Creative Goals 2020

So many creative aspirations,
so little time!

As a person with ADHD, I regularly find frustration in wanting to try everything that seems the least bit shiny.

 

Writing?
Yes, I’ve always wanted to do that.
Crocheting?
Seemed boring at first, but now I have boxes full of yarn.
Painting?
As soon as I tried it, I wanted to always brush in hand.
Things I haven’t tried yet?
You can bet as soon as I hear about them, they’ll become passions, too!

Sometimes, I agonize over trying to figure out how to “narrow my focus” so I have more time to actually finish a project, especially when my time already feels limited even when I only have one creative project going on.

I find I can’t just pick one thing to do, though, so finally, I decided that I need to, at the very least, prioritize, and start sticking to a schedule where my most important projects get the most time, but there’s still a little time allowed for each of the other shiny ideas on a regular basis.

I’ve seen this comic so many times, and immediately thought of it when writing this post.
This is very much what ADHD looks like.
Unfortunately, in scouring the internet looking for this, all I found were re-postings of it (such as what I’m doing here, I guess), and I could not find anyone mentioning the creator of this comic.
If anyone happens to know of the artist who made this, PLEASE let me know, so I can give appropriate credit.

 

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The hype of the new year is dying down, so this seems like a good time to start tackling one of my biggest resolutions for 2020:

(as specified in my last post)

“Now that Kj is beginning to exit the neediest period of a typical child’s life, I’m also going to take a little time to figure out who I am again, separate from the “Mom” identity.   Making time for my creative endeavors, as I mentioned above, is part of this.  I know I’m something other than “Mom” but sometimes, I catch myself trying hard to hide that, like it’s an embarrassing thing to want more.  I think I even have “Kj’s mom” in my Instagram bio.  I’m a whole person, but I’m always changing.  I’m going to figure out what my other parts are, and hopefully gain the courage to openly admit that “Kj’s mom” is not all of those parts.“

To start making time for those creative endeavors, I thought it would be helpful to make a list of the creative things I want to do or try this year.

I had to keep this list of goals separate from the New Year post, because these ideas are more flexible than what I would consider qualifying for “resolutions” and I’m accepting that some things in this list might change or even become irrelevant as I learn and change and grow throughout the year.  This is more of a record I can look back at and see how much my ideas and plans change over the course of a year.

 

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Goals:

(that may or may not change, based on what I learn and become this year) 

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Balance, with a dose of Separation. 

To begin with, I’ve decided to start keeping a little more separation between what I publicize about my son, Kj, and myself.

The specific goal: 
TBD.
So far, I took the link to my personal Instagram account down from this website, and changed the setting to private. I realized that what I post there (mostly pictures of Kj) has very little to do with this blog, even when I’m writing about my struggles in parenthood.  I’m not sure yet what other changes to make, if any, but this is something that’s on my mind now.

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Story-Telling 

My first creative passion has always been writing, and although I haven’t focused seriously on any fiction writing in almost a year–and even for a brief bit, contemplated giving up that hobby completely–I still love the story-creating process too much to continue not doing it.

So, my biggest creative goal this year is to get back to fiction/fantasy writing, in some way.
In the past, I thought this only meant drafting a big novel.  Maybe I still want to do that.
But I’m open now to exploring more options.
Maybe it means writing a series of shorter stories.
Maybe it means using writing in combination with my recently discovered love of visual art to make comics or short animations.
Maybe it means partnering with my husband, the aspiring game developer, to create a story-heavy game.
Maybe it’s something else entirely I haven’t thought of yet! (One of my New Year’s resolutions was to be more open to change and growth and ideas that I can’t foresee.)

The specific goal:
I need to choose one of my cast-aside in-progress ideas, and flesh it out.  I hope to have a full, detailed, start-to-finish story outline by the end of the year.
Finishing a first draft would be cool, too, but I won’t set that as a goal yet, since I haven’t even decided what the story-telling medium will be yet.  (A first draft of a novel would look very different from a first draft of a comic, even if it’s the same story.)
So for now:  MAKE A STORY!  That’s where my sights are set.

 – – – – – –

Painting 

If you’ve been following me for awhile, you might already know that I love to paint, so this almost doesn’t count as a goal.  I still love it.  It’s a great stress-reliever.  I’m just going to continue doing it.  It’s creating I can do with my hands, and the stakes are low.  I have no aspirations of doing it “professionally,” so there’s not really anywhere to go with this.

The specific goal: 
The only change I want to make in this area is to maybe spend more of my brief spurts of down time making art, instead of getting lost scrolling social media as an escape.

