NANOWRIOMO Eve - Pep-Talk

It’s three in the afternoon, which means there’s Nine hour until I can grab my laptop out, turn my music up way past the hearing requirements and begin to start my novel in a caffeinated and sleep deprived induced high. I’m having a hard time believing that its November already and that very soon ‘ll be eating way to many chocolates, wrapping presents in eco-newspaper and making very bold texted Santa wish lists so I actually get what I want this year for Christmas.

This year I’ll be kicking things off with a trip from the boogie-man and no I don’t mean that horrible monster that lives under the bed who may or may not make an appearance in my novel, no I’m snuffluffigas with my heat pack and cough lollies pinned to my knickers. You might think that would be enough to deter me, especially it being in the high 30’s which feels like I’m sloshing around in a sauna, but no, the sun is shining, my skin is melting, my eyes are watering and my heart is beating so fast with excitement that I’ll probably need to go for a nice nanna nap after I’ve written up this post.

It’s that time of year again. Nanowriomo eve and let me tell you guys it feels more exciting to me than Christmas Eve ever has. Maybe it’s the warmth that’s heating up the room, shining a light on the enormous pile of TBR books on my dresser and bedside table or the joy of celebrating Halloween with the man I love cooking burritos while we watch Misery and anticipate our own writing misery, or maybe it’s just the simple fact that when the clock hits 12:00 I get to enter a world, create a world and share that experience with thousands of people in a way I can’t often with my other hobbies.

Whatever the reason [ and does there really need to be one to be this ecstatic about writing] when my fingers hit the keyboard and the words come spilling I know within my heart that it doesn’t get much better than this. 30 days of following my bliss and taking a chance to do something that makes my heart sing despite the craziness and the horrendous voices of reason that spit at me like vipers from non- nano believers and non-writers who think that I’m just wasting my time or putting more crap into the universe.

Hands up if you have endured this in the past or recently? I still do, even though I’ve been taking the leap since 2007. Let me tell you guys I’ve only won two times technically, but in my heart I’ve won every time because even if I’ve been shy 20 words or 20,000 words I’ve loved every painful, ecstatic, maddening moment of it and I’ve met some freaking amazing people, who still to this day are very good friends and writing buddies.

 I laugh, I smile and I dance with taco sauce on my lips because all those people who want to put me down; they’re all missing the point; I am following my bliss, doing something, taking a chance whether I fail or succeed and let’s face it guys how can you really fail when you know that you were brave enough to do something that you are passionate about, while they complain and leave their dreams untouched?

My dream is to reach out to people during Nano and I have done this already with my Vlogseries  [which will hopefully be a PDF ebook by the start of next year] Blair’s PROMPTS System. If you guys have not watched the videos I will leave a link, but a basic breakdown is as follows: acronym style.

P – Prompts

R- Reading and Rewards

O- Outline, Brainstorming, Plotting

M- Music

P- Partners

T- Today

S- Sweets and Stationary

During the month of November I plan on utilizing each point to help you guys out. Those who are struggling for inspiration might want to look out for a weekly segment where I will be using lyrics, pictures, sentence starters and exercises to jolt your enthusiasm or to give you ideas and inspiration for your novel and its characters. Some will be from the net, others from well-loved books I own and if you have a suggestion feel free to email it to me and I’ll add it to the list for others to benefit from as well. The way I see it, were all in it together; and for every prompt each person will perceive it differently and take it to different places.

For those of you struggling with keeping an outline, or who want to branch out and brainstorm during Nano I will have a few examples and ideas for you to try out as I approach a variety of ideas myself and I will also give you a few suggestions with saving and backing up work as well.

As always I’ll be reading during Nano so you can look out for the books I’m reading if you want to rewards yourself with some youtube videos and I will be popping a few quotes and words of inspiration into my weekly segments to give you something to write down, or print out to keep you motivated [as well as myself]

Lastly I will leave you with the strongest piece of advice that I can give anyone during Nano. This is; to just write. No matter what- just write because you can’t go wrong and Nanowriomo is about quantity not quality.

