"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art - write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." ~Neil Gaiman

The Challenge:
Create one new thing every day in 2011.
The Rules: 10 "freebie" days are allowed, but not encouraged.
The Proof: Weekly updates accounting for each day.
LET'S MAKE SOME ART!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Days Twenty Six to Thirty One: Cats in Hats and Keys in Locks

I can't believe January is already over! That means I'm already approximately 1/12 of the way through this project. Whoa.

Day 26: I hope this isn't cheating (I don't think it is), but sometimes I have to create things for work: bookmarks, posters, postcards, etc. to publicize events at the library. So today I made a postcard for the upcoming Dr. Seuss birthday party we're having. I consider it creation because I had to format it, pick fonts and colors, find the clipart and position it, etc.



And since it's kind of small, the Lorax thought bubble reads: "Whatsits and stories, games, crafts, and rhymes. That sounds like the hip-hip-hoorayest of times!"

Day 27: I decided to make myself a business card. Not a super-official one with my real job title. Not for "networking" and "getting ahead in the library world." One for me, with just my basic contact information. Below you'll see the front and the back.

Front



So let me guess what you're thinking. "Doorkeeper?" It may make a tiny bit more sense in the light of Day 29, but basically I'm working on this story that involves a house that exists between all worlds, and someone who has to stay there forever to guard it. A doorkeeper.

Back



I blurred out the phone number because this is the internet, after all. And besides, anyone who reads this likely already knows it.

Day 28: In about a week and a half I'm supposed to teach about forty middle schoolers how to write concrete poetry, which is pretty bad since I'm horrible at it myself. I'm supposed to come up with several examples before then, so these were some attempts (mostly failures) at it. If you're unfamiliar, concrete poems use descriptive lines to actually form the shape of the thing they're writing about. You can find a great example HERE.

These are my attempts:



My two mistakes: (1) you're not supposed to draw lines around them. The shape should be apparent without lines. (2) I should use full sentences, not descriptive phrases. So the mouse head one, while it does form the picture, isn't really a poem. Probably the closest to a real concrete poem is the mushroom one, because it would still have that shape even after I took the lines away, and I used full sentences.

Day 29: I worked on the story I mentioned earlier, the one about the doorkeeper. Here's a sample paragraph:

Later she would wonder if it could have been any key—her car key, the key to her father’s briefcase, those little metal L-shape “keys” for the ineffectual locks on the old doorknobs they had on their bedroom doors. But as it was, this one did the trick. She held it above the keyhole on the business card, feeling utterly foolish as she did so. But when she lowered it, the key slid into the hole—a real keyhole—and turned easily in the lock, and before she knew it there was a large rectangle cut out of the space of her bedroom, golden lamplight spilling in from the other side.

“Come in,” said a voice, the stranger’s voice.

And so she did.


Day 30: I found some old metallic colored pencils and drew this rose and wrote out the quote.



Day 31: It's self portrait time! I decided to chronicle how I look right now from three different angles. I didn't allow myself to change anything: no brushing my hair, changing clothes, putting on makeup. No using the computer's photo after effects to try to airbrush out that fat under my chin. This is what I look like right now. That said, after taking the original series of pictures, I did have some fun with the photo FX.

Me Times Three (in original, dream, Ravenclaw, dark, and light modes)











And after posting that many pictures of myself, I now feel like a narcissistic jerk. :-) Oh well. On that note, I shall leave you. Happy (almost) February!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Days Eighteen to Twenty Five: Bits and Bobs

Whew! It's been a little while since the last update. I've been keeping up faithfully with my good madness, though some days have had better results than others. (For example, today's is pretty weak. Sorry... it was a long day!) So let's dive right in.

Day 18: When I was at work supposedly working, I was actually on the computer writing poetry. Oh well. The warmer sunshiney days inspired this poem:

When warm air coaxes the wet of spring
out of the frost of evening
the harsh pale chill that has embraced us
melts away.

Transition like a gradual ache-
It's just enough, too much to take,
when, just like that, the seasons change and darkness
lifts away.

