A challenge

As I’ve mentioned yesterday, I am taking part in a challenge on Daisy Yellow blog. I know, I know, I said I won’t be doing these things anymore, but this one sounded sort of interesting. It’s called The creativity queue challenge, but I like to think of it as the Stop Procrastination Dare. The whole idea is that you have to do something that you’ve wanted to do and put off for a long time. And I kind of related, so I thought, why not?

A long, long time ago I heard a song on Youtube that I really liked. It inspired me. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then, I come in contact with something that speaks to me – in images, mostly. I had it in my mind and I wanted to put on paper, but there’s a huge step between thinking it and creating it.

 

My first attempt was a major failure. It was pathetic and I hated it, so I dropped the whole thing. Except the idea – I still kept onto that.And then I read about this thing and once I signed up for it, social pressure played its part. I mean, ahem, I…felt very motivated. Yes.

So I tried again. I sat down with the sketchbook in lap (my new, beautiful sketchbook) and tried to sketch. It was looking acceptable so I kept going, adapting things while I went. The image in my head doesn’t always stay the same, neither does the one on the paper.

The cat was pretty supportive too. I mean, that’s what I like to think, since cats aren’t exactly the cheerleader type, but maybe this time she really wanted me to feel encouraged.

The pencil drawing took longer than I would have wanted but since I usually rush and ink the sketches before I make sure they look good enough, I consider this a progress. Obviously, I still fucked a bit up, but since I was going to edit it later, I didn’t panic as much as usual.

Then came the fun part – actually it was only fun for the first 2 hours or so. After that I kept coming back to it, obsessing over every aspect and constantly modifying the whole thing and the fact that I still didn’t like it was driving me nuts.

I edited it in Photoshop, adding textures and what not. I tried  so many different things, I saved four versions to show it to you, but there were a lot more than that. It just wouldn’t come out the way I wanted which was probably expected since I didn’t know exactly what the fuck I wanted.

As you can see, I took out the outline rather early in the process and focused on the shapes. I like it so much better this way because it looks simpler. The only thing left from the original sketch is the face and the contour.

And the final version. Final, final. I mean I am not going to alter anything. I’m done. It could have been better, but I’m happy with it. Happy-ish…However, I accepted the challenge and completed it – I got it out of my system and cleared it from the queue. So you may call a success.

Tuesday

So it’s day two. I’m actually disappointed because, see, I thought that by cutting down the time that I aimlessly spend online, I would magically become this productive person who can never sit still and always has to do something. I didn’t – as it turns out, finding a scapegoat for your laziness is not going to make it go away. Nevertheless, the first day was surprisingly easy.  I didn’t curl up into a ball crying and wishing I hadn’t made this stupid decision, but didn’t do anything useful, either, which kind of misses the whole point of this experiment – I’m talking about not using the internet for more than two hours every day, in case you are new here.

The curling up into fetal position, though, happened today, when I mostly either slept or lay down in a semi-vegetative state, whining about a really stubborn headache. I like to think it was the effect of the mild cold I have and not a symptom of withdrawal. I have to rethink my strategy: it’s not about isolating myself from the world wide web, it’s about finding more time for photography, drawing, reading, learning and basically things that matter to me. So in the next day I’ll force myself to actually do stuff and make a good use of the time I’ve earned by not watching funny videos of cats wearing socks (strange how I get inspired by morally wrong things).

Should you ever want to do like me and ban the internet for a certain period of time here is some advice:

• Be specific. Really, know exactly what you can and can’t do. For instance, I spent like two hours editing photos and I’m still not sure whether that counts as being productive or not
• Know your purpose. Why are you doing this? And “just for funsies” is not an acceptable answer. The internet is funsies, why the hell would you want to take it out of your life?
• Don’t eliminate it completely. Not being on the online radar is sure to have some unpleasant consequences – you want to free up more time for your real life, not delete your virtual self.

Oh, this is exciting, me giving advice! Which reminds me, I did lie a bit when I said I didn’t do anything. See, I did a drawing and I took some photos. And the cat seems to hate the fact that I have so much more time on my hands; she’s really affected by it.

A bit “Bloody Valentine”, aren’t they?

“Give me the splendid silent sun”

Sunsets are really my favorites – it’s something about that warm light and the rapidly changing colours of the sky that makes me feel really happy. Anyway, here we have these blinds that every day, at dusk, create some shadows which I find fascinating, so today I got my camera and snapped some photos.

And unrelated to the above, but related to the blog, this week I’m limiting my time online to two hours a day. Which is crazy, considering my average day would consist of roughly 10 hours of surfing. However I feel that this internet thing is just turning into a black hole which is sucking in all my time and energy and – should I say it? – yeah, creativity.

