[-tip, practices-]

simple practices have profound impacts

Most of us tend to work better and - more importantly, finish! - if we have a deadline. If you don’t have a *real* one, try this as a mental trick.

Seek out a real world or an online individual or group. Set imaginary, but realistic, deadlines for yourselves and then urge each other to stick to them.

You’ll be surprise how much it helps even when the deadline has no consequences associated with it.

It’s also amazing how much it motivates to know that someone *out there* cares whether or not you keep going!

Don’t be discouraged if you have to try several groups or people before you find the right rapport. Discovering like-minded people is worth it, so keep looking if you haven’t found them yet.

If you belong to a group that helps in this way, post a comment to let others know.

For writers: NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month
For artists: Illustration Friday

[-essay, practically mperfect-]

by guest contributor, Karen Hatzigeorgiou

Are you one of those types of people who always has several different projects going at the same time? I know I am. Right now I have five unfinished altered books and four collages in varying stages of completion. I’m in the middle of reading two different books and two different magazines. I have two different journals — one in a little moleskin book I keep in my purse and another composition notebook that I keep by my bed. I’ve been trying to clean up my office-slash-studio (a never ending battle similar to trying to keep up with the laundry,) but am also in the middle of painting and redecorating my youngest son’s bedroom. I’m sure I’ll get most of what I’ve started completed someday, but if I don’t– so what?

Now I’m not saying that it’s okay to not meet a deadline or to leave my son sleeping in the living room indefinitely. I’m just saying that simply because I didn’t finish that embroidery of a unicorn that’s still in my sewing box from fifteen years ago doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person. But it’s taken me a while to come to that realization. And one of the things that helped me realize that unfinished projects don’t equal failure was when I read the book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb.

This book is about being a creative thinker in the way that Leonardo da Vinci was. But what impressed me the most as I read about da Vinci’s life was discovering the number of projects that da Vinci never completed.

Consider the following: First of all, da Vinci’s journal shows elaborate plans to create the bronze statue of his idea of a perfect horse– a statue that was never made. He also did a series of sketches for a commissioned painting that he never painted. In addition, because da Vinci couldn’t bring himself to paint the face of Jesus Christ, he was never able to finish painting his great masterpiece The Last Supper. And amazingly, of the seventeen paintings of da Vinci’s still in existence, a number of them are also incomplete.

Yet despite all this unfinished work, we still consider Leonardo da Vinci to be a man of genius. He was the original “Renaissance Man,” a person whose incredible imagination and creativity spanned a broad range of disciplines such as engineering, architecture, art, and science, to name just a few.

As it turns out, I have a lot in common with Mr. da Vinci, and I’m sure that you do as well. Consider the incredible imagination and creativity we need to handle the broad range of disciplines such as child rearing, culinary arts, domestic engineering, personal management, and psychology (just to name a few) that many of us are expected to be proficient in. Not to mention the artistic talents we seek to nurture.

I find it reassuring to see the similarities between this great man’s life and my own and to know that he left many unfinished projects scattered across France and Italy. No one considers da Vinci’s life to have been a “failure.” No one consider his unfinished works to be “failures” because they were left undone. They were all valuable attempts to create a meaningful life. And they certainly didn’t stop da Vinci from his quest to find truth and beauty in the world around him, much as you and I do everyday.

So it’s time that we stop berating ourselves for starting Project B before we’ve finished Project A, or for feeling guilty for buying supplies for both tole painting and card making. And when we’re torn between cutting and pasting one more image down on that collage or putting in another load into the washing machine, we need to remember Leonardo da Vinci. Let’s look in the mirror, honor all our efforts to find truth and beauty in the world, and reward ourselves with our very own Mona Lisa smile.

© 2005-2007 - Karen Hatzigeorgiou - all rights reserved

See Karen’s tutorial in The PCQ about her beautiful Altered Books.

About the Author: Karen Hatzigeorgiou is a wife, mother, seventh grade English teacher, and an artist and writer. This is a revision of an earlier article. You can see her art work, find tips and techniques for creating your own art, and read more of her musings at her web site at karenswhimsy.com.
You can email her at karen@karenswhimsy.com. Thanks, Karen!

Originally published in the July 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: Space and Spaces

[-practically mperfect, collecting-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

You might think this essay will be about how to keep one’s collections free of dust. It’s not. While I could easily and truthfully admit to hating to dust my various collections (and everything else), what I have to confess goes much deeper.

I’m the one who’s been gathering dust.

Apathy overtook me in August. Spring into summer were energetic and fun. I had the joy of experiencing the birth of my new granddaughter, took three trips, entertained house guests, started knitting a sweater, discovered the world of Artist Trading Cards, took loads of photos and made plans to spend August revising my last novel before I threw myself into the joyful job of putting this issue together.

What happened instead is that I became immobilized. Not only couldn’t I seem to get moving on that revision no matter what tricks I tried - and I know a lot of them - but I couldn’t get moving period. The more I forced myself to look at the first draft of my novel the worse I felt, not only about the writing but moreso about myself. Finally I let myself off the writing hook for the time being. However, I still seemed encrusted in apathy.

All my gorgeous and inviting art supplies were out, awaiting my next batch of Artist Trading Cards. I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t even interested in looking through other people’s cards on the internet to find ones to trade for what I’ve already made. I couldn’t work up the energy to garden. I couldn’t find the motivation to work on my sweater. Worst of all, I had no interest in THIS, my zingy zine! Since last January gathering articles, essays, images, poetry and fun web sites has been one of the joys of my life. When I wasn’t doing something else, I loved dipping into the internet to see what I could discover. But in August, all that joyful energy was gone. I had the creative energy of a porcelain bunny. A bunny gathering dust. A dust bunny.

I don’t tell you this because I think I’m unusual or weird or special or even interesting. I feel the need to write about it precisely because this phenomenon is so common among creative people. We zip along a cable wire high above the rest of the world and then - boom! - hit the end of our exhilarating run with a thwarting thud; we hit it so hard that we can’t get up, or move, or motivate. We lie where we landed, gathering dust.

And then…we begin to hate ourselves. We tell ourselves all kinds of horrible things. That we aren’t talented. That we were stupid to feel so good about our creations. That we never were an artist to begin with because we can never stick to something long enough. The negativities can go on and on, our minds filling with creativity sapping thoughts.

The problem isn’t the down time. The problem is that we kick ourselves when we’re down.

The best most of us can hope for is to learn enough to short cut the recovery time. Wait it out. Do new things. Rest. Veg. But above all, do not get down on yourself. Be kind. Be respectful, not only of yourself but also of your work. Gradually we will come out of it. I recommend an end of the month publishing deadline! It worked for me. Then you can dust yourself off and get moving, full of the knowledge that for most of us, part of being creative is needing to periodically take the time to sit still, gather a layer of dust and wait for the right time to begin again.

Originally published in the October, 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, Theme: Collections