A glorious one it is! Today, I did something that can really get the creative juices flowing, especially for those artistic types. I drew! I drew, and drew, and drew! (I would show you what I did, if I could just figure out how to somehow get paper drawings onto the computer… I think it has something to do with a copy machine?)
Now, how does this have to do with writing, you ask? Simple. There’s nothing more fun for any writer who can at least scribble unrecognizable shapes than to scribble characters and scenes from your book! I really got things going by drawing cartoony, chibi-ish (which was a breath of fresh air, since I normally draw very realistically and painstakingly) versions of all of my book’s characters, even the minor ones, in a fashion similar to that in these cute (although embarrassingly girly) animations. And then I put them in different scenes from my book, both ones I’ve already done and some that haven’t been written yet. Seeing the glory of what you’ve put off writing is something encouraging, I’ll tell ya’. You don’t have to be GOOD at drawing to have it help get your brain working, or have a certain style. Draw whatever you can and however, it will work.
If I get my own digital camera, I may start putting up How-To-Draw videos for my style and characters, both my cartoony style and the more difficult, realistic style. Look forward to that in… not the near future, probably around mid-January. So yea, don’t look forward to it for a while, I guess.
Also, I’ve decided to not chicken out and make this regular-ol’ advice Friday. Now, I will replace the second piece of advice, which I can usually never come up with, with an encouraging quote by writers for writers!
“Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It’s a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write.”
(Paul Rudnick)
Hmm… I may just start ending every post with something like this. Who thinks I should? Comment, so I know you’re there! (comments make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and like I’m not talking into radio silence)