Things are Clawing Their Way Forward

It’s November. By far my favorite month of the year. I won’t lie either. It’s my favorite because it’s the month I was born. Most people I know don’t really celebrate their birthdays. They don’t want to talk about them. They don’t really want a party. They treat the day like it’s an average day just like all the rest. Not me. First of all, I NEVER work on my Birthday. It is a holiday. The sacred day of my birth. If my employer has a problem with this, I find it absurd and tell them so. There is never a reason anyone should HAVE to work on their birthday. Not in America. Not in any respected first world country. It’s a paid day off. This year my birthday is on a Thursday, so I get two paid days off! Thursday and Friday! I mean, what’s the point of taking Thursday and then coming in Friday just to be off Saturday? Right? That’s just silly. Birthdays are important. They matter. My birthday is like my New Year’s. I look back on what happened and how to improve my self and my station. This year was rough. The roughest of my life so far. I’m exhausted and have been so incredibly depressed. I’ve fought and found inspiration through musicians like P!nk and through artists quotes put up by the people over at Spectrum. I’ve found it in the possibilities I’ve seen my partner create by getting published, working book signings and going for that next thing. She’s already got another book contract. I’ve found it in the tireless volunteering and help one friend is always a part of. I’ve found it in my friend who has lost what I can’t even imagine losing and her ability to move through it with such grace that I sometimes feel it must just be my perspective that causes me so much suffering. And to some degree it is. I am working on that. Baby steps.

I have goals. Trying to motivate yourself to do them through deep depression sometimes seems futile. Just having them helps. I am happy I submitted a work of art this year. I am waiting to hear if it will make it in the show. December 1st. That’s when I’ll know. I hope I’m not utterly shattered to pieces if I don’t. I shouldn’t be. I’ll just have to get up again and try, try, try, right?

I am working on the Xena Web Comic little bits here and there. I hope it doesn’t just fall to the side. I really, really want to do it. I sit down sometimes though and realize how very out of practice I am. Muscle memory strains to remember. If only talent was real and I could magically pick up a pencil and draw at the level that was my best instantly. Things would be so much easier, wouldn’t they?

This month most of my attention goes to NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. I have a story inside that really wants to get out, so I’m writing it. So far, I’m at 13,000 words. That makes me very happy. Once it’s complete, edited and gone over with a fine toothed comb, I’m submitting it. I’m giving myself a time limit. Get it to 50,000 or more for NaNo, then I have 3 months to edit and clean it up. That’s it. Then it’s off. No stalling. I’m less worried about the writing than I am the art. I still have a portfolio to build and create for Spectrum by next May. It was one of this year’s goals. I have to do this.

So things are getting there.