I have got a lot of gossip stored up. So then I nixed their names and put ______ instead.
I don't know if I'm explaining this well. Here are some examples:
______ used to be in the carpool in high school and would sit in the middle of the backseat, lean forward, and talk a mile a minute. She has lots to say very quickly. She also once sang “Hotel California” really loud in the carpool.
______ was going to become a monk or something last I heard.
______ used to hold her forefingers and thumbs in two circles and put them over her eyes while opening her eyes exaggeratedly wide during the part of the Dixie Chicks’ song “Goodbye Earl” that goes, “Those black-eyed peas / tasted all right to me, Earl.” Everyone would sing the song together and that part was “her” part, the part where everyone looked at her expectedly and she did that and everyone laughed.
______ once sat next to me at dinner at summer camp when I was 14 and our knees kept rubbing together and I got turned on by it and I in one of my first confiding conversations with Jenn I told her that.
______ wanted to be loved for knowing a lot, not understanding that people love you so much more when you pretend to know so much less.
______ last I knew her talked about herself incessantly and was a horrible listener. I almost told her that’s why I stopped returning her phone calls but then never did. I doubt anyone has ever told her that.
______ used to read the morning announcements in the front office in junior high in the exaggerated voice you sometimes use to read to little kids. It was cute of her and no one mentioned it so she never got embarrassed about it or stopped doing it.
______ always dates Asian girls in tube tops with hoop earrings and eyeliner.
______ used to pretend her foot was a telephone and pretend to answer it and everyone thought it was hysterical. This was in junior high.
______ is my hairdresser and one time when I mentioned my hair has natural highlights he said in this very haughty way, “No it doesn’t.”
______ is cute in theory but he makes me uncomfortable, like he is bored by my stories. Marianne said after we hung out with him, “He seemed interested in what you were saying, but really bored by me,” and I said, “No! It was the other way around, I swear!” I can’t begin to analyze how you manage to give everyone that impression separately.
______ told everyone she “had bipolar” about five years before everyone was telling everyone about their bipolarity. She was a mess – alienated everyone without knowing she was doing it. A band girl. She used to hog up the bathroom for like an hour and only come out when I threatened to pee on her bed and then she’d come out and mention she’d been talking to herself in the mirror the whole time. I do that too, but sheez.
______ sounded so different when I talked to her at her wedding. Her voice was nothing like it had been when we were 8 years old. But then she laughed and sounded just the same, and tears sprang to my eyes, that person I knew is still in there somewhere and laughing.
______ is smug, so smug that I have almost blocked her status updates so many times, but I like pinpointing what it is I don’t like about a person so I keep hers up and think to myself, “Smug.”
______ once replied thusly to an aghast, “You can’t SWIM?!”: “No, but I can ice skate.” She said it really quiet and I was the only one who heard and I wanted to do a shitty cartwheel to celebrate how much I liked it.
______ wrote an essay about being asexual but I didn’t think she really was one. She even put things in the essay about hating it when people don’t believe her. Sorry though. I just didn’t buy it.
______ is caustic and dry and we could have, could have, could have, didn’t. Probably never will.
______ used to kick his own butt when he ran.
Eh? It's super fun and I surprised myself with what I came up with. There are a lot of anecdotes brimming toward the front of your brain and I feel like this plucks them out. If you try it let me know how it goes!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Snippets from A Great Vacation Read
"If only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won’t even underline that. It’s too important to be underlined."
"Give me a story that just makes me unreasonalby vigilant. Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason… Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I’m feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I’d give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart."
— J.D. Salinger (Seymour: An Introduction)
"Give me a story that just makes me unreasonalby vigilant. Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason… Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I’m feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I’d give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart."
— J.D. Salinger (Seymour: An Introduction)
For Flexibility's Sake
I think we should each determine the best day of the week for our personal check-in, rather than have a mass day for the sake of uniformity. Right? Like, Nicole, if Tuesday is good for you, then by all means - you should take Tuesday. If Joe works late on a night you don't have class, Mallie, by all means, claim that day. Right?
I think I want to stick with Sunday-Monday for now. I loved the feeling of checking in. And today, I have gotten a lot more done, recognizing that I want to be able to be proud next Sun-Mon. =) Community is so nurturing - I love it. I always wanted to join AA for that aspect, but this might be a good fallback! Haha.