 – – – – – –

Drawing 

I’ve been dabbling in drawing for awhile.  For me, it’s harder than painting.  (I know some will disagree with me, but I just find drawing to be a more exact process, with less room for mistakes–or as Bob Ross would say, “Happy Accidents!” That’s just my experience with the two crafts.)  Because drawing is such a difficulty for me, but still a crucial base skill for many other forms of art, my goal is not to shy away from it.
I started a drawing course on Udemy in 2019, finally telling myself: “I will not use the excuse, ‘I don’t draw’ anymore!”  I didn’t get far in the learning process, because it felt to me like an indulgent thing to spend time on.  But a chance to learn and take on a challenge is not a waste of time…

The specific goal: 
I’m setting a goal of working on that aforementioned course at least one day a week.
And when I’m done with that, I’ll start working through this new book I was gifted over the holidays, and take on the scariest part of drawing.
(Why is figure drawing so hard?)

 

 – – – – – –

Pixel Art 

The type of art I spent probably most of my focus on last year, pixel art, is what Josh and I have been using for graphics in games.  I don’t know if we’ll work on a game together again in the very near future, but I’m going to keep practicing this so that hopefully, my skills in this area will be sharp when we’re ready for another go at game-making.

The specific goal:
I wanted to set a more aggressive goal, but I decided to scale back to a smaller goal, to avoid burnout.  The goal is at least one pixel art piece for every two weeks, with at least one of those per month being either a character or asset that could be used in a game (unless Josh and I start working on a specific game, in which case, I’ll need to increase my output of game art to accommodate).

 – – – – – –

Finding Inspiration

To feed my creativity, an important goal I have is to get back into my love of reading.  I’ve let that habit go over the last few years, because of exhaustion and busy schedules, but I want consuming fiction to become a priority again.  I’m hoping to spend some time reading every day, but the small first step I’ll take is to schedule it (so it’s actually on my to-do list!) a bare minimum of three days a week.

And, to get more out of my time spent consuming all the fiction, I’ll be starting so spend time consciously analyzing what I read, possibly in the form of book reviews.  I think it’ll be helpful to get into the habit of noticing creative decisions that were made by influential story-tellers, and deciding for my own taste, what’s good and what’s not.
(Now it’s both recreational and research!)  I already started doing a bit of this with the few books I read in 2019.  Currently, my copies of Misery, Ready Player One, and Fahrenheit 451 are full of sticky notes.  (I couldn’t bring myself to write notes directly on the pages.)

The specific goal:
The small, measurable goal for now, as I mentioned above, is to read at least three times per week.  I hope that at some point, I’ll up that goal to six times per week.
And to motivate me to do the analyses, my other related goal for this year is to finally start that book blog I’ve been saying I wanted to do.

 – – – – – –

 

…and that’s it for now.
That’s the list.

*Another possible goal I might try to work in:
Get better at writing endings to these blog posts.

I’ve actually always been terrible at writing endings.  To those of you who always read to the ends of my posts and endure this awkward part, I’m sorry.

Even in school, when I didn’t mind writing essays, the only part I hated was writing the “conclusion” of the paper.  I hated the convention of regurgitating the introduction (especially in the “three points” style that was usually encouraged), but I tried so hard to do something different that it ended up a mess.
And now, in some of my blogging, I don’t even try with an ending anymore.  But only because of self-imposed deadlines.  Without promising to blog twice a month, I’d be saving all of these in my drafts, waiting forever for them to become perfect.

And now instead of writing a good conclusion, I’ve gone off on this tangent.
I’m going to leave it here, as proof of how way-too-in-my-head I am.

 

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Hey, here’s something!

Other people in the WordPress community:

Obviously, if you’re here, you’re a creative of some kind, too.

So, I have questions:

What creative work are you planning to do this year?
(–this decade, if you’re a forward thinker?)

Do you have new blogging goals?

Are you making changes to your blog?

Starting a new blog?

Pursuing other writing endeavors?

Other art-related endeavors?

If you feel up to sharing, let me know!  Either in DMs so I can cheer you on, too (it’s weirdly motivating knowing that others are working hard on passion projects at the same time), or in the comments.

And please, if you’re documenting your creative journey elsewhere, such as Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok, etc, and I’m not already following you, drop a link, because I want to be following more creatives!

I want to see your creations.  And I’ll like it!  Even if it’s bad!

(Your art isn’t bad.)

 

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Thank you all for your support!
Have a great week!  ❤

 

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