Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

[Image description: NaNoWriMo 2017 Winner's badge: square, bright yellow with main text in white, and a central motif of a "Superhero shield" in black, with a large white "W" in the center. Description ends]

It turns out the real novel is the backstory you figure out along the way (in week three).

My initial plot bunny for this story was that a boy stumbles upon a Baba Yaga style house (but it's crow-legged, instead of chicken-legged), only... it's alone. It's lost its person. And it follows the boy home, and recruits the boy's help to try and rescue said person.

And it was ... going okay-ish. Until house and boy were underway, and I had to figure out exactly Who house's person was, and how person was connected to the giantess troll, who was the next person the house goes to for help, and the boy has to deal with...

So I said to myself: okay, I'll just write a quick backstory, and tack it onto the front of this document (so the backstory's word count is part of my NaNoWriMo's total), and go on from there... I just write it in "fairy Tale" style -- bare bones, almost, so it won't take too long.

18,383 words later (!), it turns out this is the complete story, with a beginning, middle, another middle, a third middle, and an end that has enough to it to stand on its own.

I crossed the 50K word mark on Monday (including all the words and false starts in my original story idea), but I wanted to keep going so that I could earn the "update your story for 30 days in a row" badge, which I'd never done. I wanted to beat my previous word count record, which happens to have been on a story I was trying too tell over, so not fully in the NaNo spirit. And I also wanted to get to my version of the "happy ever after ending."

(Which I did at about 3 this afternoon)

Back to public reality tomorrow... *blah*

(single, stylized, highlighted tree against a forest-color background, with the text: "Nor lose Sight of the Tree for the Forest")

'Cause... Are you as annoyed by the original as I am?

Okay. So those who've known me for a while, know that I am a proud supporter of Team!Monster.

( A recap for those who are new here: )

Anyway, I love drawing monsters, and coming up with new combinations of creature features that surprise and amuse me. And when naarmamo rolls around, I let myself go to town.

This year, as I was drawing this creature:

I started out thinking I was drawing a monster version of a bird, because I was giving it one hind leg, instead of two, and giving it two more "legs," in a 'wrong' place, instead of wings.

But as I continued, I started thinking about how an animal might have evolved to have a single hind leg, and what sort of tail it would need to jump efficiently. I therefore, now, think of this being as an alien creature -- something that fits well somewhere in its native world (however, it seems to be carrying Earth!flowers, so maybe whether you're a "monster" or not depends on context).*

And then, I drew this one:

At first, I thought I was drawing an alien being, with a body structured like a sort of muscular amoeba, that can extend "limbs" and appendages at will... But as I continued, I couldn't figure out how its permanent, bony horns and teeth fit within its usual biology... So now, I'm thinking of this creature as a monster -- who would be a monster within its own world, as well.

And then I got to thinking: could there be a culture, human or otherwise, with no idea of, or need for "Monstrousness"? Could there be an alien way of thinking, that was not built around constructed, distinct, categories of things?

In any case, I think main the reason I'm proud to be on Team!Monster is that those of us who don't fit well within existing systems are in unique positions to fix what's broken about them -- or not, depending on spoons. But regardless, I think a world without monsters must be incredibly dull and lifeless...

*And isn't it ironic that I am now trying to categorize the uncategorizable?

Anyway, so at the end of July: I made a list of Na'Arts I wanted to make in the month of August. The very first thing I wrote for that list was:

A hand-drawn sketch of my own, bare, feet (they are the part of my body I am least comfortable with, and I want to get more comfortable with them) Problem: Getting a way so I can actually see them while in a position to draw them...

So this post is ALL the THOUGHTS and FEELS about that, that I just didn't have the energy to post on the day I did the picture:

( cut for those who are disturbed by images of feet (500 x 402 pixels) )

Okay, so it's one foot, instead of both feet... 'Cause ... Do you know how hard it is to get a clear view of your own feet when you're holding a clipboard in your lap?! Ahem. Anyway, yes...

I'm not sure if it's clear from this perspective, but my feet are "clenched" -- my instep is almost hemispherical, with my toes curled under; if the bones of my feet had the same range of motion as the bones in my hands, my feet would be clenched fists. The angle between my foot and lower leg is actually less than 90 degrees. Here - this picture, illustrating the full, normal, range of motion for the human foot shows what I mean: my feet are stuck in the full UP position -- if someone pulled really hard, they might be able to get my feet to budge down a millimeter, but not without me swearing bloody murder at them, 'cause OW. That dark line I drew around the top of my instep is no exaggeration -- it really is deep crease where the sun (or the library chandelier) don't shine.

