Thoughts on a happy pomelo, Hugh MacLeod and Joseph Brodsky

1. I've drawn 50 stories in comic form already. Hurray!

2. Drew faces on a pomelo my boss gave me.  At least I have something to look at that makes me happy at work :)

3. I find it helpful to revolve my comics around a "theme". For today, I chose about becoming fit. It's easier to create a narratice about that.

4. I thought about what Joseph Brodsky wrote on "negativity" today. Choose to re-echo thoughts worth sharing.

5. It's tough to show up and sit down. Sometimes I want to sleep instead. But I remember the years I've told myself "i'll do this tomorrow"

6. Being anonymous is a blessing.

7. So my article.... was sent to more than 1,100,000 people. Oh great. Just great. Now it'll meet people who'll rip it to shreds  and tell me how immature it is ;D

8. I like reading Hugh MacLeod's books. Yep, gotta make my own Evil Plan.

9. "Some people will love or hate your Evil Plan. Some will love and be inspired by it. Some will hate and project their insecurities and inadequacies to it." ~ Evil Plan by Hugh MacLeod.

10. I've been sending fan letters, and it feels great to receive a reply! :)

Passion, success and creativity is subjective

1. Watched a couple of Ted talks today. Picked up some great insights!

2. While I was browsing 9gag, this thought entered my head: "it's easier mind others' business, to waste our time following the same routines, to hate and criticize rather doing something different and work that matters. "

3. So the sequel to Your Eyes on Me just flashed through my head while I was walking around the house. It was like watching a movie! 

4. It's a holiday on Thursday and Friday!

5. "Passion is not a plan or a job. It's a feeling. And feelings change."~Terri Trespicio

6. "Passion is the full force of the attention and energy you give to whatever is in fromt of you." ~ Terri Trespicio

7. Watched Terri Trespicio's Ted talk. It was all about passion. The topic was: stop searching for your passion. I just listened to her with an open mind. Had a couple of takeaways and realizations. Passion just got redefined. 

8. Passion is subjective. I guess a lot of things in life is subjective. Even success is subjective. One of our assistant regional director told us so. 

9. I'll adapt Trespicio's definition for Passion. It's the attention and energy I give to an activity. So right now, I can say that I'm passionate about making Ang Probinsyano recaps. I'm passionate about writing 10 ideas a day. I'm passionate about drawing comics. 

10. Let's redefine creativity too. I used to think it was this magical thingmajig that held the key to my problems. Turns out when you define something and stop focusing on it, things make sense. Since writing ideas for 8 months now, I've redefined creativity as an act of giving birth and nurturing ideas. It's also an act to solve problems with the ideas created and nurtured. Kinda sounds pragmatic, huh?

Analysis by Paralysis and my daily dispatch

1. Migraine knocked me out yesterday. I wasn't able to create my homework and my 10 daily comics. Goodbye to those lost panels... are they?

2. Today, I choose to show up. Why? Because it's one of my favorite mantras. "Show up!"

No matter how tiny or simple the project is, show up!

3. Today is my last day at graduate school. I actually finished second semester, despite wanting to give up 3 weeks earlier!

4. I crammed for a paper. Yep, I put if off for several weeks. I ignored it. Then the great day arrived when I woke up at 4am to do it. Still, I crammed from 4-6am. I was able to finish the paper from 6:45-7:40 am. Ohohoho!

5. I observed a couple of things while making the paper: I hesitated to encode anything because I was reading a lot of materials at the same time (8). I was confused. Didn't know where and how to extracr what I needed. That made me realize that I suck at multi-tasking. It's not my strength at all.

6. Number 5 is applicable to my side projects. I wasn't able to focus at class because I was bombarded with potential ideas for another story. It's an ff7 fiction (yep). "What if this happened, or what if the story went like this. Blah blah blah" . I wrote everything down on my jot down notebook. I'm working on one ff8 fiction, with a sequel to follow. While I did plan to write an ff7 fic, this second idea came like a storm. Whoooooa!

7. So I conducted my very first Idea Sex. Weird terminology. Learned it from James Altucher. But the essential idea is this : combine 2 different ideas to get new brand ideas. So I gave it a spin, and this was my output!

8. Since writing my morning pages, my penmanship has deteriorated. But I was able to get a neat idea! What if cats had a weapon attached to their tails?

So I drew it in while I was listening to my classmate's group report. It's... fugly. Ugly, I mean. Looks horrible, I know.

9. So I went viral. I knew my article was bound to meet someone who'd disagree with it. It finally did! And the person had the time and effort to write a lengthy piece on it, like wow!

10. "Nothing was going to change in my life unless I made it so" ~Nicolas Cole

Cole is one of the people I admire. I'm glad I discovered him and his life story. It's inspiring, especially the transformations he'd been through.

