Revision of Nanowrimo

I am thinking to take a dip and do the revision of my Nanowrimo's text (www.nanowrimo.org).  I did want to work on other crafting projects since nanowrimo ended but I was pretty much quiet on that side.  There was the holidays.  Since then, I had been in some reorganisation for my other projects.  So, I didn't have time to do anything on crafting.  I also am pretty busy with real life.  The only crafting project that I still work on is my knitting.  I am knitting a blanket.  I do it while watching tv or having a bit of idle time.

In that line of events, I better draw the best I can from this situation.  In my reorganisation, I can be on the look out for a project that pop my fancy.  I am tempted by some projects on the loom.  There is one project with peyote that I want to finish but I have to find some finding to end it.  I have to go search on the internet to find exactly what I want.  I didn't have found it in the craft's store I go.  Beside my knitting, it is the two projects that I may work on.

What is tempting, with revision of nanowrimo, is that I only need the printed text and a red pen.  I found it easier to do my revision on paper first and transfer it to the computer.  I can take the time I want to do my revision.  I can do it in small chunk of time, it is what I want try to do.  I want to see if I can do it in my busy schedule.  I have a lot to do.  So taking a chunk of time to work on a project and another for another one.

Right now, I no longer have the priviledge to work long period of times on only one project.  Then, I have to experiement on what work best.  One thing I already know, I better reserve my evening for revision and writing.  It is where I am most prolific in that area.  During the day, I will concentrate on the other project I do have.  I will see if I can make the most of my day.  I don't know if I will be able to sit down and execute my plan during the day.  I am not really used to work on some projects during the day.  Usually, I do most of my creative project during the evening.  It is not really a good things when there are a lot of project.  So, there are some that will have to be done during the day.  I will try that during Februrary and see if I can do it.

Creativity: therapy and escapism?

Creating is a big part of my life.  I often says it is therapeutic for me.  It is helpimg me, it is true.  I have an outlet to express myself.  It create a bubble where I channel myself, what I am.  I like to express a darker side of myself and a truer side of me, that is when I write.  On jewelry making, lately, I have created for other people.  I have done some creation with part of myself and with them in mind.  While creating something, with my hand (it is usually and mainly jewelry), I immerse myself in.  It makes me feel better after the creation.  During creation, I may stumble on some frustrations.  In those occasion, my mind is working on the problems.  I can see errors at the end, looking at what I made.  On the other hand, I am happy to have completed a project to the end, with some errors that show it is handmade.  Creating is my therapy.  I need it to feel better, to keep it flowing and to feel alive.

Lately, I have started to wonder.  I do have questions, those nagging existential questions.  What I am doing with my life?  What should I do now?  What is the meaning of my life?  Did I failed what I have done until now?  What direction should I take from now on?  How to use my creativity?  Should I concentrate on one creative path or stay as I am now: a free jack of all trade and not really a master of any technique?  Should I become a creative pro?  I don't think I am the ideal guru in any case.  I do have those questions in the last few years.  It is just they become a bit more nagging.  Lately, I have started to feel and wonder if the creative process does slow me down in answering those big question. I don't have the answer to those questions when creating.  So, I wonder if too much creativity is resulting in leading to escapism.  I start to see that it may interfere, at least slow me down a bit.  Or I should set some time aside and try to find the answers.  I did had done some thinking but it only lead me in circle without any answers.

So, lot of thinking.  I also end up in thinking that creativity can be therapeuthic and an escape from life.  I don't have any answers to my questions.  I don't know if I will have them one day.  I will pursue creation.  It is my therapy and an escape.  I don't know if it will change.  I wonder if I can turn this in a more fruitful venture, to makes it more profitable.  I know that I don't have lot of support of some people in my entourage.  I don't know if it will change later on.  I have to figure out how to do the process of creating a piece of jewelry to a further level.  I need to take my creativity to the next level.  I don't know if I will enjoy living from creativity or if I will make it to a successful level.  It remain to be seen.

Unexpected time capsule with secrets

Some times, there are things that are unexpected that have mysteries.  Here is a video that I found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9BKq327BQI
It is a appartment that was closed down for 70 years.  All that time, the rent had been paid.  The appartment was opened when the rent stopped being paid.  As shown in the video, there were some discoveries being found there.

This is the sort of news that can trigger some text, a story.  Mysteries are good for writing.  People always need to solve mysteries and to better understand what is mysterious.  It is not always morbid, as in the video show.  It seems that the person that had the appartment had some painful memories and it was hard for that person to deal with her emotions.  That also could be the source of a story.   Stories are made of emotions and can have some mysterious elements.