Shoots as fragile as a thread
push their way up through the dirt and dead,
reach for a sun impossibly far-
so far away.

They feel the tug and press toward the sky.
If they can do it, then why can't I?
I'll shed my shadows like a skin, press on and
find a way.


Day 19: The video explains it all...



Day 20: I invented an alphabet. Here are some pictures.





Now, when Tolkien did it, he picked symbols that were all pretty and flowy and looked nice. Some of mine look kind of wonky. Rather than doing a straight A = this, B = this, kind of alphabet, I went by phonetic sounds, which means I also have individual symbols for "th", "ch", "ph", etc. though I never remember to use them. Also, I used Tolkien's vowel symbols and his rule (in the Sindarin dialect of elvish, at least... Quenya is different) about putting the vowel over the consonant it precedes, unless there is no consonant after it, in which case you put it over a stem. This is pretty boring, so if I haven't scared you away by now, feel free to skip to the next one.

Day 21: I went to another graveyard, this time with my friend Mandy, and tried my hand at some artsy photographs. Here are a few of my favorites...







Day 22: We celebrated Zach's 26th birthday belatedly (his birthday is the 18th) when he and Laura were in town this weekend, so I made him a homemade card.



Day 23: I wrote the following poem. A few days earlier at work I had just helped over thirty middle schoolers write limericks for this after school program we do at the library, so I was in a very rhyming mood.

Some days it’s a chore, it’s a snore, it’s an absolute bore
But some days it’s all more, more, more.
I can’t moderate, deliberate, anticipate.
I always feel like I’m too late. I cannot wait. I must abate.

Some days it’s tragic, a drug-addict’s habit,
But other day’s it’s magic, automatic, ecstatic.
I know I should be disciplined, easing in, listening
to all the greats who insist haste won’t win any long-term race.

This flip-flop back and forth, fall-off-then-back-on-the-horse like it’s just a matter of course
It’s wearing me bone thin, I’m all up-turned chin and Cheshire cat grin, lying to myself that of course I’m gonna win
But the lies we try to apply to our lives won’t abide. They crumble and I stumble to hide.
The lies we tell ourselves, that one day I’m gonna see myself, my own book up on a shelf…
pitiful.

So some days it’s a blessing, the best thing. Some days it’s window-dressing.
It’s a cover for the other more nefarious hopes I harbor.
It’s something to blame, a game, a crying shame. A way people might know my name.
It’s the card I play to say I’m not okay with the dismal every-day, this job with low pay and no challenges per se, this life with its future stretching out, each day the same, all the way from present day to the stone that marks my grave.
I’m not okay, and so I say, “This isn’t it for me. This is what I do now, not what I want to be.” And I have this tucked away in a back pocket, worn thin with all the wear of taking it out to stare. But hope is just ambition that’s not going anywhere.

Some days it’s a lie, it’s a big don’t-know-why, it’s a shrug and a frown, an “at least I try.”
Other days it’s just me at a desk and the rest just sort of happens.
Those are the best days, lost in a daze, this world a haze, and something other, something more taking over and setting my mind ablaze.

I just pray today might be that kind of day.


Day 24: I really love doing silhouette art (probably because it feels like cheating). You can draw something in pencil, cut out around it, then erase the pencil marks and it looks like they were never there. I've been wanting to challenge myself recently to try to get better at cutting "freestyle," so I decided to do some silhouette art in reverse. Instead of cutting out a shape I wanted to use, I would cut the shape into the paper. Does that make any sense? Basically, the negative space would create the picture. This is a lot harder because if you screw up, you're stuck with it. I did the fairy you see below, and I did mess up a little (proportions are off, the wings are bigger than I wanted, etc.), but I'm gradually getting better at it. The black you see is my T-shirt behind the paper.



Day 25: Today's my cop-out day. The dermatologist cut a cyst off of my hand on Monday, and I have to keep a bandaid on it for the next week or so, but all the ones we have in the house are plain. So I attacked it with several sharpies and came up with this:



And because that didn't really feel like artistic achievement, I also wrote this haiku:

I am so weary.
The moon's wide eye in the sky
stays open. Mine close.


