We are officially past the one-third mark (day 10 of a 30-day month). If you started on April first and have been able to work each day you'll now have at least ten entries.
Congratulations for making it this far.
If you haven't already started and still want to join in, dive right in because 20 days remain and you can get a lot of work accomplished in 20 days.
If you've been working right along now is the time to take a moment to look at your past pages and ask yourself a couple questions:
1. Am I staying consistent with my character? If not how can I fix this? Is there a time of day that's easier for me to get into character? If so make a conscious plan to work during that time each day.
2. Do I see changes that would be great to explore even though they depart from my original plan? If so, think about the impact they will have on your plan and make a conscious effort to embrace the changes if you think it's a good direction to go.
3. What difficulties are you encountering? These can be character problems or time management or media issues. Pinpoint what they are. Brainstorm some ideas on how to deal with them for the rest of the month.
4. Congratulate yourself for making it this far, even if you have missed a couple days. Now keep going.
A Bit About My Progress
My main obstacle this year has been a spring cold which turned into bronchitis. I'm finding it difficult to do some of the experimental work I'd hoped to achieve because I've been relying on my inhaler rather heavily—and my inhaler makes my hand shaky.
I'm enjoying what I'm doing while at the same time I know I have to push myself some more. And I'm also seeing how difficult it is for me to not explain things. My whole life is tied up in explanations—to teach, to write, to interact with people—and it's difficult to shed that behavior. We'll see what happens.
The 2014 Participants List Is Up
If you have been watching the blog you'll see that I'm starting to get the participants listed in the column to the right. Each participant's name is linked to the dedicated fake journal blog or Flickr site they are using.
If they are posting on their regular blog the link goes to the first post for IFJM 2014 and it's my hope they've indexed their entries well enough that you can find your way around.
If you've got 8 entries in your journal by now and are publicly posting send me such a link and I'll add you to the list. (Be patient if nothing goes up for a couple days as I'm not on the computer much right now. Both the real Roz and my character are trying to "rest.")
Check out the other participants' work and be sure to leave them some comments and encouragement.
Now get busy on your fake journal!
Posts
4 comments:
Roz, I too have been working through a nasty spring cold, and even passed out in the supermarket last Saturday. (Yes, the paramedics came). Evidently I should not take cough meds. LOL! I don't think I have bronchitis yet, but I've been there a few times before.
This has slowed my progress through my fake journal, which is disappointing since I really like what I'm doing this year. Let's hope we both recover quickly and get some energy back.
(Michelle, I clicked before checking for typos and evidently blogger doesn't let you go back and edit, so I deleted this message and am adding a corrected version—my typos just didn't make sense.Though I probably didn't get them all!)
Michelle I'm so sorry to hear you've got the spring crud too! It's miserable. In almost two weeks I've only been outside the house one time, and that was a huge mistake during which I hardly stopped coughing. Of course, after a bitter below zero temperature winter that went on and on, my getting sick coincides perfectly with 40 to 60 degree temps we're enjoying now! GRRRR. I'm watching spring from inside the house.
I'm glad your supermarket adventure didn't require a trip to the hospital. Take care!
And keep working in that journal. Since you've participated in the past you can draw on the experience of having worked through the process before to keep yourself going even in less than ideal circumstances.
And something else to consider—life always throws stuff at us that we have to deal with in some way. It often seems this happens tenfold when we embark on a creative project. We can use those moments not only to work on our determination, but also to find new ways to be kind to ourselves.
For instance if what we have planned is a daily sketchout for our character and that isn't possible we can rethink what is possible and accomplish that.
Because we have the commitment to finish the month out (and we are one third of the way there) it's actually easier to keep going with the project than to stop. We just might have to find new ways to make the project work in our circumstances.
Good luck with your project. Keep it up.
Roz
Hi Roz,
I joined this fake journal project two years ago and am on board for this year. I'm enjoying the "no explanation" theme; and as you've observed already, our lives often require or give the feeling that we need to explain ourselves. It's been freeing to focus on experiencing the present from the perspective of a fictional character.
Some questions I am asking myself:
Why am I writing more notes than sketches?
Part of that is what I am observing changes in seconds, but I still need to put in the time after the observation.
And like you, I am enjoying what I am doing but would like to push myself more.
Hope you are getting enough rest and feeling better.
I meant to also tell you how much I love this first glimpse of your fake journal. Super large, indeed!
And I emailed you the link for where I'm posting:)
Post a Comment