This is also a beaufiful appartment despite the era it had been closed down.  It had survived time and a war. It would have been in a worse state than it was discovered.  If there was damage, I wondered if they would have entered sooner or if the "resident" would have to come to open the place and face up what was inside. It is all speculation but could be another thread to explore.  For sure, there are a few items that would be all the rage between antiquary peoples.  I know there are a few items I would like, expecially the paintings. Any item coming from this appartment is sure to have a particuliar history.  Any new owner would like to show off with those items.

I am a bit envious.  It is an elegant place.  I would have like to see a bit more.  Would be nice to have a commented tour with more informations on the decorations and paintings, some research and discovery worhworthy.  A bit more on the person that lived there.  She seems to have some connection with art.  I don't know if there is a follow up on this place...

Yarns

I am a knitter.  Jewelry making is another thing I do.  What link the two?  In both case, yarn can be use.  In knitting, of course, yarn is mandatory.  There is a wide variety to choose on like alpaga or sheep...  In jewelry making, the yarn is more the one used in macramé.  There is also some silk threads that is used in beading.

I like the variety in this type of material.  Working with materials is important.  I have fun in buying material for projects.  I have macramé yarns and silk threads.  I have ordinary yarn for knitting.  I would like to try other kind of yarn, for knitting, like alpaga.  I just don't know where to find it.  I guess it would be more easily found in specialty knitting shop.  I know of one but I haven't entered there yet.  Each time I past in front of that shop, it was closed.  I must be out of luck.  There is another shop that I could have go to.  I just found out, a few days ago, that it was closed.  I'll have to dig deeper to fill my down to earth fantasy.

What I like with yarns: it can be in any color.  Especially for knitting and some macramé cords.  I think it is kind of recent, for macramé cords.  It is a good thing.  I like to use color when I do knitting.  For jewelry making, it depend on the project.  If it is visible, I would likely go for color.  If it is not visible, I don't really care for color.

Yarn is a nice material.

Magic, magic items, magical powers, magical world

I am reading Heroes Return by Moira J. Moore. (http://www.amazon.ca/Heroes-Return-Moira-J-Moore/dp/0441019528/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421633428&sr=8-2&keywords=heroes+return).  It is part of a serie.  It is the adventure of a source and shield.  They are working together in taming earthquakes.  Along the way, they learn a few tricks that they haven't learned in their respective academies. They are doing some team work in their job.  The source is taking care of the earthquake.  The shield take care of the source like monitoring the heartbeat.   It is not a technological world.  This world had been colonized but the technology failed to work on the planet.  In a sense, the source and shield are a kind of magic's user.

I just finished the part where the narator, Lee Malborough, a shield, just casted a spell to dye her hair.  It kind of backfire on her because she haven't followed the steps to the letter.  It made me think.  Of course, in fantasy, magic prevail.  In what I read, there weren't much time were magic backfire.  It isn't backfired in a big way in Heroes Return.  I don't know if this kind of situation will repeat itself later on.  It lead me to think further on about magic in fantasy.

In a fantasy world, magic is big.  I think it is one point that help define the genre.  There can be magical items and magical powers.  Whole worlds had been build with magic.  Magic can be used in fight.  I also seen a few example of magic being used in everyday life (like in he Blending: http://www.amazon.ca/Convergence-Book-OneTheBlending/dp/0380784149/ref=pd_sim_b_7ie=UTF8&refRID=04NR020200X6FRJTZ1HZ)
Magic seems to be everywhere.  It seems to be easy to live in a magical world.  I know it is all make believe and all sugar and spice most of the time.  There doesn't seems to be a story where all the magic goes wrong.  I don't know if an apocalyptic magic story would be a best seller.

Another big chunk of fantasy are magical items.  There usually a quest to obtain it.  I have writen and read a lot of personal magical powers stories.  Writing about magical items is something I want to explore more.  I would like to explore how they are created, the havoc they can make and if they can be destroyed.  I don't think it had been much written about.  Not to my knowledge.  Sometimes, ignorance can serve you well.  It is the case for me.  Maybe  I could do some research on it, just to know if my hypothesis is right.  I don't know much on stories on magical items.  I haven't encountered them yet.

I like to read something that makes me think.

Reorganizing

I am doing some restructuration in my belonging.  I try to reorganize and downsize the place my crafting takes.  Not easy to dimisnish the clutter.  At the same time, it is good to do it.  I have heard it is good to do some because it is also good on the mind.  Can be.  I know it boost my morale a bit.  I am usually happy to have done it.  I usually feel good on what I have done.  It is a well done job, it's what I think anyway.

It is something I do on an unfrequent basis.  I do it when I have enough of the disorder that surround me.  Sometimes, I do it often and other times, I do it after a long time.  Being busy can explain the long periods where I don't do it.  It is not something that I schedule well in advance.  It is more on the spur of the moment.