If you want to add me as a friend or leave me an email my name on Nano.org is :Disposable.Blair I will leave the link and you can PM me there or leave me an email at Blake.constance[@]hotmail.com I am more than happy to help out, give you pep-talks and kick you in the ass ^_^ in a friendly matter of course. You are more than welcome to contribute to my weekly segments and if you want to be added to the list to spread the word that you’re doing Nano and meet new friends then please let me know. [Note: no personal information will be shared]

So recently I have started to really jump outside my comfort zone and almost [perfectionist personality] to try something that used to come so naturally to me, and yet is new, fresh exciting and [ can I mention recyling] fantastic for relieving stress and creating art. This my friends is Art Journaling.

So what is Art Journaling - My awnser - putting down my emotions, sensations, reactions and inspiration from daily life using whatever the hell I can find in my scrapbooking room and from the local bargain stores. More about that later, of course this is all new to me in the way of using paint with my fingers and really letting my creativity flow, and let me tell you it does flow. But it was not easy the first few times I played with the idea and I found myself wanting to stop, because lets face it for anyone who has seen some of the many creations out there online and on youtube it is enough to want to stay inside the craft room forever, or run from it. But this time I did not run - I jumped and I flew and I an head over heels in love with Art Journaling.

So what do I use? To begin with old scraps from my crafty projects, bits of paper of my floor, half opened stickers, old paint supplies, copius amounts of glimmer mist and lots of tape. After a few days I added bits of magazine cut outs, copic marker journaling and punched out shapes and hand cut and drawn shapes. Now only a few days into it I have added Gesso to the mix, and a number of other items to my arsinal. Like glitter, twine, ink, die cuts, ripped up books and lots and lots of other bits and peices I pick up off the side of the road [literally]

I am outta practice with giving others advice and I am a newby, but I want to share my experience to some degree and hope within the next month I will have some photo's of my creating space, and the items and tools I use to create the art that means so much to me. So stick around, it is late and I am a little high on craft glue but I hope in a few days to be more consistent and hey...I might even have a challenge for you gals and guys out there...

Blair

Week One - June - Creativity

I love this layout using raw materials as well as my pattern paper, odd buttons and some brown wrapping paper. I have been wondering how to use this line for so long and then I decided to just start creating and see what happens. I think I should have used a different collection of stickers for always, though.



This layout was one we created during my Friday night crop at Hobby Sew. It used a number of techniques and was time consuming. It isn't one of my favorites, but I did learn something.


I really love this page. It is mighty simple and I love the arrangement of the papers. I used a page map from the site http://www.pagemaps.com - May Maps.

These are some handmade flowers I made when pondering what kind of business I wanted to make. I really would like to start creating different handmade items. I also made some pattern fabric.



Hey Creative Folks,


I thought I would do a little post in June - Weekly, to show you anything creative that I get up to. Most of the time it will be layouts and a few cards even. I hope you enjoy. If you have an questions let me know.

Love lots and happy creating,
Blair xox

Scrap Therapy Challenge - 'SCRAP THAT OLDER STASH' Challenge!

I decided this weekend would be a perfect day for a challenge and with only three days to complete the layouts, what better way to get stuck into it then start with one that I tend to avoid, as I spend a lot of money on new pretty products.

While my stash isn't large enough to really have an old stash [ as I got rid of all my old scrapping stuff when I moved in my teenage years] I did manage to find some old trinkets with the chipboard buttons you see on the tree's and on the bottom of the page. I cannot for the life of me remember who they are by as I remember getting them from spotlight sometime last year and disposing of the package straight away. I knew straight away I wanted to use them in the layout.

I have used a basic mustard card stock from the neutrals pack by DCWV and the pattern paper you see at the top is downloaded from a site I found while searching for inspiration. Don't ask how I remember finding it, because I have no idea, but it was a blessing because it was perfect for what I wanted. You can find the collection at:

http://www.mygrafico.com

This particular collection is called: Fall Owls and Tree's.

The rest of my page consists of strips from MME- Lime Twist- Fly A Kite range, a Jenny Bowlin Month flag sticker and Black Rocketeer Thickers, oh and a black piece of cardstock from DCWV as the matting behind the photos.

I am certain you can find the Lime Twist collection in the Scrap Therapy Store - I used Spring Zag paper –

http://www.scraptherapy.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=LT1006

& Rocketeer Thickers you can find here:

http://www.scraptherapy.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=43066

I printed my photo’s in wallet size print and I love how I manage to incorporate them onto the page.

