AsheEltonParker

I seem to have been hit with a sort of "spring-cleaning" bug the past few days. Abruptly, I've been interested in updating my online presence. Since I'm apparently on my annual hiatus from my website's blog, I've posted a news announcement to that effect--this is something that, if I'm keeping up with my blog, hits me about this time every year. Length of time it lasts varies, anywhere from a few weeks, to, most recently, over a year. I was just really burnt out and the site had become a point of stress because I'd determined I wanted to change some things about it but couldn't figure out where to start with the overhaul. What I ended up doing was transferring mysite to an independent host so I could employ a plugin I needed for posting chapter lists of stories so readers could access them easily from the post they were already reading. I'm happy with the move despite the expense and the settling-in stress.

Also over the past few days, I've been catching up on my Goodreads presence. I've somehow managed to read a total of twelve books, which was the goal I set for my Reading Challenge on Goodreads in January. This is monumental for me. I haven't consistently read more than two or three books in a year since, sheesh, I have no idea--some years I read several, other--many--years, I struggled to read one. A long time. I fell out of the habit after moving here to Utah, for various reasons (including mental instability), and it hit me last year that I kind of missed all the reading I used to do. I had a Nook, and had had one since the first gens came out, but I hadn't been reading regularly on it though I had plenty of books I wanted to read. When my sister got me an eInk Kindle for Christmas last year, I decided to make a concerted effort to read more, hence entering the Reading Challenge on Goodreads. I figured I could keep up with one book a month, and I'm pleased to have met my goal a little over four months ahead of schedule. In fact, part of my reading goal has been to write reviews of all the books I read, starting this past January, and the bulk of my catching up on Goodreads has been doing those for the last 4-5 books I've finished reading but had no interest, at the time, in writing reviews for. I've also done some reorganization to a few of my shelves, followed an author I know via internet, added a new shelf, and done some exploration on the site, looking into groups and seeing what else the site has to offer, as well as updating my profile. 

Last but not least, I've brushed up my profile here on Deviant Art, adding a bit more information, announcing the completion of the serialization of one of my novels on my website and Wattpad and the coming serialization of book 2 of the series--but only on Wattpad--added a bit more information to the Interests drop-down, changed a couple widgets and removed one, and posted a snippet from one of the stories I've been working on most recently. 

Oh! Oh! I got myself a little black kitten in July. Einstein is a rambunctious fellow who loves cuddling and waking me up with noisy mischievous activities and the occasional serenade in the morning. Yesterday, he made my clean-sock bag's flexible plastic frame rap against the wall and top of the plastic shelves where I laid it until it finally fell off. LOL There's info about how I acquired him on my website in posts titled, The Cat, Pt 1 and The Cat, Pt 2. Pt 2 includes a pic of him at about 11 weeks old at the bottom.

No, this isn't me critiquing my own art. I do that in my commentary beneath my posts, where, in my opinion, it belongs. What I mean here is that there are times I look at other artists, who do work more frequently, and wonder how they do it. There are weeks I can't get even one drawing done, and I come here and it's Wednesday, and one of those I follow has posted no less than three drawings again today, and I sit here and think, I wish I could do that.

Unfortunately for me, my drawing is, like my writing, now at the mercy of my bipolar. I know this. At this point, it sounds to me like a poor excuse for my inability to keep up with my creative peers, either in writing or drawing, but it's the truth. I wish it weren't the truth, and I hate that it is the truth.

This has been the truth in my writing so long now that I only rarely get caught up in "If I just buckle down, I'd write more," but I'm finding that thought in relation to drawing coming up more. Not a lot more, but more often than it does for my writing. Practice with accepting my limitations in writing I guess. Drawing is something new, so I stress about doing it more. And this isn't helped by the fact that in years previous I was not the most consistent with my drawing practice. This, the past year or two? I'm far more consistent with my drawing habit this time around than I was.

