Guephren's Writing

Part 1 | Part 2

Last time we laid out the general idea of what I wanted of this year, now it's time to take a look into each category and define exactly what it is that I want to achieve. Hopefully this will guide me through the year and I'll be able to check off some boxes by the end of it.

Painting & Drawing

There are an infinite amount of things I could do in this area, there is simply too much to learn. However I'd like to focus on:

1. Schoolism courses, specially light and shadow ones. There are a few of those so I can pick various to complete this year, apart from finishing two which I had already started (Gesture drawing and Essentials of realism).
2. Aaron Blaise's courses, of which I have bought a few and haven't finished any. Will start with the human drawing one to complement the Gesture Drawing class from Schoolism. The animal drawing ones are shorter so I should definitely be able to finish them all by the end of the year.

What about other personal projects?

1. Month-long projects / challenges. This year will have a few rules in place: first, only one challenge per month, second, no two challenges back to back, and three, each project will only have 15 drawings. There is a lot to learn from drawing constantly, but slowing down for a bit and paying more attention to detail and decomposing what I'm trying to do will hopefully gain me deeper understanding. For now I've though of FebROOary and Inktober only, have to come up with a few more.
2. Sketchbook. UGH. I love sketchbooks and it's been years since I finished one. Sketching will be part of my morning schedule, if only for one page and/or half an hour. A perfect time to try different things loosely like mechanical objects, persons, plants, you name it!
3. Long term projects. I have two long term projects which I won't necessarily finish this year but that I have to start: 100 Furry Garnments and 1K Portraits Project. The problem with this ones will be finding time for them.

These projects and classes will be done during the morning, leaving time in the afternoon for other creative endeavors. This is a lot already, but they'll be in small chunks every day so I hope it'll work. I'll have to work some of this things in alternate days to make space for everything.

Reading

For reading we either have:

1. Work and learning. This will also be in the morning and will be books to hone my crafts and will allow for writing time to take notes. It'll happen in the mornings.
2. Leisure. The very last thing before bed, I think it'll be a good alternative to simply laying down and watching videos! I have tomes and tomes of things to read through so it's only appropriate.

Writing

No amount of dreaming and chatting with friends will ever make a complete story, one ready to be shared with the rest of the world. I've been meaning to write ever since I was in 9th grade so I think it's about time I do. This shall take part of my afternoon (after lunch) and it'll include three things:

1. Short (medium?) sized stories. Probably the most important part, because no matter how much I read about writing, how many snippets of stories I share with friends, I will never write anything if I don't actually write something down. Twelve stories sounds doable between everything else I have to do. 10k each and done in three parts: writing, shelving, and editing. The writing part is easy as it only involves writing, the shelving part is even easier since it's just leaving the story sitting there, marinating, and the editing part would come two months after it was finished to fix anything I don't like, and finally publish by the end of the month. All this doesn't sound too bad (if it weren't for the fact that I know nothing about editing… or writing (?)).
2. Journals / Blogs. Just something to let the the World Wide Void what I'm up to and keep me writing things that aren't too stressful, just a place where I can lay down thoughts, whatever they may be. Most likely just a place for me to talk to myself.
3. Worldbuilding. This is the serious part, what all the reading about writing and short stories are for: preparing to make worlds. I have two big ideas that if I start right now I'm sure I'll dislike by the end of it, or I'll find so many things to fix that it would require me to re-do everything. The worlds I have will end up accommodating many stories so having a good foundation is essential. I think I'll take this process in a relaxed manner this year because I still have to build up my writing muscles.

Calligraphy and Handwriting

• Another morning thing. This will happen in unison with the reading to learn part since I'll take notes by hand. Before that though I should spend at least half an hour working on my letter-shapes (calligraphy or handwriting), or simple drawing exercises warm-up. I still have to work on my own writing “hand” before I try something else like Spencerian.

Timely Uploads

• This will happen before just lunch! I still have a lot from last year I have to upload in addition to everything I'll do this year. Just thinking it about it all right now is going to give me a headache, and I have to check out which places I still want to upload to. Google+? Nah. FurryNetwork? I just don't know, it's still the furry site I like the most but it's… not working, and I wish I could also drop Facebook/Instagram altogether. Also have to update the footers and profile info in each site.

Commissions

• I have to finish my commission's TOS, then the price sheet and we'll be set! The goal for this one is to start by February 1st of this year. Commissions will be worked in the afternoons until dinner time.

Extras

• I had also thought of attempting to learn 3D (Blender) and some coding (Python) but in all honesty my year already looks completely full. The usual “learn a new language” also goes out of the window because of all of this; I've failed many years at that one and saying I'd do it this year would be a lie. I also want to try and see how I can get myself to Australia! I'd like to study something there but I have to research that for a bit.

The question now is how to efficiently manage all this and fit it into a schedule that won't tire me and won't allow me to fall into a boring routine. What I've been thinking of is making some sort of movable weekly schedule. I could have, say, 15 days figured out and then just pick out 5 for each week, so that times and activities vary a bit to keep things fresh. I'll only work half a day on Saturday on miscellaneous things (like updating descriptions, organizing files, uploading to RB, putting things together, etc.) and I'm going to force myself to not do anything on Sunday. Sunday's will be to lazy around, read, watch videos and films, play games.

I think that's it, now it's only a matter of making schedules and sticking to them.

___ January 16, 2019 #Goals #Goals2019 #Writing #Reading