It pays to have creative friends...
Apr. 15th, 2003 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowYeah, C. made me icons because she is unbelievably talented and creative and will, someday, finish my gold belly dance costume. It's nice to have friends whose skills and talents outweigh mine to an astonishing degree. I mean, writers are a dime a dozen, and I tend to be more useful as an editor nowadays, and very few people call in a panic saying "I need 1000 words on Cicero or can you sum up California's educational legislation for the past three years in two paragraphs?" I, on the otherhand, frequently call C. to say, Help me, I have no idea how to put space between songs on this CD or how to make a label or an icon or a party invitation or a costume (not that I'd make a costume for myself even if I had the skill, it's such an exercise in frustration) and C. just replies, " No problem, just give me the specifics."
My other brilliantly artistic friend, Sh., recently sent me my Christmas present - a black, fringed Farscape pillow. She is a genius. I can't imagine making a pillow, let alone transferring images onto one. Sewing hooks onto my costumes and sewing my pointe shoes still results in my yelling and throwing something across the room, not to mention the cat's desire to participate in the fun and grab the thread in his pointy little teeth. Unfortunately, M. refuses to have the pillow in the living room, although in trade he agreed to move the foot high plastic Goku off the TV and into his bedroom, which was especially helpful as he kept toppling onto the floor and scaring cat 1 and cat 2.
In pursuit of my own creativity, I've been writing up a storm. I forgot what an unbelievable rush it is to be consumed by writing. I'm a professional writer and editor, but when it's a job, it's work. There are deadlines and word counts and repetition and yes, I really can reel off state and federal education code by bill number. I haven't been this prolific since I wrote my thesis, and believe me, after 120 pages, my committee was praying that I'd learn about brevity. I didn't ever think I'd want to write fanfic. It seemed like an exercise somehow, practice for the real shebang, but I've read so many stories that have the depth, the scope, the passion that is so lacking in many published novels that I realized it isn't practice writing, it's as authentic as any form. So I've been consumed by other people's characters - if they would just give me little plot advice I'd be grateful, but at this point words are enough - and I've found myself almost useless in real life, so overwhelmed by all the words that want to spill out!!
My other brilliantly artistic friend, Sh., recently sent me my Christmas present - a black, fringed Farscape pillow. She is a genius. I can't imagine making a pillow, let alone transferring images onto one. Sewing hooks onto my costumes and sewing my pointe shoes still results in my yelling and throwing something across the room, not to mention the cat's desire to participate in the fun and grab the thread in his pointy little teeth. Unfortunately, M. refuses to have the pillow in the living room, although in trade he agreed to move the foot high plastic Goku off the TV and into his bedroom, which was especially helpful as he kept toppling onto the floor and scaring cat 1 and cat 2.
In pursuit of my own creativity, I've been writing up a storm. I forgot what an unbelievable rush it is to be consumed by writing. I'm a professional writer and editor, but when it's a job, it's work. There are deadlines and word counts and repetition and yes, I really can reel off state and federal education code by bill number. I haven't been this prolific since I wrote my thesis, and believe me, after 120 pages, my committee was praying that I'd learn about brevity. I didn't ever think I'd want to write fanfic. It seemed like an exercise somehow, practice for the real shebang, but I've read so many stories that have the depth, the scope, the passion that is so lacking in many published novels that I realized it isn't practice writing, it's as authentic as any form. So I've been consumed by other people's characters - if they would just give me little plot advice I'd be grateful, but at this point words are enough - and I've found myself almost useless in real life, so overwhelmed by all the words that want to spill out!!
