Writing, Art, and OK Go
Here are some pieces of entries I wrote on Word and then never posted:
I've had a strange compulsion to watch Clueless lately, so I watched it Saturday night, and thought afterwards about how it's one of the movie romances I like/approve of. Afterwards, I was all happy and romancey and I hadn't planned on writing (and if I did, it would have been more in the character sketch I was working on), but I realized that if I felt all happy and romancey, I should be writing a romance scene. Right now.
So I made a cup of tea and sat down at my desk and wrote the second version of the final romance scene in AEFB. And, people, writing romance is hard. It is so easy to stray into stupidness or cheesiness, and it's hard to find the thread-thin line between a good romance scene, where two people come together out of mutual admiration/love and it's not stupid, and complete cheesiness.
I think the second version is an improvement but it's not done yet.
I am pleased to say that Tuesday night, I finished the first round of work on the second draft of AEFB, meaning working through the document and deleting or changing words, mostly. The second round of work involves adding in and rewriting some scenes I'm not happy with. Then I get to do the whole thing over again for a third draft!
...also I need to finish working on what little research I have on hand: the first three Foxfire books, and a costume book I have lying around.
My boredom and irritation with myself very nearly had me tearing down the walls using my teeth (did I mention the PMS?), so I set out into the rainy Tuesday evening and got desserts from Europa (unsatisfying) and tea from Bean Haus (hairy crab, my favorite), and then sat on the porch at Bean Haus and read the whole of volume two of Fables. Then I went home, did the dishes, cleaned, finished AEFB (it was not even ten pages. It was closer to five. More like four if you count the fact that I'd already rewritten the last page or so and just pasted it in. I HALTED all work on this book for something like a MONTH because I was afraid of the last FIVE PAGES. RIDICULOUS.), and now it is nearly Friday and I only have things to look forward to: craft fairs, holidays, food, and...stuff.
Another arty thing is drawing. Over the past few months, possibly as my diligence about drawing degenerated into almost nothing, I've had difficulty with my ordinary style, which is vaguely influenced by traditional 2D animation. Things do not come out the way I want them to anymore. I figured it was due to lack of practice and kept telling myself I need to get cracking on that.
But I've also taken to drawing super-cartoony figures with extremely minimal faces (since faces are more or less what I'm best at, at least in this style) occasionally and I've found that they are more expressive in terms of the relationship between what's on the paper and what's in my head. I mean that the cartoony ones come out more expressive and representative of what I want to draw than the more complicated ones.
I'm both pleased and curious. On the one hand, I have heard that reducing one's style to something very minimal forces you to try to capture a lot in terms of movement or expression with few lines, and that it's good to do. I know it's done me some good; in this form, my poses are better (I fail at anatomy and poses in general) and the characters look like who they're supposed to look like.
On the other hand, where on earth did this come from, and how do I go about incorporating it into my "regular" artwork? The obvious answer is that I need to do more branching out--never a bad thing with any kind of art--and practice more styles and mediums, which I've actually been wanting to do, just that drawing always takes a backseat to the necessary constant of writing.
OK Go: I burned myself out on "Here It Goes Again", having listened to it constantly in the car and watched the music video more times than I can count. Yesterday was the first day in like a week I'd gone without watching the music video at all. The song has been replaced by "It's a Disaster" and "Let It Rain" and the song on their new album I just re-discovered, "Crash the Party".
I am struggling with my love for OK Go. Specifically, for their albums. Their first album has some excellent rocking out songs (and, as I've said, "Get Over It" is one of my favorite songs ever), and a few mellower songs that are pretty good. But their second album has a cleaner, sharper sound and is less angsty, though I definitely have my favorites and they are the more rockish songs. Now it's a toss-up between the two albums. I am torn.
That is, I think, enough for tonight. Tomorrow is wonderful Friday, and in the evening I am going to do everything in my power to obtain chocolate and alcohol at discount Mainstrasse prices; Saturday, I am going to Crafty Supermarket, and Sunday, I am doing laundry.