I'm going to start writing my weekly goals on Monday instead of Friday. I think that will work better.
1. Finish binding my book.
2. Finish draft #2 of Monster Island and write draft #1 of I Can Taste the Wind. Work on my cleaning article and the short story I have started if there's time. Think about the growing up article.
3. Work on what I want to submit to Papyrus and maybe find one more greeting card company to submit to at the same time.
4. Ben is off Madden now, so he will be home for dinners. Work on fun recipes to try out and dinners to enjoy this week.
5. I am reading a fictional account of the time Van Gogh and Gaugin spent together in France and it has rekindled my interest in writing a fictional account of Kandinsky and Munter in Germany. The author's bibliography made me believe that I could do it if I read and research enough and then use my common sense to wrangle the facts into a realistic fiction. I don't know that it is something I feel able to concentrate on or able to even write to the level I would want right now, but it is something I could mull around this week and maybe collect some sources that might serve me well for the project. Finish the Van Gogh/Gaugin book. Pay attention to how it was written.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Weekly Progress, Week 1
Goal #1 - Complete! Glue book covers for current bookbinding project - if I have time, finish the book. I used my wheat paste which did leave one light stain but it was, luckily, on the back cover and I'll just be more careful next time. I don't have a dremel with a small enough bit and haven't invested in screw punches yet so I used an awl to make the holes in the spine, but it worked well enough for now. Here's a picture of the progress!
2. Organize my greeting card messages and have 10 submittable messages by the end of the week and a list of five places to submit them. I organized my greeting card messages and picked ten that I think might be submittable. I only decided on one submission location, Papyrus. I need to find four more.
3. Continue to write my current story and draft an outline for my growing up essay for Real Simple Magazine. I stalled out a bit on this one, although I did write a basic outline for the essay which has nearly convinced me that the essay wouldn't be good enough. I need to think on this one a bit.
4. Go through my magazines at home and see which ones accept tips. Come up with two well-written tips. I have two well-written tips, but are not sure where I can send them yet.
5. If Mel's up to it, take out the sewing machine and get started on my baby sling project. Mel wasn't up to it last week and then, when we were both available to work on the project, the rings we need had not arrived yet. Instead, I made the strawberry shortcake cookies I'd been wanting to make forever and they were delicious, but best eaten same day. I also worked on my two children's stories, Monster Island and I Can Taste the Wind. The book Writing Mama has been great so far, although I'm spending too much time thinking and reading and not enough time actually writing anything much. I'm feeling a little down on myself the last two days ever since my book submission was returned to me. It felt like they'd rather pay than have to show my book and that feels terrible. Then I went to my childhood friend, Kristin's, wedding and was talking about bookbinding and book arts and the people at my table couldn't believe I did such a thing and thought it was amazing to even try. I need to remind myself that it means more to work and try and learn than it does to actually have some book sitting in a gallery. I'll try and remember.
2. Organize my greeting card messages and have 10 submittable messages by the end of the week and a list of five places to submit them. I organized my greeting card messages and picked ten that I think might be submittable. I only decided on one submission location, Papyrus. I need to find four more.
3. Continue to write my current story and draft an outline for my growing up essay for Real Simple Magazine. I stalled out a bit on this one, although I did write a basic outline for the essay which has nearly convinced me that the essay wouldn't be good enough. I need to think on this one a bit.
4. Go through my magazines at home and see which ones accept tips. Come up with two well-written tips. I have two well-written tips, but are not sure where I can send them yet.
