Tag: inktober

Talking End of the Month Refresh Blues

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Image courtesy of hackaday.com

I talked a little bit about this over at my Dreamwidth account, but I think it begs a bit of commentary here: I’m happy to say that I think I’ve finally broken myself of that niggling feeling at the end of every month that I’ve failed in keeping up with my writing schedule. For years, and with the best of intentions, I’d start each month looking at my whiteboard calendar and think, yeah, this time I’ll make it to the end with new words and productivity all over the place!, and inevitably crash and burn about two-thirds of the way through.

It took me until recently that to realize that I’ve been looking at this in totally the wrong way.

Coming into each month with the determination to Do All The Things regardless of real life (and Day Job) getting in the way always leads to failure. And that’s the other mistake I made: seeing that as failure in the first place. In the final weeks I’d always get frustrated that I’d failed to follow my plans once more, and every single time I’d needlessly get angry with myself. It would only be exacerbated by thinking, okay, THIS time I’ll get it right! and setting myself up for failure once more.

What I need to do instead is see the start of every month as a refresh. I run cleaning software on this PC every weekend without fail (and it’s kept Spare Oom’s computer up and running smoothly for over three years so far, thank you very much), and it occurred to me that I really should see my writing habits in very much the same manner.

When I start the new month tomorrow — including participating in Inktober — the whiteboard schedule will once again be full, once again be seen as a guide rather than an assignment, once again allowing myself days off when Real Life intrudes. The whole point of the whiteboard schedule has always been to keep me working instead of procrastinating or distracting myself, nothing more. It’s my coping mechanism that’s kept me from otherwise faffing around on Twitter or playing with my music collection all day long.

What I shall do differently starting tomorrow is just do my best. That’s all. If I miss a day, I miss a day. And come the end of October I’ll do the same thing I’m doing now, accepting the amount of work I’d done in the meantime and starting it all over again in November. And so on. View it as a refresh, not as a metric.

Diwa & Kaffi Sketches I

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I’ve been having a bit of fun for Inktober this year by drawing sketches of the characters that make up Diwa & Kaffi. I totally admit I’m going against the rules from the start by drawing in pencil and posting them as is (I plan on inking them at some future point), but I really like how they’re coming out! Hope you enjoy them!

First up is Diwa. His background is interesting in that I wanted him to be just a nice kid with an honest goal of taking over his dad’s position as co-landlord at their estate. He’s not looking for fame or glory…he just wants to give back to the community. My way of having him stand out is that he often seems like he’s too good to be true, so his personal moments are always about inner turmoil. I’d say his Ghibli analogue would most likely be Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Next is Kaffi, a tintrite (a dragon-like character) and Diwa’s best friend since childhood. He’s very much someone who doesn’t try to make waves all that much, but once he’s up in the sky he becomes an amazing and breathtaking flier. And he LOVES to fly. He’s always honest with his emotions, sometimes to his own detriment, but he rarely lets anything get the best of him. He’s extremely loyal to Diwa and the first to realize just how deep their connection goes. His Ghibli analogue would be Jiro from The Wind Rises, in that he’s quiet but always driven to achieve his goals.

Anna-Nassi is one of my all-time favorite characters I’ve ever written. She’s so full of life and emotion that it’s hard not to be pulled in by it all! She’s a mandossi (a semi-avian, semi-dragon-like being with clairsentient abilities) and a very loud and extroverted one at that. She’s a big goofball and always ready to give anyone a big bone-crunching hug. She cheers Diwa and Kaffi on all the time. She’s also a sucker for anything cute and kawaii. She’s a mix of several Ghibli characters, from Ponyo to Chihiro (Spirited Away), with maybe even a bit of Porco Rosso in there as well.

Also, I just can’t get over how ridiculously awesome her sketch came out!

And last but not least, we have Cole, a hedraac (a humanoid vampire with clairsentient abilities). He’s often the Straight Man character to Anna-Nassi’s silliness, but he’ll also sneak out a devastating zinger when you least expect it. He can be quiet and nervous, partly due to his disability, but he’s exceptionally smart and is usually the first one in the room to understand the situation. He kind of reminds me of Howl (Howl’s Moving Castle) in that he seems a bit out of joint from everyone else and yet is a vital and integral part of the whole story.