More to come. Bye for now!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Days Thirteen to Seventeen: Ice, Etcetera

Day 13: Last week we had a major winter storm here in NC, which made life interesting. This meant lots of pretty snow (at first), followed by a sheet of ice on top of all that snow that made everything glisten - and many a car drive off the road. Around this time, when remarking to a friend how some snow-covered bushes looked like iced cinnamon buns, I had the duh moment of realizing exactly where those terms "icing" and "frosting" come from.

Once things finally started to warm up, there was an interesting phenomenon that happened where the snow beneath would melt faster than the outer "shell" of ice. This led to some beautiful images, one of which I captured as my good madness for the day:



Day 14: In my junk drawer I have a collection of greeting cards I buy and save for the right occasions throughout the year. It always happens; I'm looking for a card for a friend's birthday and find one that would be perfect for my brother. Or I find a truly fantastic wedding card, but no one I know is getting married anytime soon. So what I do is just go ahead and buy them and tuck them away until I have a use for them. Well, the other day I got a package in the mail in a small box that I noticed was just the right size for all but the most abnormally-shaped or over-sized of cards, neither of which I have right now. So, using the materials on hand (in this case, three bottles of nail polish I had intended to use at Christmas but never got around to), I painted it to look like this:







Day 15: Today I wrote 3 and a half more pages on the hand-written story I started last week. I know I said I wouldn't give away any of the plot since I intend to use it for something later this year, but here's a sentence to hopefully pique your interest:



Day 16: The Golden Globes, an awards ceremony for achievements in television and film, was on TV tonight. I watched the red carpet and the ceremony. This got me thinking about awards ceremonies in general, and how our society seems to attach a lot of value and significance to the things that entertain us, but how some of the other vital professions go sadly overlooked. I wrote about it on my other blog and cross-posted it on facebook, and you can check it out HERE.

But that's not really my good madness! Inspired by this notion that more people deserve to be recognized than just celebrities, I came up with a prototype for my own award, the "You Award." (A little cheesy, I know... but it was late at night.) Anyway, I didn't get to make a proper award, but below you'll see the drawing and cardboard version. I was going to make it gold and shiny with my gold leaf pen, but that has apparently dried out, so for now it's just cardboard.



Day 17: With it being Martin Luther King, Jr. day, I wanted to do something that fit with the spirit of the day. So I went looking for quotes from MLK thinking I'd be inspired from there. There were many about changing the world, about dreams and hope, about human kindness and dignity. So many wonderful words and ideas. But then I happened upon one that seemed a little different than the others, and reminded me of a paper I wrote a long time ago at college about Plato and the Scottish author George MacDonald. I won't bore you with the details of the paper, except to say that both those authors had written allegories all about what this statement from Martin Luther King, Jr. perfectly sums up: "Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see."

So, I was thinking of this quote and of shadows when I picked up some charcoal to sketch. The picture I came up with doesn't have anything to do with what the quote was about, but oh well.



Onward and upward, my good friends...

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Days Nine to Twelve: Mostly Paper

These last few days have been mostly paper-related projects.

Day Nine: My friend Melissa is very excited about the likelihood we may be roommates in an apartment sometime later this year, so she has already started furniture (window) shopping online. Inspired by this, I drew the following picture of a couch:



(And don't ask me what was up with that ugly blanket on the corner, because I really have no idea. It just sort of appeared there, and I was like, Ugh.)

Day Ten: My first day taking an online course. As a result, I'll be closing my door every Monday evening to be able to focus better on the discussions/assignments on the computer. So I made this little door hanger to remind my family what's going on:



Day Eleven: I wrote about two pages of a story about time travel. Without giving away too much plot, here's an excerpt. It's meant to be sort of an introductory quote before the events of my story actually take place:

You slither backwards out of Time like you’re shedding a skin. It takes concentration, and a certain “slipperiness”; it always helps if you’re the kind of person who often goes unnoticed or overlooked. A warning though: it gives you a killer headache. Your mind might be able to easily handle the transition into timelessness, but the body is tightly linked with Time and is most affected when it pulls free. Unfortunately, in a timeless state, normal concrete realities like Tylenol aren’t really an option. Suck it up and do what you need to do in that place beyond Time, then get the heck out of there. No living being should dwell there beyond what is necessary.