5. If Mel's up to it, take out the sewing machine and get started on my baby sling project. Mel wasn't up to it last week and then, when we were both available to work on the project, the rings we need had not arrived yet. Instead, I made the strawberry shortcake cookies I'd been wanting to make forever and they were delicious, but best eaten same day. I also worked on my two children's stories, Monster Island and I Can Taste the Wind. The book Writing Mama has been great so far, although I'm spending too much time thinking and reading and not enough time actually writing anything much. I'm feeling a little down on myself the last two days ever since my book submission was returned to me. It felt like they'd rather pay than have to show my book and that feels terrible. Then I went to my childhood friend, Kristin's, wedding and was talking about bookbinding and book arts and the people at my table couldn't believe I did such a thing and thought it was amazing to even try. I need to remind myself that it means more to work and try and learn than it does to actually have some book sitting in a gallery. I'll try and remember.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Book Kit
I love kits. Kits are great for dabblers because they come with everything you need to complete a project, it comes with instructions, so you get to complete a project without having to collect the pieces, plan the project, and make a bunch of mistakes before getting the finished product. Ben bought me this bookbinding kit from Volcano Arts and I'm enjoying the process of making a book again. I love bookbinding so much, but have such a hard time finding the right paper, getting book board and cutting everything to the right size. I took the measurements of all the pieces so I can, hopefully, replicate the project with my own paper and cloth later. It feels like cheating, but...I think it's ok for now. I'll post pictures of the project when it's completed which should probably be by the end of this week, if all goes well!
The best thing about this project so far has been the use of wheat paste. I have always used PVA glue for my bookbinding projects, but always managed to accidentally stain my paper and cloth with the glue. The wheat paste which took minutes to make (in the microwave, no less!) is cheap, easy, stain-free, and moveable. It just takes a little while for the glue to dry which was fine for me since I do one step at a time during Jho's naps. The only time I had trouble with the drying time was when I tried to tuck under the mitered corners and the glue wasn't sticky enough to glue them into place immediately.
I've felt a little let-down every since my most recent book, Closure, was rejected from the exhibition in England. Working with this book is helping me remember how much I enjoy making books. I just need more practice!
The best thing about this project so far has been the use of wheat paste. I have always used PVA glue for my bookbinding projects, but always managed to accidentally stain my paper and cloth with the glue. The wheat paste which took minutes to make (in the microwave, no less!) is cheap, easy, stain-free, and moveable. It just takes a little while for the glue to dry which was fine for me since I do one step at a time during Jho's naps. The only time I had trouble with the drying time was when I tried to tuck under the mitered corners and the glue wasn't sticky enough to glue them into place immediately.
I've felt a little let-down every since my most recent book, Closure, was rejected from the exhibition in England. Working with this book is helping me remember how much I enjoy making books. I just need more practice!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Next Week's Goals
1. Glue book covers for current bookbinding project - if I have time, finish the book.
2. Organize my greeting card messages and have 10 submittable messages by the end of the week and a list of five places to submit them.
3. Continue to write my current story and draft an outline for my growing up essay for Real Simple Magazine.
4. Go through my magazines at home and see which ones accept tips. Come up with two well-written tips.
5. If Mel's up to it, take out the sewing machine and get started on my baby sling project.
2. Organize my greeting card messages and have 10 submittable messages by the end of the week and a list of five places to submit them.
3. Continue to write my current story and draft an outline for my growing up essay for Real Simple Magazine.
4. Go through my magazines at home and see which ones accept tips. Come up with two well-written tips.
5. If Mel's up to it, take out the sewing machine and get started on my baby sling project.
I ain't no housewife...or am I?
I guess I'm considered a housewife now. A homemaker? Ugh.I don't have a problem with my new job, just the title. Housewife does not do justice to the job description. You don't call an accountant a numberfriend or a teacher a lessonparent. How about referring to me as a Domicile Affairs Coordinator? Chief Residence Manager? Head Liaison to the Family and Homestead?
Wait a second. Can housewifery be considered a job? I don't get paid! I'm more like a volunteer, though I do get room and board and other fringe benefits. So I'm kind of like a housewife student. This is work study. Otherwise I'm saying that my husband pays me to take care of his house and his son while he's gone. That sounds bad, doesn't it? Being a housewife is like being on an extended work study program with high job satisfaction despite never getting a paycheck while my boss/benefactor is my husband and I decide how much or how little I do each day? This housewife business is nonsense.
