giant steps are what you take

A few days ago was the birthday of Syd Barrett, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd who ended up leaving regretfully early, and one of Jason's biggest inspirations. Jason would probably be holed up in his room all day, blasting old Pink Floyd and smoking up and painting. So in that vein, I decided to try listening to a bunch of Pink Floyd and writing RESET again. It, uh, still was not terribly successful.

In a way it's hard to get in the groove of writing RESET because of the concentration it takes to get into Jason's mindset--moreso than with other things because he's really dancing on an edge here and I need to know him well enough to decide when he's going to keep smiling and when he's going to snap and when he's going to cover it up again and when he's really going to break. And because, hell, do I really want to be in his head? This visual novel was largely born out of my worse moments and admittedly it does scare me a little to get too close to that.
I think this is why I need breaks from RESET sometimes. It's like how Neil Gaiman has said he enjoys writing horror short stories but couldn't write a horror novel because the mindset it takes to write horror is not a place he wants to be for all the time it takes to write a novel.

Anyway, listening to Pink Floyd is a nice easy route in to Jason's head, so... I'm trying. Yeah, I'm officially ready to get back into working on RESET.
(I've had Walking on the Moon stuck in my head all week though)

...which is actually lame timing since it's BCM beta time (YAY YAY YAY). Oh well, since when has time been my friend? But so long as I'm in the right mindset, maybe I'll work on art when I get tired of sitting front of the computer. :D Yay traditional art. Digital art may be so much more flexible, but I just love sitting down with a sketchbook and filling a page with ink.

So in case anyone didn't notice, the first month of 2012 is already a third gone. My winter break has gone by crazy fast this year, especially for being longer than usual. I think it has to do with falling into too much of a routine. I'm pretty much just where I should be with inkingitout... which is bad, because I'll be writing a lot less once classes start. Ah well.

Right, so we're already distinctly past the whole "new year!!1" mark. I would have liked to do some reminiscing on 2011 and some drawing of conclusions and observation of trends, but it's feeling a bit late for that now. I did, however, make three resolutions:
Do something creative everyday this year ie writing, drawing, crafting... essentially, everyday I want to turn a thought into a product at least once. I tried this a few years ago and it went kind of well for a while but then fizzled out, so I'm going to try to keep it going longer this time.
Spend less time doing nothing i.e. refreshing the same web pages over and over again, looking for something to distract myself with, waiting for things that aren't happenng...
Make my own lunch more often instead of eating more expensive, less healthy campus food.

Oh hey, remember that writing meme? Uh, yeah, I'll get back to it eventually. But along the lines of my January introspection I think I'll pause to consider a deeper question about my writing habits, because it's been on my mind.

why do I write?
I write because it makes me happy, and maybe other people too.
Because there are all these ideas that float around in my head and I can't get any peace of mind unless I put them down on paper.
Because I love each and every one of those little ideas, but my memory doesn't have enough room for them all, and I want to be able to see my ideas again later.
There's something simply amazing about being able to bring something into existence, just that process of taking something from an idea in your head into a tangible thing. There's intrinsically something about that process that makes me happy and relaxes me. And for me, it really is much, much more about the process than the result. I'm more of a starter than a finisher.
Sometimes when I'm writing it occurs to me that I'm writing the same damn thing that somebody else wrote before, or that whatever I'm writing is just pointless and I'm not actually expressing anything, and that frustrates me. And then I step back and realize, who cares? I'm writing this because I want to; I don't need any more reason than that. And if I realize that I don't want to then I don't have to.
But there's something to those worries too--I don't only write because I enjoy the process. Being able to share something I've written for someone else's enjoyment is awesome. Sometimes I can just share something I've written for myself and somebody else might like it as is, which is cool. But sometimes I do try to write things as well as I possibly can, and learn new ways to write better, for the sake of the other people who might read them. Sometimes the extra effort is worthwhile--not always, but sometimes.
And my reasons for writing versus my reasons for sharing my writing are two entirely different things. It took me a long time to realize that. Some things I write are stupid and awful and I'll never share them, but they're still fun to write. If I'm bothering to share my writing, I do like it to be something that I actually put effort into and tried to write well, and that I can see some kind of value in.
I suppose I do also try to improve my writing for myself, so that I can do my ideas justice. Overall, though, I'm not massively focused on growing as a writer. It's not something that I "take seriously," although to be honest I don't think life is something that I take seriously, anyway. It's important to me that I write because I'm a happier, healthier, less stressed person when I do, but it's not important to me how I write.