Today, I have done some around my computer.  It was the place that needed the most right now.  I think I will extend that on other area.  I know I am not quite done.  It is a feeling where I know I haven't done with this task.  Time to sit down and do it!  It will take some time but I know I will feel better at the end.

Creativity and personal roots

Creativity can have deep roots in a person past.  It is my case.  It is a period of the year where it is good to reflect on the past.  As a child, I already had some creative juice flowing on.  I remember my grandma saying that I had a lot of imagination at this period of my life.  She was saying the truth.  I had a vivid imagination at the time.  It is the only point that was different from the other children surrounding me.  Reflecting on that time, I think they missed parts on the creative side.

I liked drawing at the time but I wasn't that great.  My creative flair was more concentrated on my imagination.  It was a bit of a refuge, in a sense.  I remember liking doing some scenarios.  Here are a few scenarios I had at the time:
When in the bathroom, I like to imagine a scenario with the tiles on the floor.  The tiles where far away places and I was going from one to the other with my fingers.
In the car, I imagined there was a wild child that look like me and that child was running beside the highway.
Where I live there is a place where there are a dead end.  It was a great place to be in.  It had been used to take some gravel and rocks.  There was an area where there wasn't much growing up, another area where there was some bushes and a third area, way on the back where there were a circle of big rocks.  I liked to imagined there was a young person living there and inprisoned there for a reason.  There was a kind of insivible wall.  That yound person had a task to do and some adventures before being released from the place.

So, creativity had been with me since a very long time.  It din't came out of nowhere.  It is just now that it takes a more concrete form.

Social media

Social media is really big right now.  Many people and places use those social medias.  I have opened some account on other social media.  I am on twitter (twitter.com) and pinterest (pinterest.com).  I have done a few tweet and repinned a few things on those place.  I have two problem when it comes to social media.  It is mainly on a personal level.

First, and I am probably not the only one: it seems so easy for others to post interesting things.  I don't have this problem here.  It is just on social media mainly twitter because I had been there for some time and it is the place I look the most.  I don't talk about company because it is easier for them: they mainly talk about their products or things related to their products.  For the rest, it just seems to easily flow and I don't know how they do it.

It bring me to my second point: I kind of freeze when I am loged on twitter.  For pinterest, I have found it less freezing.  There are other people who had posted a few interesting topics.  I also have posted a few photos there.  Otherwise, I freeze and feel blocked.  I just don't know what to say there.  I am not a big talker in real life and it seems to apply to social media too.  I just don't know what to say.  I also feel blocked in relation with other people and my first problem.  I just feel it ain't as easy as for other people.

I haven't seen any help to help me with those problems.  Sometimes, I would like to be easier to use social media.  It is fun to look at other people tweets but I would like to tweet something witty too once in a while.  It would add something more to my creative side.  It is one area that I would like to improve.

Music and Trance.

The recipes for a party can vary from person to person.  With the recent holidays, indulging in various substrances and foods had been there.  Celebration call for a feast.  All that partying can end up in a massive hangover.  Weight loss too but that is another matter.

Some alcoholic brevages once is a while is okay by me.  I am not an heavy drinker but there is a few alcohols that I like.  Until recently, my main choice was vodka.  I still like it.  I just expanded on that side just before the holidays.  Absinthe and Saké got their way in my repertoire.

To get a high, I don't always goes for a drink.  In a workshop, I was able to experiement on a few techniques of relaxations.  It was similar and different from the class I took in college.  Similar because there was a few techniques that were on both.  Different because there was a few techniques that weren't the same.  One technique I got in the workshop was "Shaking".  I think it was what it was called.  We were standing up and were shaking without moving around.  At first, it was a short time.  The second time, it was a bit longer.  The last time, it was the longest and I think it was around 10 or 15 minutes.  There was music to it.  Each time, there was a different music.

The one music I responded the most was rattle and drum.  It was intense and I kind of had a high.  At the end, I was in a trance like mind.  It was something really taking.  Nothing else existed except the music.  The music was monotone.  It didn't changed beat.  It was only following the heartbeat.  But, as I was in a trance, I was hearing subtilities.  It was as if my mind was hearing a tape with malfunction or different speed to it.  I can't explain it better.  It just happened.

I was really on a high and I wanted to stay there.  I was in a bubble and it took me a few minutes to return to reality.  I wasn't ready for the music to stop.  I was ready to go on a bit further, longer in time.  I was and am tempted to repeat this.  I want to see if I can replicate this sensation.  It was my closest experience to a high that I ever get.  I didn't even got any "help" from alcohol or any other substances.

Line of thinking

I am fascinated with how inspiration is working.  It is something that I explored and thought about in the past few years.  I ended knowing more about how my mind worked.  It is a good thing and it is fine.  I don't think to have exhausted all the topic yet.  I am sure there is more to learn about inspiration.  I haven't explored the scientific aspect, to see how it work with other people, to see if there is researches about it, if it is talked about.  So, it would be time to see how inspiration work outside of me, into the world.  I know there is influences, accidents, being under some substances and going through various state of mind.  With all of this, I know i have still much to explore.