I think I want to stick with Sunday-Monday for now. I loved the feeling of checking in. And today, I have gotten a lot more done, recognizing that I want to be able to be proud next Sun-Mon. =) Community is so nurturing - I love it. I always wanted to join AA for that aspect, but this might be a good fallback! Haha.
OK, my first Tuesday post
Sorry, I'm a little late. There goes my New Years Resolution!
But, I'm happy to report that I have something to report!
The first very exciting development in my career is that I got a free copy of Photoshop Suite (that means I got the whole deal- Illustrator, Designer, Distiller). I don;t know what all that stuff does, but hey- I'm a photographer so I should at least have a copy of Photoshop in my bag of tricks, right?
On a side note, someone had given me the copy of Photoshop and I first tried to install it a few months ago and it didn't work, so I wasn't expecting it to work at all. Since I am unemployed I decided to try to reinstall it and this time it worked perfectly.
I mention this for 2 reasons- It's an example of my unemployment pushing me to work harder to make my dream a reality and it's an example of God giving me the thumbs up and opening a door to tools for my business that I didn't have before.
Before I move on to my next update I want to expand on where God is in all of this for me. I think I have been afraid to admit and believe that God is going to use this lay off to bless me. To move me to a job that is more suited to me and will fulfill His purposes in my life. But I was challenged last night to claim that. To believe it and pray for it boldly. I was serious when I said that my New Years Resolution was to always trust my instincts and that is what my gut is telling me. And for that I am humbled and thankful and amazed that I serve a God who is so good to me even when all I have to offer Him is my great need.
OK, the second update is that I totally changed my blog! And, I created the header/logo all by myself, using Paint of all things even after I anstalled all that fancy Photoshop stuff. I think it is much more indicative of who I am as a photographer and I hope it conveys youth, fun, and artistic-ness AND makes it easy to navigate, contact me and follow the blog.
Yay for progress!
But, I'm happy to report that I have something to report!
The first very exciting development in my career is that I got a free copy of Photoshop Suite (that means I got the whole deal- Illustrator, Designer, Distiller). I don;t know what all that stuff does, but hey- I'm a photographer so I should at least have a copy of Photoshop in my bag of tricks, right?
On a side note, someone had given me the copy of Photoshop and I first tried to install it a few months ago and it didn't work, so I wasn't expecting it to work at all. Since I am unemployed I decided to try to reinstall it and this time it worked perfectly.
I mention this for 2 reasons- It's an example of my unemployment pushing me to work harder to make my dream a reality and it's an example of God giving me the thumbs up and opening a door to tools for my business that I didn't have before.
Before I move on to my next update I want to expand on where God is in all of this for me. I think I have been afraid to admit and believe that God is going to use this lay off to bless me. To move me to a job that is more suited to me and will fulfill His purposes in my life. But I was challenged last night to claim that. To believe it and pray for it boldly. I was serious when I said that my New Years Resolution was to always trust my instincts and that is what my gut is telling me. And for that I am humbled and thankful and amazed that I serve a God who is so good to me even when all I have to offer Him is my great need.
OK, the second update is that I totally changed my blog! And, I created the header/logo all by myself, using Paint of all things even after I anstalled all that fancy Photoshop stuff. I think it is much more indicative of who I am as a photographer and I hope it conveys youth, fun, and artistic-ness AND makes it easy to navigate, contact me and follow the blog.
Yay for progress!
Monday, January 11, 2010
Monday #1
I have started researching ideas for an paper on global citizenship education (which i will need to write this semester for a course). I'm thinking about writing it about the Middle East (Afghanistan?) because it's current-event-relevant & my goal is to get it published.
I also emailed my professor to ask for a constructive feedback session re: the paper I will be presenting at the academic conference. Hopefully this week.
I started a new blog which I will only post in once a week. It's called New Week's Resolutions. Every week I will have one discipline to practice religiously. #1 is washing the dishes every night. I also decided to be vegetarian as possible for the YEAR. Not that that is related to art or writing. But. I stopped putting it off? =)
I bought my books for this semester's classes (only $36!!!) and started reading Eat, Pray, Love for fun. It is important for me to read for FUN & not just academia, otherwise I stop being a person.
