Just Keep Writing (or Painting) (or Playing) (or Whatever)

If you've been checking out my word count on the left hand side (and why would you?) you would have seen that my count is steadily going up, up, up. I'm almost halfway through NaNoWriMo, and I'm buzzing along, working on the novel almost every single day.

But I have a friend who is not so lucky. She's a painter, but she has not painted anything in months. This week, trying to put a fire under her, I told her we were going to eat lunch Friday, and if both of us paint on a given week, we go Dutch. If one paints and the other does not, the one who didn't paint pays for lunch. If neither of us paint, we don't get to go to lunch at all.

I had really hoped she would paint on Wednesday, her one day off this week… but she didn't. I haven't painted either, but I was hoping to paint my Christmas watercolor for my Christmas cards. I have to get it done VERY soon so that I can scan the artwork in, order cards on Vistaprint, and get them back in time to send out for Christmas.

I've also been diligently working on the costume for my friend's role in A Christmas Carol, and it should be finished this weekend. And I'm also probably going to hit 30,000 words on my novel by Saturday afternoon.

I'm no better than my poor non-painting friend, but we have an inherent difference, and it's one I've changed just recently: I am no longer willing to put off all the things I love so that I can finish all the mundane, boring have-tos of my life. I am putting my loves ahead of other crap.

My beleaguered friend is the opposite, finding all sorts of mundane crap to pile onto her work desk so that she never gets to paint the way she really wants to. So she's miserable.

Even as I keep sewing, and writing, and painting, I will keep working on my friend. And one of these days, very soon, we'll go Dutch. I can't wait until that happens!

To Make or Not to Make

It can't just be me. 

Surely other people find that DOING something productive can also be a load of fun, and sitting around doing nothing is a form of purgatory, at the very least, if not sheer hell. 

I've worked two straight FULL days on a single project, and I'm taking off in an hour to begin another full day, but I have loved pretty much every waking moment of it. Had I chosen to blow it all off and spend three full days in my pajamas catching up on all the recorded shows I have waiting for me, I would not have been half so happy. 

So, am I right? Or am I alone in this? I start my week of hardly any obligations tomorrow, but I have plans for it--and they don't involve pajamas and television watching. I have things to sew, things to paint, things to write and things to rewrite. 

Maybe it's just that I'm a "maker," as Orson Scott Card describes in his series starting with Seventh Son, a fascinating mytho-American set of novels. Maybe I was born to create, and when I'm not creating, not "making," I'm not happy. Even when I was a child, I was easily bored, but instead of asking the typical, "What can I DO?" to my mother, I always asked "What can I make?"

It was the right question for me. And I am salivating my creative prospects this week. 

What about you? Are you, too, a maker? Or are pajamas and boob tube watching your MO for any given Sunday?

Made by Hand

Ever notice how a gift made with love and one's own hands means more than one purchased in a store? (Don't even get me started on gift cards.)

For instance, my children's great grandmother sent a bunch of knitted baby afghans for them when they were little, and while pretty much all of the other baby stuff has now been donated, I still have these blankets, and I will likely give them to my kids when they have children of their own. I save cards with handwritten notes in them, even if the notes aren't that brilliant, because the writing is in my friend's or sister's or hubby's hand.

Elementary school teachers understand this, too, and the hand-crafted macaroni gifts my kids bring home are treasured even after they start to lose their macaroni. I know the brushstrokes on that painting are my kids' brushstrokes, and that alone makes the gift worth keeping.

With that in mind, and inspired by my fellow blogger Crafty Green Poet, I'm offering the first five commenters on this blog something handmade by me. Yes, I am currently stuck in a hotel, but once I am safely tucked away in my own home, I'll get to crafting for you, my select five readers/commenters. All I ask is that you offer the same on your own blog--or at least make something of your own for five people, even if you don't have a blog--and that you give the handmade gifts out before the end of the year.

You can't be sure what you will get. Will it be a bright, framed watercolor of a fairy? A dried flower painting? A recording of me on the piano? A pastel drawing of orbs in space? A poem written just for you in calligraphy? Fresh-baked banana bread or chocolate chip cookies? Feel free to name some preferences, and, even better, tell me what you plan to make by hand.

And if you turn out to be a late commenter, just make your post count, and I might still send you something!