To be clear, the logo you're seeing here is NOT my own design. I have not worked on anything except a couple of bulletin board graphics for the last month. But I did have to do something incredibly creative to earn the logo you see here. I had to write an entire book in 30 days or less. And I did it...in 28 days. Yes, an entire book complete with characters and plot. Not too shabby...
Why in the world would someone want to undertake such a ridiculous task? I can only answer for myself: Because it sounded like an amazingly fun and crazy thing to do. Besides, I ran across an old journal entry about a week before I started this little adventure, and I discovered that writing a book had been a dream of mine for awhile. Mission accomplished.
I learned some interesting things during this month, things that I think will carry over into my visual art. One of the most important was letting go. In order to crank out 50,000 words of fiction in one month's time, one cannot worry about coming up with the perfect phrase or amazing plot twists or flawless spelling and grammar. No, the quantity of the writing becomes the ultimate goal. I was amazed to find that in worrying about the quantity of my writing, a surprising amount of quality crept in.
Another good lesson I learned was to get lost in the process and don't worry so much about the end product. Although I had a basic idea of how my story would go and what my characters would do, I was surprised at the twists and turns that the whole thing took. Characters that I hadn't considered before suddenly appeared and added another dimension to the plot. Things happened in the story that I wasn't expecting. I think the whole thing would've been ruined had I thought it all out ahead of time.
So what happens now? Well, if you're curious about my story, you can read a brief excerpt on my author page (while you're there, check out the rest of the Nanowrimo site). I will probably let the book sit for awhile and do some editing before I let anyone read more of it. In the meantime, I'm going to start diving back into my visual art with a new approach and see what I come up with. Stay posted for all the exciting new developments!
Why in the world would someone want to undertake such a ridiculous task? I can only answer for myself: Because it sounded like an amazingly fun and crazy thing to do. Besides, I ran across an old journal entry about a week before I started this little adventure, and I discovered that writing a book had been a dream of mine for awhile. Mission accomplished.
I learned some interesting things during this month, things that I think will carry over into my visual art. One of the most important was letting go. In order to crank out 50,000 words of fiction in one month's time, one cannot worry about coming up with the perfect phrase or amazing plot twists or flawless spelling and grammar. No, the quantity of the writing becomes the ultimate goal. I was amazed to find that in worrying about the quantity of my writing, a surprising amount of quality crept in.
Another good lesson I learned was to get lost in the process and don't worry so much about the end product. Although I had a basic idea of how my story would go and what my characters would do, I was surprised at the twists and turns that the whole thing took. Characters that I hadn't considered before suddenly appeared and added another dimension to the plot. Things happened in the story that I wasn't expecting. I think the whole thing would've been ruined had I thought it all out ahead of time.
So what happens now? Well, if you're curious about my story, you can read a brief excerpt on my author page (while you're there, check out the rest of the Nanowrimo site). I will probably let the book sit for awhile and do some editing before I let anyone read more of it. In the meantime, I'm going to start diving back into my visual art with a new approach and see what I come up with. Stay posted for all the exciting new developments!