I'm afraid that one thing I do to procrastinate is The Next Best Thing that I should be doing. It tricks me into thinking I'm not actually procrastinating, because I AM being productive and important after all. But when there is a #1 priority staring at me, I kind of get nervous and do #2. I don't know how to get around this, because the defense mechanism ("Look, I'm at least getting SOMETHING meaningful done!") is so damn convincing. I'm like a naughty manipulative child. With myself. Weird.
On a final note, I was super envious when I discovered a friend of mine in the Biola English program is like a totally successful poet now. She's doing it. Publishing books, reading for an audience at CityLights Bookstore, getting reviewed in magazines. It's amazing. She is a fantastic person and I'm excited for her. It was a bit of a reality check, though. Like, do you really want that? To be "Publishing books, reading for an audience at CityLights Bookstore, getting reviewed in magazines"? Then act like it, right?
Her website is http://www.katedurbin.com/. Mallie and Nicole, you guys knew her, and I think your sister might have, Erin. Anyway. Kinda inspiring and depressing all in the same breath.
I also emailed my professor to ask for a constructive feedback session re: the paper I will be presenting at the academic conference. Hopefully this week.
I started a new blog which I will only post in once a week. It's called New Week's Resolutions. Every week I will have one discipline to practice religiously. #1 is washing the dishes every night. I also decided to be vegetarian as possible for the YEAR. Not that that is related to art or writing. But. I stopped putting it off? =)
I bought my books for this semester's classes (only $36!!!) and started reading Eat, Pray, Love for fun. It is important for me to read for FUN & not just academia, otherwise I stop being a person.
I'm afraid that one thing I do to procrastinate is The Next Best Thing that I should be doing. It tricks me into thinking I'm not actually procrastinating, because I AM being productive and important after all. But when there is a #1 priority staring at me, I kind of get nervous and do #2. I don't know how to get around this, because the defense mechanism ("Look, I'm at least getting SOMETHING meaningful done!") is so damn convincing. I'm like a naughty manipulative child. With myself. Weird.
On a final note, I was super envious when I discovered a friend of mine in the Biola English program is like a totally successful poet now. She's doing it. Publishing books, reading for an audience at CityLights Bookstore, getting reviewed in magazines. It's amazing. She is a fantastic person and I'm excited for her. It was a bit of a reality check, though. Like, do you really want that? To be "Publishing books, reading for an audience at CityLights Bookstore, getting reviewed in magazines"? Then act like it, right?
Her website is http://www.katedurbin.com/. Mallie and Nicole, you guys knew her, and I think your sister might have, Erin. Anyway. Kinda inspiring and depressing all in the same breath.
First Monday Post
What have I accomplished.
This weekend I thought of a writing idea that revolutionizes what I believe to be possible in writing. It is a form that is elastic enough to contain every best idea I have ever had without the strain of having to contrive novel-length plots for them all. I don't want to share what exactly it is and drain it of its magic, but it excited me to the extent that I rushed out to Staples and bought a new 5-subject, 5-star notebook in honor of the new idea. I have the plan that I will do this thing longhand, in this notebook, and when it is full, I will switch from gathering content to revising and arranging content. Goal! Implements! Specifictiy!
I have two paintings that need to get done by Feb 1, which is when the library multipurpose room is hosting a monthlong gallery show of the art of local women. MY NAME IS ALREADY ON THE POSTER as one of the local women artists. So I damn well better finish those paintings. Thanks, external deadline! I owe ya one. I need to decide which brand of stencils to buy and which colors of spray paint. I need to decide how gigantic of a canvas I can get away with. I need to finish combing Degas' collected letters. Those are my small goals that will lead to the big goal of completion.
Let's remember that what we love best about life is art. Let's remember to honor it and make time for it the way we make time to bathe and curl our eyelashes and read Entertainment Weekly.
I love having this community already!
This weekend I thought of a writing idea that revolutionizes what I believe to be possible in writing. It is a form that is elastic enough to contain every best idea I have ever had without the strain of having to contrive novel-length plots for them all. I don't want to share what exactly it is and drain it of its magic, but it excited me to the extent that I rushed out to Staples and bought a new 5-subject, 5-star notebook in honor of the new idea. I have the plan that I will do this thing longhand, in this notebook, and when it is full, I will switch from gathering content to revising and arranging content. Goal! Implements! Specifictiy!