It does leave me with mental energy to expend, hence the extra dabbling time, otherwise known as my son's nap time. It's a strange feeling to have to keep the spark of inspiration glowing until a baby's eyes decide to finally close, to continuously add to the to-do list and then sprint through it in those one to three precious napping hours.
Therefore, my dabbling requires parameters or I really won't accomplish a darn thing. My parameters for my dabbling are as follows:
1. Do Something Creative Every Day - the Paper Source motto and now mine.
2. Every Friday list five main goals for the coming week. That way I'll know what to accomplish when naps happen and I will have the weekend to really enjoy my family and not get too bogged down in guilt when I don't work on the myriad projects I have accumulated.
3. Keep a record of my dabbling on the blog, but at least one blog entry a week needs to be of high quality.
4. Know that at any point I can stop dabbling and focus on one thing if it feels right to do so.
Wait a second. Can housewifery be considered a job? I don't get paid! I'm more like a volunteer, though I do get room and board and other fringe benefits. So I'm kind of like a housewife student. This is work study. Otherwise I'm saying that my husband pays me to take care of his house and his son while he's gone. That sounds bad, doesn't it? Being a housewife is like being on an extended work study program with high job satisfaction despite never getting a paycheck while my boss/benefactor is my husband and I decide how much or how little I do each day? This housewife business is nonsense.
It does leave me with mental energy to expend, hence the extra dabbling time, otherwise known as my son's nap time. It's a strange feeling to have to keep the spark of inspiration glowing until a baby's eyes decide to finally close, to continuously add to the to-do list and then sprint through it in those one to three precious napping hours.
Therefore, my dabbling requires parameters or I really won't accomplish a darn thing. My parameters for my dabbling are as follows:
1. Do Something Creative Every Day - the Paper Source motto and now mine.
2. Every Friday list five main goals for the coming week. That way I'll know what to accomplish when naps happen and I will have the weekend to really enjoy my family and not get too bogged down in guilt when I don't work on the myriad projects I have accumulated.
3. Keep a record of my dabbling on the blog, but at least one blog entry a week needs to be of high quality.
4. Know that at any point I can stop dabbling and focus on one thing if it feels right to do so.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Embracing My Inner Dabbler: A Project
I dabble. That's what I do. I'm a dabbler. It's who I am. Dabbling is both my best and worst quality. To define my dabbling, I'd say it is my passionate desire to try and experience many things in many categories, but without the focus or passion to follow through on any of them. I believe myself capable of and interested in much, but either too lazy, too indecisive, too busy, too...something to accomplish much. I know this dabbler's spirit is probably a characteristic I share with many other people in this world, but for some reason, my definition of dabbling has really come to define me.
As one example, and the impetus for this blog, I have recently researched freelance writing, for magazines, in particular. I'm currently reading a book, Literary Mama, that suggests exercises intended to help the writer hone in on a specific audience and the most promising publications to approach based on the writer's interests and writing style. These exercises required me to write keywords to describe myself, choose the four that best defined me currently, and then delve into what makes me uniquely qualified to write something for those four particular audiences. I realized a few things while completing these exercises. First, I have too many interests, but very little actual knowledge or experience in any of them. Second, I tried to cram about forty interests into one audience...doesn't work. Third, I found myself writing the words young, fresh, beginner, new, and try a few too many times to ignore. I got the message loud and clear.
I decided that, rather than punish myself for 28 years of unfocused dabbling, I would embrace it, celebrate it, and share the results. Sure, I could decide to take one key word and focus in on it and push everything else out of my brain until I had mastered one thing, but...that's not like me, is it?
I knew a girl in college, she had the same name as me, and I thought her beautiful in an approachable way, intellectual in a genius-but-not-completely-nerdy-and-socially-uncomfortable way, and an altogether admirable person. She volunteered. She made straight A's. She looked like Cameron Diaz. But more than any of that, what I admired about her was her focus. She had wanted to be a doctor since childhood. She had done everything in her power to put her on a direct path towards being a doctor : active as a candy striper during high school, took every high school science she could, took all the right classes in college, continued to volunteer and intern with local hospitals, got excellent grades and went to medical school. Now she's a doctor. She is fascinating to me in that she is my life antithesis. I can't fathom that sort of passion for one subject. I don't lack the discipline that she has, but I do lack her focused desire and I envy hers.