 

So it’s just like an experiment – 7 days with just 120 minutes of interneting every day (I’m going to have to make an exception for the movies though, I am re-watching Lie to me and I don’t think I can make it without at least 2 episodes daily). It will be like losing a friend, but hopefully, it will make for notable improvements.

 I am actually excited, not as much about the process, but rather about writing about it – without a doubt, it is going to be fun!

 

 

Why I gave up clothes

No, I am not nor I intend to be running around naked, I just had it with buying clothes. It has nothing to do with consumerism or being overwhelmed by the immensity of the fashion industry and how it affects our society because, frankly, I don’t give a fuck. I love clothes. I love having clothes and looking at clothes. I love getting dressed for the day and I love seeing other people be as excited about clothes as I am. But I am not buying anymore. Now the reason I am stating this loud and clear and, well, publicly, is that no one believes me. Not one single person I have told this is taking me seriously, so this is to making it feel more real to me and to shove in everyone’s else’s faces at the same time. ”But, why?” they all ask skeptically.  Because what with my birthday, Christmas, Black Friday, sales season or any other reason one needs to go shopping, I now have so many clothes that I can’t properly love each and every one of them so basicaly I have to stop. It’s tempting, oh so tempting – the shops with all those bright windows, the nicely dressed mannequins, the low prices, the pretty dresses and cozy sweaters – they tempt me.. So I’m also going to avoid the apparently harmless window-shopping because I can rarely say no to something once it’s on my mind. Anyway, I hereby declare the beginning of my no-more-clothes challenge which will last until the first of February. Wish me luck.

Update

Remember the list I was talking about in an earlier post - how to live a better life in 100 ways ? I just wanted to update you on my progress.

The waking up early didn’t work so well: first couple of days were awesome – even though I fell asleep at around 1:00 or 2:00 am I woke up pretty early, feeling rested and amazing. It was as if my brain acknowledged my decisions and intended to do everything he could in order to make me happy. But then, exhaustion struck.

I’ll have to admit, I did not stick to any schedule and I threw any plan I might have had out the window – I didn’t even use an alarm clock – because hey, look at how good my brain is at following orders. That was mistake number one, but there’s a whole party following it: I didn’t go to sleep when I started to feel tired, because 10:00 pm is just not an appropriate bedtime hour, I stayed on computer till the very last moment, I ate a lot in the evening, I didn’t have a routine which involved going to sleep and waking up at the same hour and in the morning I would just go online and not do anything productive. So there you have it – the chaotic approach. Now that I know everything I did wrong, I think I’ll give it another try, this time doing everything by the book.

And in addition to that, I am going to start doing something else…

64. Meditate Daily

It’s the easiest thing you can do. True mediation acts like a mind emptier, leaving you open to the whole flow of the sensations and experiences you would otherwise ignore. You don’t even need a complicated technique, meditate as you see fit.

I swear, it’s like I read that list and thought “Hm, let’s just take the most ridiculously not-me suggestion and see where it takes us.”. It’s crazy and all I can say is that hopefully I am not going to turn in some religious freak who always smiles and advocates the miracles of the universe and how love is the cure for everything.

***

A later edit: What the fuck have I gotten myself into?! Googling “how to meditate” is like opening the freaking Pandora’s box!

” [...] As we breathe out we imagine that we are breathing away all disturbing thoughts and distractions in the form of black smoke that vanishes in space. As we breathe in we imagine that we are breathing in all the blessings and inspiration of the holy beings (you have got to be kidding me…) in the form of white light that enters our body and absorbs into our heart.”

Maybe this is too extreme for me.

Day four

The find-a-new-habit challenge has not been forgotten. Here’s what I accomplished so far:

1. I realized I cannot draw in the morning no matter how many cups of coffee I drink – afternoon just works better.
2. I realized that this is a really dumb thing to make a habit of.

I constantly have to remind myself why the hell I am trying so hard to do this and bottom line,  it’s just not habit-material. Staring at a blank piece of paper is a real catalyst for thought so I have a considerably large list of reasons why this isn’t working but I’ll just limit myself (for your sake) to saying this (for my sake) : you cannot rush a creative process. Oh my god, I am such a poet.

All in all, I managed to draw every day, as I had intended,  for four whole days -actually just three, since yesterday I was out all day – and now I’m ready to throw in the towel. Fuck, I don’t even care about the reward anymore: my birthday’s coming, then Christmas, then sales season and I’m going to buy myself something pretty anyway, despite this complete failure.

Success!

It is 9:39 am and I am up and at’em. And feeling great, to be honest. I had actually set an alarm the night before, but were I to rely on it, I would have probably slept the entire day because my phone apparently thinks that if you change the timezone, 9:00 becomes 21:00. So according to the little guy, it is now night and I might as well go back to sleep (but I won’t).

Another list!