I have two paintings that need to get done by Feb 1, which is when the library multipurpose room is hosting a monthlong gallery show of the art of local women. MY NAME IS ALREADY ON THE POSTER as one of the local women artists. So I damn well better finish those paintings. Thanks, external deadline! I owe ya one. I need to decide which brand of stencils to buy and which colors of spray paint. I need to decide how gigantic of a canvas I can get away with. I need to finish combing Degas' collected letters. Those are my small goals that will lead to the big goal of completion.
Let's remember that what we love best about life is art. Let's remember to honor it and make time for it the way we make time to bathe and curl our eyelashes and read Entertainment Weekly.
I love having this community already!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Anonymous Facebook Status
"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."
Words Don't Taste Good to Eat
I'm announcing:
My International v. Multicultural essay needs to be submitted to the ESRI Academic Conference panel by Feb. 1st. That means I want to receive comments from my professor and rewrite it by Sunday 1/24. After that is complete, I need to formalize the powerpoint I will be presenting & a script. I don't wing anything. The sooner I get all this done, the better because the semester's homework will be beginning to snowball at the time of the conference (Feb 28-29th). Again I repeat, THE SOONER THE BETTER.
After the conference, I will revise my paper and (if the revisions are minor) submit it to academic journals to consider publishing. If the revisions are major, I will wait til the end of the semester and submit it.
I am going to ask my Hollywood screenwriter friends Steve and Adam if either of them would be willing to "treat" my Homeschool mockumentary screenplay (for $ or sexual favors) so I can submit that to whoever they suggest. Producers? Agents? Contests? I am too close to the story, and can't distance myself enough to write the synopsis. I CAN however for my FairyTale Fusion screenplay. I will treat it and submit the treatment to Disney by the end of the semester (?).
I don't know if it's that these goals are unrealistic, or if I am just not used to going beyond the bare minimum, but as I type them it my insides feel skeptical. Like this is just another way to make myself feel like a failure. Set a goal and then slam my face in it. But I'm hopeful. So I'll stop there and marinate and maybe add more to this timeline when I have the courage.
My International v. Multicultural essay needs to be submitted to the ESRI Academic Conference panel by Feb. 1st. That means I want to receive comments from my professor and rewrite it by Sunday 1/24. After that is complete, I need to formalize the powerpoint I will be presenting & a script. I don't wing anything. The sooner I get all this done, the better because the semester's homework will be beginning to snowball at the time of the conference (Feb 28-29th). Again I repeat, THE SOONER THE BETTER.
After the conference, I will revise my paper and (if the revisions are minor) submit it to academic journals to consider publishing. If the revisions are major, I will wait til the end of the semester and submit it.
I am going to ask my Hollywood screenwriter friends Steve and Adam if either of them would be willing to "treat" my Homeschool mockumentary screenplay (for $ or sexual favors) so I can submit that to whoever they suggest. Producers? Agents? Contests? I am too close to the story, and can't distance myself enough to write the synopsis. I CAN however for my FairyTale Fusion screenplay. I will treat it and submit the treatment to Disney by the end of the semester (?).
I don't know if it's that these goals are unrealistic, or if I am just not used to going beyond the bare minimum, but as I type them it my insides feel skeptical. Like this is just another way to make myself feel like a failure. Set a goal and then slam my face in it. But I'm hopeful. So I'll stop there and marinate and maybe add more to this timeline when I have the courage.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
I am the biggest loser.
As in, I lost my job. Thursday to be exact. Laid off. Unemployed. Ready to move into a van and start my life as a hobo.
Due to such development in my life I will have time to do all of the things I have been wanting to, just no money with which to accomplish them. But the best things in life are free, right girls?
My first project I want to tackle, one that started in Procrasti and can no longer reside there, is branding for my photography business. The problem with branding is I have to know myself as a photographer before I can develop a brand so I am hoping to enlist your assistance.
One of you knows me very well and the others not as much. This is good. I would like to see what people's perceptions of my photography/ personal image/ online image are depending on how well they know me. Sometimes the most valuable information comes from people with no personal connection.
If you'd be so kind as to check out my website and photo blog and leave a comment with your general thoughts about me and/or my photography (good and bad) I would be very much indebted to you.
Website: http://www.nicoraclephotography.showitsite.com/
Blog: http://www.nicoraclephotography.blogspot.com/
Any feedback will be a huge help for me to figure out how to tackle my first project on the road out of Procrasti. Thanks for being my community!
