Practice, Practical, Published

Mental filing... It's a practice that a good deal of writers share. Having or developing certain habits that improve our work, one grueling realization at a time. Stories become tabbed in colors, sorted into scenes, styled for conversation.

Inside of a project, there are plans. It's not exclusive to the plotter; even the pantser tends to form some hopes, goals, remnants of what possibilities may lie ahead. It doesn't matter if you're obsessively planning or abstractly snatching ideas as you go. Unless you just throw shit on paper and hand it off to some poor editor, then everyone has a pretty solid basis for some kind of planning.

Because I keep adopting projects that weren't on my priority list, I've thought about the certain... permissions I've started to allow myself creatively. Before it was all about the Practical and the Published, as per the nifty little header up there. There had to be some consistent work towards something, no matter how little or how I felt about it.

I didn't want to feel aimless again. I fell off of dieting and exercise. It had become an obsession, and a miserable one, and I realized it was just unhealthy in another direction. I've fallen off of so many plans. It's easy to overlook my successes sometimes because of the scars of that shame. A clean bill of health, finishing college, working to supply my dreams--doubt lends to a special sort of amnesia towards our own successes at times. Because any kind of pain can weaken other parts of you, it's too easy to forget that you've proven the opposite and overcome what slows or stops you once more.

But it's the Practice I sometimes lose sight of. Those pieces with no aim other than leisure and enjoyment. Those respite pieces that pull more powerfully. They aren't your practical priority but they become an undeniable mental priority. Earlier today, I sat down to read a book, but every few seconds, I thought about the foil paper I just got in the mail sitting on the nearby table and wondering what it would look like as a border.

You try to ignore those stubborn requests because you have 'better things to do', only there is no damn quality in what you should be doing as long as the little nagging desires find a home. It's the same drive that has us stopping to jot down notes while writing a story; you just know that if you can't satisfy it, you'll just keep tripping on what you're doing to get to it. So I punched out a few borders, gained satisfaction in that knowledge and was able to focus on reading again.

Not every block is a block, of course. Some are just mischievous imps with bubble gum tasks. You toss it a bit of attention and it finds some other soft-bellied punk to tickle.

... Although I have quite a bit of reading to do this weekend (a task I'm more than happy to do for my favorite real-life writer friends), I'm poking at my next nagging drawing desire. I won't give it away, but I'll give you the one word title: Totem. I'm fond of simplistic one-word names for images. I don't want to force too much of the verbal into it, coaxing the viewer to see what I'm after.

Remember the last two pictures I did? The sci-fi warrior girl was titled Emergence and the sad pink forest princess was Gazing. I named them before I was even sure of what they'd be because they were already something before that. If I were to enforce something concrete on them, it might've boxed them in. When you lend a piece an abstract theme, you give it room to grow.

This is also why, whether I plan on finishing a blog, a story, or any creative piece I always give it a working title. It could be tentative or it could tangle in better than I thought. Even after it's finished, I'll be looking for another place for it or another.

But first, I have to give it the honor of being a Practice, a Practical, or a Published priority. That, too, isn't set in stone. It just helps me set the stage.