I was wandering around the internet and i stumbled upon this article – “100 ways to live a better life”, which I thought was too cool not to share. And by “cool” I mean “long, elaborate and with a lot of useless advice”. However, I am going to go through every single point on that list and when I reach the 100th one I’ll decide: bullshit or no bullshit. Right, here we go!

So, I’m going to ignore the long-term solutions, like, for instance, the first two:  1. Accept your mistakes and 2. Accept your friends’ mistakes

Number 3 talks about creating a new habit so I guess I’m on the right track. But number 3 also takes me to another article, which promises to help me do that in just 15 days. Now, 15 days sounds sufficiently good, but then you start reading – first day, “name your habit”. Exactly, if you want to, say, start running every day, the very first thing you have to do is write it down. I mean, that seems like the perfectly logical thing to do, not putting on your damn running shoes and dash out the door. But on the other hand, the whole plan revolves around writing about your habit for a seemingly more amount of time than you spend actually creating the routine you wanted. Moving on!

I skipped some more numbers (later  to be reviewed) and we’re down to number 17: wake up early. I love waking up early! It feels like time morphs into a giant bubble just to give you endless hours to do every little thing you planned to do in one single day. What sucks about waking up early, though, is the fact that when you jump out of bed 3 hours before you usual waking-up time, a little being  magically appears and follows you throughout your day, smacking your head with a gianormous wooden bat every 10 minutes just because it’s fun. It’s not fun for me, bitch!

Time to turn to google again, which has quite a lot to say about waking up early (or “missing the most delicious part of sleep” as I like to call it). The thing is, every one is so big on lists and if post yet another one here, this article becomes a cascade of numbers and bullet points, a true listception, and that is not something I want. So suffice it to say that the best solution is probably setting an alarm and moving it 5 minutes (or 10…15?) earlier every day. Stay tuned, tomorrow you’ll find out if I’m typing a post alone or there is a small armed creature waiting for me to make the slightest mistake and whack me in the head. “IT’S  «YOU’RE»! USE THE FUCKING APOSTROPHE, YOU USELESS INCOMPETENT!!”

Day one

Here’s what happens when I decide to do something new:

- I get over-excited about it

- I plan every detail about it

- my expectation level goes through the roof

So because of that, I couldn’t get much sleep and in the morning I wanted nothing else than to just lie in bed with the blanket over my head and the cat purring next to me. But eventually I woke up, I had my coffee and I did draw for a short period of time, until I felt that the internet was sad without me so I turned on my laptop and that was the end of it.

The point is, day one wasn’t a complete failure because I did sort of do what I had planned to do. Sort of. If you are puzzled by the fact that I actually have to make myself draw and not do it for my pleasure, here’s a little drawing to help you understand why:

And then I decide I will never draw again.

New habits

Now, changing your approach to life is no easy thing. It’s just the thing that makes you say ”Well, maybe I’ll just start tomorrow” day after day. The first motivational blog (I find it embarrassing to even read these things, let alone write about them but I guess that’s just one of the things that need changing) is zenhabits.net and the goal is to create a new habit.  So this woman wrote a 5-step guide to creating a new habit, all while using the word “pee” one too many times. But don’t worry, you can just tl;dr that article if you’re really lazy (and go seat in the corner because that is not the right attitude) because I’ll break it down for you. In other words, yay, lists!

1. “Make a plan”, she says.

Right. I’m already sort of stuck, but I’ll just try to go along with it, so here’s a nice story first: I often find myself wishing I could draw better. Then, I’d just turn on the computer and google “how to draw better”. And then I’d read some tutorials and then visit some more art-related sites and then read on every damn site how working hard is immensely important and you have to constantly draw until your hands bleed and the universe becomes a giant paper for you to spit pretty drawing on. And I feel like shit because googling “how to draw better” is basicaly all that I do in order to draw better. So there it is – the plan: I am going to make at least a sketch every day.

2. “Choose a trigger” – pretty self-explanatory.

I choose coffee. In the morning. I wake up, I drink the delicious liquid and start drawing, away from the internet.

3. “Report your habit” (I just skipped the “4.get some positive feedback” part because fuck it, I’m going to be my own feedback, ha!)

Sure, I’ll report it. I also expect it to sound something like “I don’t understand, why am I doing this, I hate it, I want the internet, I need to go online, I’ll just finish this line and I’ll just turn on my laptop and lie about it on the blog”. Except in reality, I am not going to lie. Not even a bit. No.

5. And now my favorite – “Reward yourself”

That I can do! Forming a new habit takes a lot (“anything from 18 to 254 days” according to this article) but I’ll just try to stick with it for, say, 7 days before I get myself something pretty for all the effort. What that means is that I have 7 seven days to decide what my awesome reward will be and it also means that I sort of feel like a dog right now.