To illustrate, here is just a sampling of the topics in which I have expressed interest just this month:
writing children's books
writing greeting card messages
writing a novel
freelance writing/entering writing contests for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, journals, etc.
blogging
home décor
home organization
rock climbing
basketball
attachment parenting
paper collage
jewelry making
agility training my corgi
home cooking
calligraphy
bookbinding and book arts
yoga
teaching music classes
Add the pile of ten books next to my bed that I want to read, a nine month old, a husband, and many baskets of laundry and my problem is clear. As I see it, I can scratch all but one item off my list and focus or I can embrace my inner dabbler and share my results with the world. For now, I choose the latter. Who knows! One of these days I might come across something that I'm just as passionate about as my college alter ego. So I will dabble like I have never dabbled before, attentively. If I can't seem to focus on a topic, than I will focus on my desire to dablle, to experience all that life has to offer me, which is a lot, since I like to experience just about everything! Here we go. This is a record of the projects, large and small, in the life of a quintessential dabbler.
As one example, and the impetus for this blog, I have recently researched freelance writing, for magazines, in particular. I'm currently reading a book, Literary Mama, that suggests exercises intended to help the writer hone in on a specific audience and the most promising publications to approach based on the writer's interests and writing style. These exercises required me to write keywords to describe myself, choose the four that best defined me currently, and then delve into what makes me uniquely qualified to write something for those four particular audiences. I realized a few things while completing these exercises. First, I have too many interests, but very little actual knowledge or experience in any of them. Second, I tried to cram about forty interests into one audience...doesn't work. Third, I found myself writing the words young, fresh, beginner, new, and try a few too many times to ignore. I got the message loud and clear.
I decided that, rather than punish myself for 28 years of unfocused dabbling, I would embrace it, celebrate it, and share the results. Sure, I could decide to take one key word and focus in on it and push everything else out of my brain until I had mastered one thing, but...that's not like me, is it?
I knew a girl in college, she had the same name as me, and I thought her beautiful in an approachable way, intellectual in a genius-but-not-completely-nerdy-and-socially-uncomfortable way, and an altogether admirable person. She volunteered. She made straight A's. She looked like Cameron Diaz. But more than any of that, what I admired about her was her focus. She had wanted to be a doctor since childhood. She had done everything in her power to put her on a direct path towards being a doctor : active as a candy striper during high school, took every high school science she could, took all the right classes in college, continued to volunteer and intern with local hospitals, got excellent grades and went to medical school. Now she's a doctor. She is fascinating to me in that she is my life antithesis. I can't fathom that sort of passion for one subject. I don't lack the discipline that she has, but I do lack her focused desire and I envy hers.
To illustrate, here is just a sampling of the topics in which I have expressed interest just this month:
writing children's books
writing greeting card messages
writing a novel
freelance writing/entering writing contests for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, journals, etc.
blogging
home décor
home organization
rock climbing
basketball
attachment parenting
paper collage
jewelry making
agility training my corgi
home cooking
calligraphy
bookbinding and book arts
yoga
teaching music classes
Add the pile of ten books next to my bed that I want to read, a nine month old, a husband, and many baskets of laundry and my problem is clear. As I see it, I can scratch all but one item off my list and focus or I can embrace my inner dabbler and share my results with the world. For now, I choose the latter. Who knows! One of these days I might come across something that I'm just as passionate about as my college alter ego. So I will dabble like I have never dabbled before, attentively. If I can't seem to focus on a topic, than I will focus on my desire to dablle, to experience all that life has to offer me, which is a lot, since I like to experience just about everything! Here we go. This is a record of the projects, large and small, in the life of a quintessential dabbler.
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