I hope to have more done up soon, so stay tuned!

Inktober Again

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

your name taki drawing
Yes, I know that’s a pencil.  Shush.

It’s nearly October already, and my thoughts surprisingly aren’t in the realm of hokey smokes where did the time go I’m still not done with the Lidwells project!   I kind of knew I’d be running a little late.  I’m still on track and roughly at the point I’d thought I’d be at, so all told I’m cool with its schedule.

No, my thoughts are with the fact that after a few years, I can FINALLY take part in Inktober again!  I’ve been busy with more pressing projects and Day Job stuff, but this month I find I have the time to grab my art supplies and do a bit of doodling.  Which is a good thing, considering I’ve been itching to do that for a long while now.  I’ve even saved the Official Inktober 2017 Prompt List to get me going.

What I’m hoping is that this will get me back into the drawing habit.  I’m not forcing myself into it.  It’s just like my writing and music; I just need to shut the hell up and do it already.  Drawing something every day for a month, even if it’s a map or a Murph doodle or something else, should in turn remind me to make time for it.

I’ll be posting them over at my Twitter feed, but I may post some of them here as well.

Looking forward to it!

This is why we can’t have nice memes.

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

anime-drawing

Inktober.  NaNoWriMo.  A to Z Blog Challenge.  I keep thinking I can do these month-long or daily memes, but I always stall after about ten days.  Why is that?

I mean, it’s not as if I actually get bored with them.  I love to write.  I love to draw.  Give me a subject to blog about and I can probably whip something up by the end of the day.

One reason is that they usually take place at the wrong time for me.  Inktober and NaNoWriMo both take place during the last quarter of the year, when my Day Job is usually the busiest and the most stressful.  There’s only so much brain power I can provide on any given day.  Even something as quick as Inktober can be a chore if I can’t think of anything to draw that day.  And if I skip a day, then I feel I’ve already given up.  It’s stupid and annoying, yes, but it always happens.

How do I break that?

First of all, I have to remember that everyone of us has off days.  Days when we get broadsided by so much Day Job ridiculousness that the last thing we want to do is think when we get home.  We just want to have dinner and watch Time Team episodes all evening until it’s time for bed.  [At least that was me yesterday.]  It’s A-OK to skip a day; the meme will probably forgive you for that.

Second of all, sometimes there’s already a major project going on that needs more attention.  I’ve just hit Act III in The Balance of Light so most of my focus has been on its editing.  If I can sneak in a half-assed drawing in five minutes that I can post, that’s cool, but I have to remember that I don’t need to hit every single meme goal.  If I was more of an artist and not a writer, sure,  I probably would nag at myself a bit harder to hit that goal, no matter how ephemeral it might be.  But writing has been the major driver here, with everything else riding shotgun.  [This is the main reason I can’t do NaNo…I just don’t have the time to dedicate.]

I know what you’re saying right now: it’s just a meme!  Don’t take it so seriously!  Honestly, I don’t.  I don’t beat myself up for missing a day.  I may feel frustrated by it, but I won’t feel like a complete failure.  But here’s the thing: I do these memes for fun, but I also see them as possible projects as well.  Yes, even the maps…I either think of those as my ongoing portfolio, or possible worldbuilding reference.  I know, it’s weird, but I’ve never been able to create something without thinking ‘hey, I could use that somewhere’.  It’s just how I am.

It’s not as if I don’t know how to have fun on my downtime.  As mentioned above, we’ve been watching old episodes of Time Team (the UK version) to relax, and I’ve been burning through my TBR book pile at a furious clip lately.  I’ll watch music videos on YouTube and listen to new release streams online.  I pick up one of my guitars for a few minutes every day just to noodle around on it.  I just don’t always have time to provide to a month-long meme, is all.

Still, it would be nice to be able to dedicate a good block of time for these.  Especially NaNoWriMo…I’m curious to see if I can actually write a full novel in a month.  Maybe once my slate is finally cleared of all projects, I’ll give it a go.