OCTOBER 2018: DRAWLLOWEEN/INKTOBER

Friday, Oct 5, 2018  9:38 pm

Dear Diary:

So... the difference between “theory” and “execution,” “imagination” and “reality.”

Ugh.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

For the last few years, every time October has come around, I’ve thought about trying to participate in either the Drawlloween or Inktober challenges. This year is no different. In fact, I’ve mentioned that I was going to attempt this drawing quest to Lady Bleudragon, my fellow comrade in comics creation (theoretically... maybe more on that later) and Zombie Dawn, a horror movie blogger who I’ve met on-line this year thanks to Mermaid Heather, another horror movie blogger. Dawn has been discovering her inner artist this year, and considering the Halloween themes that come up during Drawlloween (well, duh!) and Inktober, I thought she might be interested in these interactive events, hence.

Anyway, getting back to me. In the past, I’ve talked about doing one or the other challenge, but I really never produced much at any time. This is similar to my attempts at doing the NaNoWriMo challenge in November in past years, not much has come of it. But, hell, what else is new (for me)?

But, this year was a sort of weird moment in my life, partly triggered by my having my 40^th high school reunion over the summer. In addition, last September I started a new job as a "shopping cart attendant" at a local grocery store. After over a year of unemployment (July 2016 – Sept. 2017) after the company I worked at finally went under (a weekly shopper paper that I worked at since 2003), getting this grocery store job was an interesting experience. It was humbling because it was a sort of entry level job, at least that’s how I thought of it: usually high school/college age students work the job and here I was some 57 year-old doing it. But, it was also kind of great to be working with younger people. And interacting with customers. And working outside constantly. And walking a LOT. So, all these elements combined into an intriguing dynamic. And after a few months, the physical aspects of the job made an impact: I lost about 15 lbs.

So, anyway, all that made me feel like I was starting over again. I was leaner, I was working with youthful people and feeling some renewed confidence in my abilities at work. Plus, my 40^th reunion made me extremely nostalgic for those times I went to college: first, to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh (a 2 yr. Associate's Degree in Visual Communications that I didn’t finish) and second, to Buffalo State College (a Bachelor's Degree in Design, which I also didn’t complete... hmmm, a running theme through my life, it appears).

AUGHHH!!!

I’M writing this and I'm boring the SHIT out of me!

Maybe I’ll get back to what I was saying, but right now, know this: I had all sorts of plans to draw and/or ink every day this month and it’s Day 5 and I’ve done ZIP so far.

This diary exercise is meant as an accessory document to chronicle my efforts, besides just posting these supposed drawings, etc.

Tuesday, Nov 20  8:04 am

HAHAHAHAHA!

Really? A month and a half later?

Well, I'm just looking at some unfinished posts I've started (oh, this isn't the ONLY one).
Let me wrap this up real quick.
I didn't draw ONE DAMN THING all October.
Lots of ideas. No follow-through.

However, not to end on a completely (and typically) depressing note, last night was the November meeting of the Buffalo Movie-Video Makers and I actually finished an entry for our annual Shorty Film Contest!
The film was called THE MAGIC ROOM.
Whenever there's a film contest at BM-VM, I always have some sort of idea of a contest entry leading up to the deadline, but I rarely follow through. Part of this is my traditional inaction, but part of it is also my tendency to always have large, impractical ideas and not really enough time to properly complete the idea.
Anyway, like the one film I did for a Shorty Contest years ago (NOTE: A so-called "shorty" is a short film no longer than 5 minutes)(and it turns out it was five years ago. Holy crap! Time freaking flies, yo!), this turned out to be another effort where I'm mostly shooting documentary footage (i.e. birds in the backyard feeders).

Ultimately, the positive takeaway from this was; I FINISHED AN ENTRY (technically) AND SCREENED IT AT THE MEETING LAST NIGHT.
YES!
That's always the biggest hurdle.
I need to keep jumping over this first hurdle: finishing an idea, following through on an idea.
the next step is assessing what I've completed and improving on it.
As it is, I'm already thinking of "remaking" THE MAGIC ROOM, because the film I finished (barely) last night before going to the meeting was deeply flawed on several levels, technically and aesthetically. But, I won't go into that now and especially on this blog. If I do post something about me kvetching about the film's "defects", it'll be over at THIS blog o'mine.

Alright, I'm going to end this now before I go meandering in another direction needlessly.
Maybe my next post I'll actually get around to discussing "the difference between 'theory' and 'execution,' 'imagination' and 'reality.' "
Although, hell... I feel that's a running theme through my life as well, not so much the difference but the creative tension between both... what?...disciplines? Methods of approaching things? Let's go with method of approaching things. The constant creative tension between my methods of approaching things and only focusing on the safer and comparatively lazier activities of theorizing and coming up with ideas and rarely exerting myself consistently to test/practice these theories or make tangible these persistent but non-existent ideas.
More later.