Coming back is always a little harder. Time is a force; like gravity, it tugs. And like gravity, it can have painful after-effects. The movement back into time is less a slither and more a leap. The willed effort of the mind, thoughts in increments, narrative flow, is what determines whether that leap is off of a cliff or a step-stool. The weaker-minded often don’t manage the dismount; psychiatric wards are full of them, those sound in body but possessing minds flattened or splintered to shards by the descent. Those with disciplined thoughts fare better, but there is still a danger. The whole bodily system is weakened; injury and infection are common in those first days back when the body is still readjusting itself.

It’s a dangerous practice and best done only out of dire necessity. Those who value health and long life would do best to avoid it entirely.


Day Twelve: More writing, but on a different story, and hand-written this time. I covered eight pages writing with my quill pen! I'm not giving away too many details on this one because I may end up using a revised version of it for my 13 Days of Halloween later this year...



So that's it for now. I promise to get out of my paper rut soon.

Until next time...

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Days Five to Eight: Humming, Hands, and a Hauntings

It’s been quite the busy week, with friends in from out of town, homecoming at my former high school, work, and just general craziness. Despite all this, I’ve still managed to keep up with my daily good madness.

Day 5 = I wrote a melody for a song. Okay, in all fairness there wasn’t much writing involved. On the drive home from work I started thinking about our ghost hunting adventures the other night and I began to hum. When I got home I rushed to my computer, humming all the while, and recorded the melody. So coming up with this melody (or “finding” it more like) was my good madness for the day.

Day 6 = Many distractions today, so I didn’t get to invest a lot of time. Instead I did a quick ink drawing of my hand, which you can see here:



Day 7 = I went back and listened to the melody I had written, and I wrote words to go with it based on our adventuring on Monday and Thursday night. I’ll write the words below…

There is something out there in the night
(Repeat Twice)
And it’s watching watching watching us
And it’s watching watching us

There are eyes that glow in the dark of the trees
(Repeat Twice)
And they’re watching watching watching us
And they’re watching watching us

There’s a figure hovering over our beds
(Repeat Twice)
And it’s watching watching watching us
And it’s watching watching us.

There’s a voice that speaks in the void of our dreams
(Repeat )
And the thing that speaks in the void of our dreams
Is watching watching watching us
And it’s watching watching us

One day we’ll be buried down deep in our graves
(Repeat)
And the thing that’s been with us for all of our days
Will be watching watching watching still
And I think it may even smile.

Day 8 = I took the song I’d written on Days 5 and 7 and edited together footage from some of our adventuring to make this video:

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Days Three and Four: Ghostly Verses and Fabulous Fungi

Yesterday, January 3rd, I went ghost hunting with three other brave souls who shall remain anonymous, but whose names rhyme with Blehrekah, Kalissa, and Fray-chel.

So me, Kali, Bleh, and Fray had quite the adventure... which, really, deserves a far lengthier explanation some other time to properly do it justice. But in honor of our ghoulish expedition, I wrote the following poem/chant:

Once, under moon and starry light,
Here by your graves in dark of night
We call to you, phantoms who linger near:
Come and meet us here.

Twice, as the shadows press closer around,
Here, where your bones rest under the ground,
We call to you, spirits who linger near:
Come and meet us here.

Thrice, in this place cold and black as death,
We of life and flesh and breath
Call to you, phantoms who linger near:
Come and meet us here.


On a less creepy note, here is today's creative effort. Rather than being a productive member of society at work today, I looked up some origami techniques online and decided to make these little origami mushrooms.

Here is the first:



And here's the second. I made him with scrap paper, so that's why there's a weird pattern on the bottom part:



You can't see much of the folding on the front:



But it's more evident on the back:



So there you go. Here's to crazy fun times with good friends. Here's to sneaking cute things into existence while on the clock. Here's to good madness!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Day Two: Silliness, and a Song

Today, I wrote a song.