It is all fine and well.  On the other hand, recently I have started to branch out in another direction.  I start to think about why I have the creative fiber to the roof compared to other people.  Strangely, in high school, I wasn't interested in crafting or in plastic arts.  I was solely into writing at the time.  Since then, I expanded the various cords to my bow.  A few years back, I took a test in an employement center.  The creativity was into the roof compared to the other area tested.  At the time, I felt a bit restricted.  I felt my road was paved out, reinforcing where I wanted to head out.  Why it is the case with me?  I may not be the only one in that kind of situation.  I just wonder if it rare or not.  Will I be able to max out this "area of strong aptitude"?

I didn't expected that to happen.  I don't know yet if it will lead me further down the road...

Mysteries

Mysteries are great for the creative people.  Curiosity is a humain trait.  Resolving a mystery is answering questions and dispel the unknown.  Mysteries fascinate.  It can be a driving force: to find what happened, to create a credible scenario, to search for evidences, to recover artifacts, to find the place the mystery happened.

Mysteries push the creative people to offer an explanation.  It is the stuff that can inspire the storyteller. Mysteries can be well know or more obscure.  It seems to draw people, the mystery being popular or not.
What triggered my reflection was the mystery surrounding the plane called "l'oiseau blanc"/the white bird.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Oiseau_Blanc
Until recently, I didn't knew about this mystery.  It have a part of romanticism, being in the beginning of the history of flight.  There are other similar mysteries, like Amelia Earhart, Antoine de Saint-Exeupéry, ...

People want to know.  It can be morbid but it is curiosity.  Knowledge is power.  A resolved mystery is dispelling the unknown, to let some light into the dark.  If a mystery is unsolved, speculative fiction will do.  I like those kind of mysteries.  I don't know if I make sense.  Mystery can be hard to define.  There is that unknown that is attractive.  To conquer this is to know.  Mysteries aren't always solvable.  Some unresolved ones had been solved.    Others are to remain unresolved.  This aura is attracting.

I know I am rambling.  Maybe I should put some order in that and come back on it later on.  I think the subject of mysteries was a bit more than I could chew, a bigger piece than I thought.

Gemstones

I found this on choosing gemstones by colors:
http://jewelry.about.com/od/birthstonefactsandfolklore/a/gemstones.htm
It gives a few suggestions based on a few colors.  Another way to be able to choose gemstones is to go for each one.  Can be a long search when there are many to look at.  It left me wondering if there is a general guide to help people choose gemstones.  I just would like a guideline that can be applied to many gemstones all at once.  Are they are all different?

I look elsewhere, like youtube.com but I haven't found any good reliable guideline for choosing gemstones in general.  It is the same as above.  It goes with colored or specific stones and how to choose them.  I did found one that was a general guideline but it was a bit new agey and mainly on crystals.  I don't have anything against new age.  It is just not exactly what I am searching for.  I just want a general unbiased guideline to choose gemstone.  I don't have time to research for each stone and sometimes, I don't know which gemstone I will take.  I think I am not the only one here with this problem.

I guess I haven't found the perfect guide to choose gemstones.  Or I haven't choosen the right words to do my research.  So, I have to come back on this, redefine the words and what I am searching for.  It is a question of time and the right wording to find what I am searching for.  I do like gemstones and rocks.  I do like working with them.  It add something special to my jewelry projects.  It isn't just color.  The precious stones had a beauty in themselves, the beauty of a rock that happened to be colored.

First day of a new year

It is the first day of the calendar.  A new year.  There is a Roman god named Janus that gave the name to the month January.  I think it is apt for the first month of the year.  Janus was a double faced god.  He delimit the contrary: old/new, the door with the inside/outside.  I feel a bit like that.  One year end, another begin.  I don't really take resolutions.  I do have crafting objectives during the year.  I don't wait for the New Year day to take them.

What I like from this time of year is the hope and good will.  There is the hope in a better world, the hope to keep resolution, the hope to get a better life/a better situation, the hope of a better world.  There is a lot of good will for a better world, an evolution for the better.  Of course, not every ones see things like I do.

Where does it connect with creativity? I would say: a state of mind.  The ambiance is not always positive. Not every one likes this time of year.   It can be stressful.  There are also excess on some areas like food and alcohol.  The time is also prone in the spreading of viruses.  Even with all the positive and negative, creativity can spring from both side.

This is the time of year where I feel the renewal of my commitment toward creativity.  It is not a resolution. It is more a time where I feel free to brainstorm, where I don't stress out and let the ideas come here.  I always have hope and want to create that ambiance for the rest of the year.