I generally plan to post these creative roundups on the last Monday of each month.
You mightāve noticed that this isnāt the last Monday of the month. Or that I didn’t actually do a post like this at the end of December.
Iāll be honest: I was busy in December, and blogging wasnāt my highest priority in January. The political situation in the States is still taking up most of my attention, and everything thatās left has been devoted to finishing the novel draft that I started in November and starting the two photo projects Iāve decided to tackle this year.
On the bright side: I finished the NaNoWriMo draft! It took a little longer than I expected—the last major set piece, in particular, was tricky to write—but itās done. The final count is around 90,000 words, 40K of which Iāve written since November ended.
I promised a proper postmortem once the draft was done, and that will be coming soon. I need to take a couple of days to decompress, and then Iāll be ready to think about it.
Iāve also been thinking about what comes next. I am going to revise this particular story (that alone is a small miracle: I actually think the story is worth revising!), but I need to step away for a week or two to get a bit of distance. But I learned over the holidays that two weeks away from writing is just too long; it took almost a week to get my pre-Christmas momentum back. And since itāll be a few weeks before Iām ready to start the actual revisions on the NaNo story (I think the next draft is going to need a whole new outline), I need something to work on in the meantime.
Iāve been playing with some other story ideas, trying to decide which one to work on next. Two of them in particular feel promising, but theyāre both a bit vague right now. Iāll give myself a day or two to not think about writing at all, then see if I can turn one or the other or both into something like a story.
Itās been a good writing month.
Itās been a good photography month, too.
I already mentioned that Iāve started a 365 project for 2017. I already covered my reasoning in the introductory post, so I wonāt bother going into too much detail here, except to say that Iām still really happy with how itās going. Itās only been a month, but Iām still really happy with how itās going. Are all—or even most—of the pictures brilliant? Yeah, no. But there have only been one or two so far that Iād call completely terrible, and considering how uninspired Iāve felt some days, thatās a pretty good record.
That particular project aside, Iām trying to be a little more intentional with my photography this year. I didnāt take many photos in January (this is always a slow time of year for me), but Iām trying to think about the photos I do take, and make an effort to improve my craft. Iāve been printing some of my work—not just the good pictures, but the ones that I can learn from—and Iām (slowly) learning to keep a sketchbook.
Itās an interesting process, and Iām having fun with it.
Speaking of sketchbooksā¦ itās taken some time, but Iām starting to get back into drawing again. I set it aside in November so Iād have more time to write, and December got busy, so it hasnāt been a priority for a while. But Iāve been picking it up again, and Iām starting to see a little bit of improvement. (It sort of feels like setting aside my story for a couple of weeks: I need to find some distance in order to see my progress.)
So, yeah: I didnāt really have a solid plan going into January beyond finishing the NaNoWriMo draft, but itās been a good month. Just a little unfocussed.
My big goal for February is to prioritize my creative work.
And that means eliminating—or at least minimizing—some of the distractions that have been getting in my way. The first thing Iām going to do is to cut out (almost) all news and social media before Iāve reached my creative targets for the day. Iāll probably still check the headlines (just to make sure that the world hasnāt, in fact, ended overnight) and I can check the social media that inspires me rather than drains me, but thatās it. Everything else can and will wait until after my writing and photography and art is done for the day.
It hasnāt been easy (it really hasnāt been easy), but I can already tell itās going to benefit my work.
So, thatās where I stand going into February. Iāmā¦ pretty happy with everything, actually. It’s a weird feeling right now.