Oh... and I am also going to use my time off to excercise, excercise, excersize and begin to tackle the Everest of my life- my weight. That's where the "biggest loser" reference comes in. Man, I love double entendre's!
Due to such development in my life I will have time to do all of the things I have been wanting to, just no money with which to accomplish them. But the best things in life are free, right girls?
My first project I want to tackle, one that started in Procrasti and can no longer reside there, is branding for my photography business. The problem with branding is I have to know myself as a photographer before I can develop a brand so I am hoping to enlist your assistance.
One of you knows me very well and the others not as much. This is good. I would like to see what people's perceptions of my photography/ personal image/ online image are depending on how well they know me. Sometimes the most valuable information comes from people with no personal connection.
If you'd be so kind as to check out my website and photo blog and leave a comment with your general thoughts about me and/or my photography (good and bad) I would be very much indebted to you.
Website: http://www.nicoraclephotography.showitsite.com/
Blog: http://www.nicoraclephotography.blogspot.com/
Any feedback will be a huge help for me to figure out how to tackle my first project on the road out of Procrasti. Thanks for being my community!
Oh... and I am also going to use my time off to excercise, excercise, excersize and begin to tackle the Everest of my life- my weight. That's where the "biggest loser" reference comes in. Man, I love double entendre's!
Friday, January 8, 2010
A proposal
If we are posting here to encourage each other to write, then...
what about picking a certain day of the week to post about progress on writing, and how successfully we've battled procrastination/laziness/fear?
If you do not write then substitute "photography," "painting," "making paper dolls," etc, for writing.
What do you guys think? And what do you think of either Sunday night or Monday as the posting day? The reason I suggest those times is that since I work Monday-Friday 8-5, the weekends are my prime free time when I should be writing (and/or making paper dolls). I imagine you guyses weekends are your biggest chunk of free time as well. So being called upon to give account at the end of that time makes the most sense to me.
Thoughts?
what about picking a certain day of the week to post about progress on writing, and how successfully we've battled procrastination/laziness/fear?
If you do not write then substitute "photography," "painting," "making paper dolls," etc, for writing.
What do you guys think? And what do you think of either Sunday night or Monday as the posting day? The reason I suggest those times is that since I work Monday-Friday 8-5, the weekends are my prime free time when I should be writing (and/or making paper dolls). I imagine you guyses weekends are your biggest chunk of free time as well. So being called upon to give account at the end of that time makes the most sense to me.
Thoughts?
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Community.
I just commented on Nicole’s Fear blog with an excuse of why I haven’t posted. Nice.
I turned to my husband to inform him of my new status: "Guess what? I'm part of a blog now!"
Of course I filled him in on our witty attempt to seek sanctuary from the Nation of Procrasti, the home of our excuse-prone nature (which Nicole noted is fighting to render our potential useless).
“We’re going to encourage each other to write,” I told him, then added something I didn’t know yet: “It’s my writing community.”
So I decided to dive in.
Hello, Community.
I turned to my husband to inform him of my new status: "Guess what? I'm part of a blog now!"
Of course I filled him in on our witty attempt to seek sanctuary from the Nation of Procrasti, the home of our excuse-prone nature (which Nicole noted is fighting to render our potential useless).
“We’re going to encourage each other to write,” I told him, then added something I didn’t know yet: “It’s my writing community.”
So I decided to dive in.
Hello, Community.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Can You See What I See?
I found this torn out bit in my purse. It reads, "Let's face it, wtiting is hell." -William (Faulkner?) (Shakespeare?) (?)
Maybe I tore it from a waiting room or check-out aisle magazine. I have no recollection. But it must have jumped off the page to me at the moment. Writer's Block? Deadline? Boredom? It doesn't matter because it's true. Writing is hell. But the kind of hell Milton's Satan walked into tenaciously without reservation. Nathaniel Hawthorne described Fanny Fern as writing “as if the devil was in her.” So, cheers to the hell we have chosen! There's no redemption.
Proofs
If I had no friends vying for coffee dates and lunch dates and ice-skating turns, then I would be a prolific writer.
If I didn't suffer from chronic fatigue and an intolerance for large cups of coffee, then I would be an eager writer.
If I lacked the 'Ideation' strength, and could be cured of Shiny Object Syndrome, then I would be a focused writer.
If I lived in a commune of dirty, messy, inspired artists, then I would be a nurtured writer.