On the writing sites I go to, if one of us is feeling down about how much we write, we tell each other, "If you actually write any words, no matter how little, you are a writer." I've been trying to apply a similar truism to my artistic endeavors. I have made drawings. I do draw, when time, opportunity, and bipolar permit. So, I am an artist.

It helps a little.

I suddenly got a bit creative in the past week or so. Part of this was due to the desire to get a garment concept out of my head because it blocked me up; I knewit wasn't what I wanted, but I couldn't think beyond the initial concept so I needed to sketch it out. Who knows? Maybe one day it'll show up in another wip.

The rest of the reason why I've posted a couple sketches is beccause I've made two visits to the home of an artist friend the past week. I adore Anita, especially for her ability to inspire my own creativity. Seeing her work on art never fails to make me want to do something with my own artwork. She's a painter, extensively experienced with Oils, and is branching off into other mediums. I know she works with alcohol inks, and she's experimented with acrylics. She's also trying to get into drawing, but doesn't really know where or how to start; I may let her borrow my Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain text/workbook set when I'm done with them if she likes.

I'm also looking into other books on drawing. Not really beginner-type books, but books aiming to help artists improve their skill. I've tried a number of beginner-Art books and I kept on getting caught up in the minutiae of the first few chapters. There was this one which had me drawing boxes of lines and and stuff in the beginning. Can't even remember what I was supposed to be learning from it. I got hooked up on trying to make my boxes of lines utterly perfect and never really moved beyond that--one of the few times I ever got excessively obsessed with anything. When I realized what had happened, I gave up on that book and didn't really put any effort into looking into getting another drawing lesson book until someone mentioned DotRSotB and I researched it.

DotRSotB is much more my style. It doesn't throw a bunch of chapters about minutiae at the learner right at the beginning. It says "draw this," and "this" is actually something besides a little box full of lines. It's practice, but it's also getting into the nitty-gritty of drawing. It's supposed to teach me how to see things in such a way that will enable me to transfer them to the page with better accuracy and skill than I was able to when I first started the course. I like the fact I'm required to draw actual things, the challenge is refreshing--and it's also not too challenging. This course has a way of presenting the lessons that enables me to believe I actually have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding at what the course presents for me to sketch.

I set myself a nominal goal of one drawing a week this year. It seemed doable when I was contemplating it in December. Unfortunately, I forgot to take into consideration my creative swings. In case I haven't made it clear, my mental illness has a habit of sabotaging my creative urges. This can be as little as taking away my ability to make progress on my writing while leaving other creative urges intact, to completely wiping out any and all creative desires to the point where I'm unable to do anything creative.

I am currently in a writing/creative downswing right now. I have ideas, and I want to write/draw them, but I'm unable to grasp them well enough to actually do anything with them. With regards to my drawing, this is worse. I have the ideas, but no desire whatsoever to work on them. With my writing, I'm having somewhat better success, though not much more. I think I've written twice since January started, though I have gotten a number of plot cards needed for one of my projects. But grasping the ideas firmly enough, even for writing, is difficult. Impossible for my drawing.

Yes, I know the myth is that mental illness is supposed to make me more creative. That's just not how it works for me though. With something as fickle as bipolar disorder, it's impossible for me to maintain a consistent level of creative output. 2016 was my best year, so far, since becoming stabilized on my current medication regimen. This year . . . looks like it won't be quite as productive. It's something I've learned to live with.

Well, I think it's pretty obvious I fell off the Inktober horse. Sadly for my drawing/art, I was hit by a new idea for my writing and as happens with that sometimes, I focused on that to the exclusion of all else. I do have one penciled sketch I still need to ink, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it. I'm writing this journal post on an early Sunday morning before dawn, when I'm not focused on anything to write at the moment.

As I have for the past few years, I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month. The stats page for my Nano wip is here: nanowrimo.org/participants/ash… Come by and check out my progress if writing interests you in any way.

I'll be posting this year's Nano excerpt here on DA at some point hopefully today, but if I don't get it up today, I'll definitely get it up sometime this week.