I like his writing style. I never get bored of it. Though some people think otherwise. When I learned he also dealt with people who outright told him he shouldn't write for "xxxx" reason, I felt some sort of camaraderie.

11. I discovered an enchanting webcomic at webtoons!

Siren's Lament and When Tangents Meet by instamiso

I love how music was incorporated into these webtoons. It makes the reading experience rich one!

But what particularly struck me when she revealed how she created When Tangents Meet, and what she had to deal with.

Another inspiration.

I suddenly felt a stir within me. To create a webtoon. Ah. Maybe. After I finish the fics. I promised myself I'd finish a project. YEOM is doing quite well.

Seth Godin told me to SUSDA______

In his blog, Seth Godin writes about showing up, sitting down and (SUSDA) working or painting or *insert whatever activity".

In his book, "show your work!", Austin Kleon writes how its improtant to have a daily dispatch.

For Godin, the act of doing something is more important than the output.

For 2 days, I've drawn 22 single-panelled comics. It's the largest amount I've done since 2012. While I know it's very simple (bordering to ugly for some people), it's the very same reason why I keep the doing it.

It's too easy to make that it seems foolish not to do it.

Showing up everyday and sitting down on my chair to write and draw... it's a commitment, you know.

My endgame is to find my personal groove to create. And this commitment works for me! (Writing 10 ideas is a testament) i'm seeing results to meet my endgame.

My only challenge is whether I can make it sustainable... and the answer lies in the followimg days.

Tomorrow's another day. Another batch of comics and ideas about to be born.

Show up!

***

1. My fiction's getting some nice reviews. To be honest, I was really concerned about receiving those. I read somewhere in the net that when you take your focus off the reviews and focus on creating the product, the reviews will come to you.

2. Chapters 8, 9, 10 and 12 are already drafted! I have 11 and the epilogue waiting to be done! Whew!

3. Wrote 60 ideas on 6 different topics today. I had 2 great ideas to implement! Unfortunately, due to my limited attention span, I choose to focus on 2-3 projects at a time. My hands are full.

4. Cut and froze some bananas. I have plans to make a banana-based ice cream. Yummy!

5. Discovered an excellent webcomic in webtoons! (Siren's Lament). I never thought you could mix music comics together at the same time. The effect is devastating that it took my breathe away!

6. Made a voodoo doll and sealed it with Mod Podge. It looks great! Looks like I still have the skills. Took me 20-25 minutes to make one :D

7. Devoured/browsed through different art of local artists here in Davao. I'm blown away at their output. It's simply amazing. Nothing beats the feeling when you see amazing art!

8. Discovered a potential not-so time consuming past time thanks to number 7. While I do want to act on it now, I prefer to unload/finish a project before I embark on another one.

9. Projects projects projects. Side-projects? Life is fun when you're creating something.

10. Had a good home-workout! Committed to do 8 reps of negative pull-ups. I'm looking forward for the day i'll be able to pull myself over the bar!

Stickmen comics and other projects

I started to create comics with cute little stick guys.

This is the first comic I made since... 2012? I can't remember. It's been quite awhile.

Just wanted to go directly to its essence- to tell a story and have fun. 

I didn't resort to my manga style. I doubt if I can replicate what I did 4 years ago. I've changed.

But stick people's good. It's decent and easy to draw. I don't have to stress and demand from myself that it needs to be perfect.

I DID struggle on what scenario I'd draw for these guys. If I applied my 10 ideas a day thing, this would be equivalent to getting a good mental workout. I'm forced to churn ideas for thesw little guys to act.

One of my plans right now, is to fill a notebook with stick guy comics. I have a lot of pages to fill, but targetting 10 per day is a good start. I was able to fill 3 notepads with ideas since July 2015. Thought it would be a fun idea to do with comics :D

Today's a local holiday here. But I went to work because... I was one of the unfortunate ones  (kidding). That was a blessing in disguise though. Enrolled myself in a watercolor workshop with 20 other people. I think it's a perfect idea to get out of my hobbit hole. It was great meeting the owner of the shop too! I was like "whoa, I admire this person! I want to be like her one day".

Got a bunch of ideas while I had lunch too! Couldn't resist planning the initial steps for another project. I have one project that's about to end, and another that I think will last for another 2-3 months. The second one's difficult to maintain, but there are benefits to it!

 Overall, those two projects have surprised me, especially the first one.

I can actually commit and be consistent to a project once I see how it will end.

This new project isn't that time consuming. Once I've planned its contents, all I need to do is write it and I'm ready to ship it to the world! Hurrah!

I'm also thinking of what to do with this blog. I like posting here. Gives me a tangible body of work to show that "hey, I blog". It's just that... I'm not sure what the focus is. My other blog has a clear cut focus- a written documentation of a tv series.

This one's a repository of images, thoughts, essays and whatnot.

So while I finalize what to do with this one, I'd better take nap.