If I knew for sure that one day my work would be published and out of this drawer, then I would be a bold writer.
If I didn't suffer from chronic fatigue and an intolerance for large cups of coffee, then I would be an eager writer.
If I lacked the 'Ideation' strength, and could be cured of Shiny Object Syndrome, then I would be a focused writer.
If I lived in a commune of dirty, messy, inspired artists, then I would be a nurtured writer.
If I knew for sure that one day my work would be published and out of this drawer, then I would be a bold writer.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Thanks Muriel
I opened Muriel Spark's short novel The Finishing School and my eyes landed on this:
"You know, Chris," Rowland had said, "I don't think you're on the right lines. You might scrap it and start again."
"When it's finished," said Chris, "I could scrap it and start again. Not before I've finished the novel, though."
"Why?" said Rowland.
"I want to see what I write."
"You know, Chris," Rowland had said, "I don't think you're on the right lines. You might scrap it and start again."
"When it's finished," said Chris, "I could scrap it and start again. Not before I've finished the novel, though."
"Why?" said Rowland.
"I want to see what I write."
What is your greatest fear?
Hello my people! Let me first say that I am so excited and honored to have been invited to be a contributor to this blog. Each contributor is so much more talented, interesting, funny, etc. than I am so I am still not quite sure how I got on this list. :)
I was reading an interview a few weeks ago and this question was asked. The interviewee's answer really resonated with me. So much so, in fact, that I wrote it on a post it and stuck it to my computer.
I was reading an interview a few weeks ago and this question was asked. The interviewee's answer really resonated with me. So much so, in fact, that I wrote it on a post it and stuck it to my computer.
What is your greatest fear?
Allowing my nature to forfeit my potential.
I think I will boldly declare that as my New Years Resolution- to not allow my nature to forfeit my potential. That plus always trusting my intution no matter what. And to stop being late all the time.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Leaden bones
The disconnect between
a) wanting more than anything to transition from being a writer privately, sporadically, to being a writer consistently, publicly
b) never ever ever being in the mood to write anymore, only being in the mood to
c) write things down... when ideas occur to me and I don't want to forget them... a few times a week? More if I am drinking more coffee?
invites a closer analysis. From me. If you say you want to be healthy but eat only fried foods, if you say you want a better job but don't make a resume, if you say you want to date but don't make eye contact with men...
I'll tell you that what you say you want / what you want to want IS DIFFERENT FROM what you really, really, really want.
Or else it's just fear getting in the way. Those seem to be the two most likely explanations.
Maybe I will keep a journal where every morning I ask myself what I really, really, really want and answer myself. Maybe in the same journal I will write down one thing that made me happy each day, every evening. And maybe compiling the two types of evidence will make two things clearer:
1. The reason for the disconnect between what I say I want and what I spend time doing;
2. What and where my next job should be.
a) wanting more than anything to transition from being a writer privately, sporadically, to being a writer consistently, publicly
b) never ever ever being in the mood to write anymore, only being in the mood to
c) write things down... when ideas occur to me and I don't want to forget them... a few times a week? More if I am drinking more coffee?
invites a closer analysis. From me. If you say you want to be healthy but eat only fried foods, if you say you want a better job but don't make a resume, if you say you want to date but don't make eye contact with men...
I'll tell you that what you say you want / what you want to want IS DIFFERENT FROM what you really, really, really want.
Or else it's just fear getting in the way. Those seem to be the two most likely explanations.
Maybe I will keep a journal where every morning I ask myself what I really, really, really want and answer myself. Maybe in the same journal I will write down one thing that made me happy each day, every evening. And maybe compiling the two types of evidence will make two things clearer:
1. The reason for the disconnect between what I say I want and what I spend time doing;
2. What and where my next job should be.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Little Murders
i like the refugee idea because it communicates the danger/violence against self of inactivity. of wasting our lives and ideas. Procrasti is a land full of little murders against precious little things. i have repetetively aborted the ideas that have taken root inside me. and of course not all can possibly be-come. but.
i have much grief and a sense of loss over all the ideas i have rejected. and refugees have that kind of desperate hope and forward movement (away from a tragic past). it is a new year and i want to find a new home.
i have much grief and a sense of loss over all the ideas i have rejected. and refugees have that kind of desperate hope and forward movement (away from a tragic past). it is a new year and i want to find a new home.
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