Instruments used: wooden chopsticks, a plastic container, my hands (clapping), and my voice.

The lyrics are pretty basic, but sometimes hard to hear because I was having trouble with the microphone:

Feel the beat.
Feel the rhythm
Move your feet
Make some motion

Ooh....
Ooh....

(Repeat)

Da da da da da dum
Oooh....
(Repeat)

Dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance
Move move move move move move move move move
Sing sing sing sing sing sing sing sing sing
You're alive alive alive alive alive alive alive today
Rejoice in everything
Thing thing thing....
Rejoice in everything
Thing thing thing....

Feel the beat
Feel the rhythm
Move your feet
Make some motion

Oooh...
Oooh...

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Day One: Ground Rules, Intro Video, and a Haiku

Okay, guys. It's officially 2011. I have a lot of New Year's resolutions (most of which I probably won't keep), but here's my big one: create something new each day this year.

This comes in part from a quote I read on Neil Gaiman's blog. If you don't know who Neil Gaiman is, what rock have you been living under? He's an amazing author of books such as Neverwhere, American Gods, Coraline, Stardust, The Graveyard Book, not to mention the Sandman graphic novel series and multiple film scripts, short stories, poems, articles, etc. He even penned an episode for the upcoming season of Doctor Who! In short, this man is AMAZING.

This is what he wrote several years ago on New Year's Day on his blog: ‎

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art - write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

Beautiful, right? So that's where the name of this project comes from. "Good Madness" is a direct reference to that quote, and to the challenge it proposes to "make some art" and "surprise yourself."

The BIG goal of this project is to create at least 365 new things. Works of art, writing, music, theatre, film, WHATEVER. Things that didn't exist before this year. It can be anything, really: knit a scarf, write a haiku, edit together a short film, write a novel, take photographs, paint a picture, write a song, perform a mime. Whatever I can think of that's creative for that day.

I'm a realist, though, and I understand that there may be some days this year that are beyond my control. Days where I have other obligations (work, school, time with family or friends), days where I am exhausted or ill, or days when I am too busy and happily distracted that I forget about all this entirely (I'm thinking LeakyCon will be one of these!). That's okay. Life is unpredictable. I'd be a fool not to plan for such eventualities.

So here are some GROUND RULES:

(1) I'm giving myself 10 "freebie" days where I'm off the hook. The hope is to not use them. Like I said, the BIG goal is 365, but the REALISTIC goal is more like 355. Also, if I use all 10 days up by the middle of February, that's that. No more freebies. I'm sticking with the rule of 10, and I hope you'll hold me to it.

(2) Another thing: I promise to not get in a rut. For example, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is in November of each year, but I wouldn't necessarily count each day of NaNoWriMo writing for this project. I promise to try to mix it up, to do different kinds of art, to make life more interesting than that.

(3) That said, not every art project can be completed in a day. Some days the "creation" I count will be a part of a whole: a sleeve of the sweater I'm knitting, a chapter in the novel I'm writing, a rough version of a song I may go back and rewrite later. That's the thing about art, too. Sometimes it takes a while to grow.

(4) I may not update every day. Sometimes schedules don't allow for that. But I will make updates on this blog (and sometimes on my YouTube channel, which I'll cross-post here) at least once a week. These updates will have to account for every day since the last update, unless I'm using a "freebie." So for example, I'm posting this on Saturday January 1, 2011. If I don't post again until Wednesday, I'll have to include my creations for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday.

(5) Updates: whenever possible, I will show you the actual finished product for what I've created. I may post videos or pictures of the object in question, or sometimes a post will be the creation itself, like a poem or photograph or excerpt of a longer piece. There may be some instances where I simply tell you about what I've created, but in the interest of transparency and keeping things honest, I'll try to put the emphasis on SHOW, not TELL.

There may be more rules that occur to me, in which case I will add them in later. For now, here are two things I created: a video summarizing some of what I've just explained, and a celebratory haiku.



Winter solstice gone,
We're halfway out of the dark.
Greet the year with hope.