Posts Tagged ‘Dakota Rawhide’
Discipline in Practice
Friday, November 12th, 2010
For those that don’t know, it’s National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo.
www.NaNoWriMo.org has the details you might be interested in.
I’m using it as motivation to complete a DAKOTA RAWHIDE novel. I don’t intend to finish the novel this month, just to be clear. I just want to use the support of the NaNoWriMo crew and my own determination to deliver once I set out on a path to get a huge chunk of the book done by December 1st. The book starts where DAKOTA RAWHIDE BOOK 1 started, with some major changes and it will proceed to take the reader through a roller coaster tour of the Range Moons as the seedy criminal underbelly headlongs into the backstage goings on of elite government powers. Those that follow my doings, as seldom as I seem to announce/post/publish them, know that Dakota Rawhide has been a labor of love for me for the last two years. Most of my off-work hours have been spent exploring Dakota’s universe, developing the story and characters and designing Dakota’s fashion and I have never tired of it. I love it more than when I first started. The characters feel like people I know, in part because they’re somewhat based on people I know, but also, after hundreds of hours of putting them through all manner of adventures and challenges, I feel I know how they will react in nearly any given situation. That being said, every story has a tipping point at which time it takes on a life of its own. As the writer you sometimes feel like no more than a scribe, typing out some scene that’s unfolding just as fast as your fingers can move and with each word you are more and more surprised or excited or shocked or sad or angry. As well as I know the Range Moons and Dakota and Seth and Dorian I am still surprised as I write. Details of their past doings that I wasn’t aware of, gritty moments in the story that tell of the dark times people are living in, betrayals I never saw coming. This is the moment at which the story takes hold of the author and doesn’t let go until it’s finished.
Many people participate in NaNoWriMo every year. We’re talking in the tens or hundreds of thousands. And I’m surprised how many of them never intend to try to publish what they’re writing. Part of me admires their ability to tackle the 50k words in a month simply because they want to. Another part doesn’t understand taking on that challenge with no intention of seeing it through to a finished product. However, I want to be very clear that, in this case, I am a firm believer in “to each, their own.” It’s just not my way to tackle something that I’m not serious about on a professional level. There’s a seriousness that drives me to push myself beyond what I thought I was capable of when I attack a project with the intention of putting it out in the world as a professional representation of what I can do when left to my own devices. I do my best work in that capacity because I end up doing what I love. People respond to it time and again. This is all to say that we should always take our dreams seriously and take on the challenges that stand in our way with determination and discipline and deliver the best product we know how.
I started freelancing as a sketch artist and concept designer after my first term at Art Center back at the end of 2003. The opportunity presented itself and I seized it before I could convince myself I wasn’t ready. In some respects I wasn’t. But I never would be ready unless I started doing it so rather than seeing a Catch 22 that I had no answer for I had to take my ability to see the big picture, to see patterns between things that weren’t readily related and use that ability to learn as much as I could, as quickly as I could. I was going to mess up, I knew that, but the key is to do your best to never repeat the same mistake. Acknowledge your weaknesses and waste no time learning how to strengthen them. When I picked up writing again late in 2007 it became very clear, very quickly that it was a skill I absolutely wanted to cultivate and ultimately make some kind of living with. It was also very apparent that I had a lot of learning to do and very little time to do it. I started reading. If your mind is anything like mine then you know that the spongey nature can lead to trouble if what you’re taking in starts to show itself unwittingly in everything you do. To fend off this tendency I would read about 10-15 novels in a two or three month period. I wouldn’t write. I would just study what authors I admired were doing and why they were doing it and why it spoke to me. Then I would ponder it and digest it and naturalize it for a month or so, then I would write for several months, taking my time and doing my best to create pages I was proud of. I’m picky about what I read because my time is very precious to me. If I’m going to sit and read, then I need the book to change my life in some way. And when I read, unless it’s purely informational reading, I don’t speed through it because I want to take the time to analyze how an author is setting up certain situations. I’ve managed to take in roughly 65-ish novels in the last three years. That’s not many compared to some folk and it’s a lot compared to others. It’s not necessarily how much you read, but more about how you read it that determines how much you learn from it, right? Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. And in case you were wondering, no, I didn’t have a point in mind with this post. This is me thinking through the keyboard and sharing with my loyal friends and fans what’s going on, though I suppose the constant in this post could be “discipline in practice.”
I used to have a goal of writing for an hour each day, or at least 500 words a day. That became rather easy rather quickly and prompted me to bone into the fray of NaNoWriMo with its 1667 words a day. That, too, has become an easy mark to hit. Hell, this post is already near that mark. There’s nothing wrong with building up slowly. Set goals and get used to achieving them then get used to surpassing them. Sketching, painting, writing, it doesn’t matter. It’s all creativity. It takes seriousness and discipline but that does not mean it can’t be fun at the same time. Sure, there are some days where everything’s painful, but those are few and far between. Discipline, the dreaded “D” word that all children hate and most adults seem to think is antithetical to staying young, is actually the only thing that ever allows us to push the boundaries of knowledge. The difference is that when it comes to doing something you love, it’s not usually difficult to practice at it every day. The discipline might come in stepping away from what we love each day. But that’s a necessary step, too. We need to clear out minds to make room for new information. Sometimes we need to put the learning on hold for a time and just learn to apply what our new knowledge and naturalize it and take what works and leave what doesn’t. This all takes seriousness of practice, will and determination to succeed. Many people are afraid to take creative endeavors too seriously and their weak-ass reasons come in all shapes and sizes: fear of failure, fear of success (yes, it’s a real thing), fear of geeking out, fear of being too serious, fear of this shit just not being fun anymore. If it’s not fun anymore then it’s probably not for you. The other reasons have more to do with our concern for others’ perceptions of us and you should just get over it and stop worrying about other people, so I’ll say this and we should all heed it: Do what you love because you love it. If you love what you’re doing, believe me, others will too. If you’re doing it to try and impress others you’re not fooling anyone and all you’ll create is something contrived and cliché. Of course the challenge later becomes how to monetize what you love. I’ll let you know when I figure that part out. Until then… Thank you friends and fans and strangers for the support and the help and the excitement. It adds fuel to my fires and keeps me going. Big love to all of you.
Cheers,
~D/L
Happy Halloween
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
It’s that time of year. Here’s my morning quicky. Happy Halloween folks!
Cheers,
~D/L
Dakota Rawhide: A Cover Girl
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
At long last the cover for Dakota Rawhide Book II is just about finished. By tomorrow night, the finishing will be complete. If that makes any sense. The text is not decided on as yet and some minor tweaks to Dakota are in order, but hopefully nothing to hectic. I changed the format of the book from landscape to portrait. It will be standard graphic novel dimensions. I don’t know about y’all, but I can’t wait to see the final presentation. It’s nice to be excited about my own projects. It makes it easier to work on them every single waking hour… somewhat easier. I kid. It’s been a grueling blast the whole way. I’ve learned a lot, as usual, as one should on any project to which they commit themselves. I’ve had a lot of fun planning out the book, writing the story, projecting ahead to the future stories, as well as a couple flashback stories in the works. I’ll detail some of that out in the near future.
Dakota Rawhide Book II:
Cheers,
~D/L
The Final Final Banner!
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
[EDIT] Okay, this is the last update to the banner! I promise. Mostly because I’m just plum out of time. You will find it at booth #5557! So come on by and say hi! I’ll post something more alluring and formal soon. For now, just enjoy the image.
Cheers,
~D/L
