Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

A bit of background:

At new year's I made the resolution to write a novella as a Christmas / New Year's gift for my kith and kin. I was planning on taking a year to write it, instead of NaNoWriMo's insane month, because, after four "Successful" Nano's in a row, I wasn't having fun, anymore. I wanted to be able to slow down and actually talk and listen to my characters.

I then, promptly, got writer's block.

Until this week. All of a sudden, I got an idea for a story. And then, character showed up -- a real character, not just an idea for a character. I could see her in my head; I could hear her voice when she spoke. So this week, I've started writing.

All winter long, I've been blocked. Summer comes 'round, and the story does too. It occured to me that writer's block might be the first cousin to depression, specifically to the seasonal depression known as S.A.D.

And the image popped into my head of "Writer's Block" as an ice dam, blocking the flow of creativity, until the sun's warmth melts it.

So that's what I wanted to draw today: To make word art out of that phrase, shaped and colored like an ice dam, blocking a river a river of words.

I still want to make that. But it's complicated to draw. And it will take more than one day. So I'll post it next week. In the meantime, here's the photo of a real ice dam that I'm using for reference and as a color pallette. I use the eyedropper tool in MSPaint to select different colors from the photo to use in my picture. Getting just the just the right shades of blue, gray, and almost-white to make something look icy is almost impossible (for me) to do by guestimate.

Now, I'm going to make some dinner, and watch Kenneth Branagh in Mystery!