This might be not what the challenge called for, but since I have only started scrapbooking again and I still don’t know my way around the site or the challenges I think it was a brilliant first short and I enjoyed making it regardless.

22 Days Off Me - 30 Days off Challenge, Drawing to and end early

My challenge has ended a bit short to the end of the month, but I am not to disappointed. In fact I have achieved quite a lot. From mastering new recipes, starting a new short story, finishing many projects and layouts and having a blast creating and growing and most importantly doing something I love.

I realized as the approach of my new course was drawing closer that I needed not to stress, but to wind down and appreciate the time I have, for I am going to love it more come study and work [I know I will get a job..no work towards a career by starting to work towards my dreams.

I am looking forward to packing a notepad in my handbag to jot down the experience and bringing the camera to capture candid every day moments and milestones as I journey towards my goals in life, because I also learned that while it is great to take time for myself, there needs to be a balance to appreciate it more.

Meanwhile...I have been rather busy with...layouts...and random doobies and a mini album... and I will show you some progress photos now. I am still working on the album but I created a page with the scraps left over and the many photos that still remained. It was going to be along the lines of a Gothic poser page but I decided to document me at 17.

Oh and I have two projects I hope to share pictures with later as well.

xx Blair

Challenge Update - Day 16-19 - May 2011

Should Be Back Soon ....

Meetings, course planning, friend and family guests have taken up most of my time and thrown my schedule out the window. For the next few days I will be challenging myself to make the time for myself and I will continued to share my progress.

Here is a picture of a card in progress and of an alteration on a photograph I took a while back at the market. I love the side where the image looks like a woman if you look closely.

Happy creating, living and loving.
Blair

Reading:

Slowly getting there with my reading. I have started forming my review to post tomorrow and I have until then to finish reading Voices on the waves. I also pulled out Glory in Death [?] by J.D.Robb to get stuck into again. I am hoping it might get me out of this slump I am in to read something a little more intense, and I am avoiding reading the Van Allen Legacy at current because it is so slow to read with my current mood.

However I did get excited and get a little kick out of choosing some books I plan on reading soon, or in the future anyways. I also decided to film a book topic and what I want to read video for my youtube channel, which I hope to have up tomorrow.

Writing:

Let me tell you when I get an idea in my head I usually cannot sleep until I follow through with it, but this idea to rewrite my first novel ‘The Apparition Man’ has been going around in my head going on three years now. I have tried countless attempts and It suddenly occurred to me, with the help of my partner and my writing group that I have to take the skeleton of what I do know about the story and keep it in the background to completely rewrite my story from scratch.

This realisation is a revelation and something so freeing that when I pulled out the old brown paper and colour markers I knew once I had finished laying everything out and putting the past to the side [or hopefully in a cardboard box for the garage] I could look at my baby with new eyes when I was ready and begin something fresh with the characters I loved so very much.

I did this by mind mapping. I put the title in the middle, then the characters names on either side. Also in the middle I put the links between the two. Such as, the car accident, the jetty scene and the rehabilitation clinic that they both go too. For a novel this complex, that deals with parallel universes and sci-fi & paranormal themes it is important for me to get the basics down so I know where to go with it.

The outcome of 20 minutes was an achievement I have been striving for and failing to do for three years. Here is my mind map, where events over the four parts of the book I have written so far for the novel are dot pointed. It surprised me that there was so little when it came to actual plot points, but I know I will fill them in and continue the journey of writing once I begin.

For now it is enough to know I have made progress.

Home Made Cooking:

Tonight I decided to make good old Potato Bake. I used a sachet of potatoes bake sauce [Any brand will do] and then I followed the basic recipe for potato bake. Only I used onion and diced bacon as well in the middle of the potatoes and the sauce to give it some extra flavour. I topped it with tasty cheese and yum yum Iooks tasty doesn’t it.

You could alternatively use this recipe: http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Easy-Potato-Bake-L160.html

Crafting:

I have been taking a somewhat break from actual crafting itself and have spent most of today waiting on my favorite youtube channels to submit more videos [thus procrastinating] however early morning [like 3 am] I finished a layout with a photo I took at random and I am pretty happy with it. I think I ruined it with the arrow stamps, but it was an experimentation layout with masking tape and some form of crackle pain oh and the messy freaking embossing powder. [NEVER AGAIN]