I used to be more self-conscious over my feet's weird crooks and creases. But that's no longer the main reason I'm ambivalent toward them now. (As my friends know, I'm perfectly willing to be weird). And I'm even cool about their spasticity and its discomfort most of the time.

( 'It's just that...' -- Cut for your scrolling pleasure )

The thing that I love about drawing from life, by hand, is that in order to do it well, you have to slow down, and really look carefully at the thing (or part of yourself) that's in front of your eyes -- not your memories of it, or prejudices about it -- but what's really, actually there in the present moment (Which is why drawing from life is better than drawing from a photograph). So I'll probably do another foot picture or three. I'd love to get in front of a full-length mirror, so I can draw the whole of me, either nude or not (my feet are almost always nude, except in public). But I don't have such a mirror, yet.

This was going to be a much longer post... but writing this (with breaks for dinner and snack) has taken me five hours. So there may or may not be a part 2...

Oh, and here are ( the other things on the list, with links where applicable: )

My annual self-assessment (fuzzily... never exactly the same day each year, but always in August, since this began); drawing your portrait by hand captures your mood as well as your likeness (again, on the latter, fuzzily).

But one of these days, I'll go for the middle ground, and draw from a photo -- that way, I can experiment with different lighting and angle than the same pose in the same bathroom mirror, every year (and can go away to sharpen my pencil without having to wonder if I've changed my pose mid drawing -- epic Pencil! fail this year...)

Anyway:

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One interesting thing about the process of drawing this (interesting to me, anyway): my mind registered the shadows (and focused/bent light) cast by my glasses long before I "saw" the glasses themselves...

You know, I think I've hit almost all my arty goals, this month -- except I haven't written a geek pride song, yet, and I haven't done three-d art yet...

I'm pleased with this... though I think if I start talking about why, I will be here for all the hours, using all the words, about all the feels... And my tummy is rumbling, and I haven't had dinner...so maybe I'll come back after I've eaten.

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A different sort of self portrait (a usual one will likely be forthcoming, too, but in the meantime):

Following spiralsheep's lead, because some people don't like looking at feet, here's a link to the Flick'r page, instead of a thumbnail (ha, idiom is funny, in context): My left foot

Now I know why I was on that shading kick spree this week...

Cross-posted from the Na'Ar'Ma'Mo Community, again:

Same monster as yesterday -- what it's like when it's on the move. I fear it's one of those poor, tragic, creatures doomed to be "cute when angry"...

I'm particularly pleased with this...

[cross-posted from the community]
Anyway, I wrote another tune today -- an actual, recognized musical form: a hornpipe (I had a midi of a tune I knew was a hornpipe, and copied all the lengths of each notes as I put them in the score...)

I put it up as an unlisted video on YouTube (so you can only find it through this link), so you can hear what it sounds like: http://youtu.be/0srfZoiv37M

And I also made an image of the score (and stuck a pencil sketch I'd already done on the bottom, to make it more interesting):



PS: and here's a video of a woman playing the tune I copied (rhythm-wise) on the fiddle:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDsmaIX4ETM

1) had a dream, this morning, that was quirky enough that I've remembered bits of it all day:

( Four quirky details )

"she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing" --Much Ado About Nothing (a snippet of party banter from Act Two)

2) GIP! the icon with this post is my work for Na'ar'ma'mo; I kept it short, because I wanted to devote time to polishing up the video I made for day 6.

3) More polished version is here ("unlisted," so you can only get to it through a posted link, like this one): http://youtu.be/bf1FNf5NGn0. I'm much happier with it (and I learned how to make the midi tune fade in and out, in NoteWorthy Composer -- rather than just abruptly starting and stopping. \o/ but I'm still shy of posting it as a reply to Doodling in Math Class: Squiggle Inception because she has such a big audience, the most vocal of which are guys commenting on how they want to F* her, and about her voice... And I'm not sure I want to open myself up to that... On the other hand: her one throw away line in that video did inspire me with several Na'art ideas. And I do kind of want to let her know... So -- I'll sleep on it.

really! falling asleep, now... better go to bed...

This is a further exploration of an idea that I played with last year: "Make Room for Monsters!" A fuller description of the image is up at the flick'r page:



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(this is what I left out of today's posting in naarmamo:

Honestly? I'm really working on a big, multiple day project (which is kinda-sorta against the rules -- Shh! Don't tell anyone) but it's a project that I just don't have the spoons to work on in one session without sleep-waking cycles to break it up. So I've figured out different parts of the whole that could exist on their own, if they wanted, and posting each part as it's own na'art...

So... yeah...