Just a few words, since they're needed elsewhere

Hello, audience. I thought I'd pop back in to remind everyone that my blog isn't dead, or anything. I've just been all over the place. Halloween was kind of insane for me, and since then I've been doing NaNoWriMo.

For those who are somehow unaware, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, where those of us who harbor illusions/aspirations of writing novels go to be forced into accountability and put words on the page. The goal is 50,000 words in thirty days, and it's utterly insane.

Which is why this post is going to be short. I have work in a few hours and several hundred words to write before that. I don't know how anyone who has school or work full time even does this, but somehow they do.

That's the awesome thing about NaNoWriMo, though. It's this awesome way to force yourself to create. I know November is also Make Art Every Day Month, and I find that amazing too. I'd love to participate in both, but I think it would probably kill me. It makes me kind of sad, though, that I need to force myself to do things that I love to do. The creator in me hangs her head in shame that the joy and accomplishment I find in creating well isn't enough for me to force aside the demands of my fairly undemanding daily life to make.

More and more the past few weeks, I'm finding that passion isn't enough; desire isn't enough; enjoyment isn't enough. I put those things aside to do other things that matter less to me, because somehow that makes sense. The only thing that makes this happen in discipline.

And that sucks.

I'm not an especially disciplined individual. I find it difficult to make myself do things that I don't feel like doing, which, yes, is a common problem. Discipline doesn't come easily to anyone.

My sister said once that self-discipline is just parenting yourself. You have to override the mental whining child, and just go to bed, or get our of bed, or eat this or not that, or clean your house, or whatever it is that needs done that you don't want to do.

I bribe myself shamelessly most of the time. Not so much with my novel, because thankfully that little graph showing me how on track my word count is makes a really good incentive system for me. I want to hit my word count even if I don't want to write.

And speaking of which, I should really shut up and do that.

A Month of Simple Pleasures, Day 13

13. Effectively translating something from thought into a tangible substance

This is one item on my list that I really thought about the phrasing of, because the original thought was about art, and then it expanded. I kept adding "ands" because of the other ways I create. I love to be able to take something in my mind and be able to present it to someone else, who can then understand what was in my head.

It's the joy of communication for me. Two base things that fill me with rapture are understanding and creating, and they're two of the things I seek most to do. There are different forms these take moment to moment, and different ways that I think about them, but when I strip away all the layers, that's what lies at the bottom of most of my frustrations, accomplishments, goals, pleasures, etc. I want to do both of them infinitely.

There is something magic about being able to take a thought or feeling I've had and to turn it into an image that someone else can look at and recognize. I get the same feeling when I look at art, but in reverse; I am communicating with another mind, though, and that amazes me. The same is true when I write something, and it's just perfect. It means what I want it to mean and says what I wanted to say. It happens verbally and visually and musically and in all these other ways that I find completely astonishing.

We can know and communicate with that which makes someone themselves, and we can be known and communicated to in our cores.

Maybe that's not all that "simple" a pleasure when I break it down and really explain it, but if that's too heavy for you, just assume I meant that art makes me happy. Which is true.