February 2017 – Reghan Skerry

Sketchbook #20

Let me start by saying: February was a strange month. It was filled with schedule disruptions (so much snow), and motivational lulls, and the weird feeling that comes with being between writing projects (I’d forgotten that that feeling even exists.) It’s one of those months that feels like I didn’t accomplish anything at all.

My goal for the month was to prioritize my creativity. And… I’ve done that, as much as those schedule disruptions could allow. I’ve stopped checking news and social media before my work is done for the day, and that’s been nothing but good. It was really difficult for the first few days, but that was it – I’ve successfully broken the habit, and when I do read the news or check Twitter, it’s intentional. It doesn’t interfere with my work, and I’m not spending all day simmering with anger over the latest outrage.

(That said… I’m not posting to Twitter quite as much as I’d like. But that’s probably unavoidable.)

Project365: #50-56

Maybe, by the end of this year, I’ll have figured out how to make cleaning day look at least a little bit interesting, but somehow I doubt it. I just have to accept that some days, there’s nothing worth taking pictures of.

Snapshot #71 | 10 Things for 26 February 2017

Project365: #43-49

We finally got some significant snowfall this week, which is far more photogenic than the dreary grey cold we’ve been dealing with this winter, but did mean that I didn’t get out of the house quite as much as I wanted to.

Project365: #36-42

So, as this project goes on, it turns out that the most difficult part of the whole thing is figuring what to write about it every week. I might have been smarter to plan for monthly roundups, rather than weekly, but… here I am.

NaNoWriMo 2016: Postmortem

It’s been just over two months since NaNoWriMo 2016 ended. It’s been ten months since I first started thinking about maybe trying my hand at it. It’s been exactly a week since I typed “the end” on the story I started back in November.

It feels like a good time to look back and think about how the whole thing went.

I’ll start with some backstory. (If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you might know some of this already.) I used to write. A lot. At least 2000 words a day, four days a week, without fail. I did NaNoWriMo a few times, years ago… until I realized that it wasn’t really a challenge anymore, and that starting a new project in November would mean putting any current projects on hold for a month. I considered myself a writer before anything else.

The problem is, I’ve got a perfectionist streak, especially when it comes to writing.

Project365: #29-35

I am genuinely happy with (almost) all of my photos this week.

Sketchbook #19

I generally plan to post these creative roundups on the last Monday of each month.

You might’ve noticed that this isn’t the last Monday of the month. Or that I didn’t actually do a post like this at the end of December.

I’ll be honest: I was busy in December, and blogging wasn’t my highest priority in January. The political situation in the States is still taking up most of my attention, and everything that’s left has been devoted to finishing the novel draft that I started in November and starting the two photo projects I’ve decided to tackle this year.