Filking, Dreaming, Writing, Arting #Snowflake Challenge

Challenge #1

In your own space, update your fandom information!

Fannishly, I guess I'm primarily a filker, though I love so many stories in print and other media.  I've been filking since my very first convention, Windycon One or Two, and that led to so many wonderful things in my life.  I got to play an autoharp there, which prompted my wonderful siblings to convince my father to buy me one, and that has led to so much of the joy in my life.  The music was a solace through college, where I was very much a misfit, and a joy at nearly every convention I've attended over the years. 

I write songs too, though I'm not as prolific as some of my filker friends.  Filk is what led me to learn about and try FAWM, which is February Album-Writing Month.  The challenge is to write at least 14 songs in the month of February--that is, enough for an album.  The first time I joined, I got a song or two, and counted it a good effort, since that was more songs than I'd have written otherwise.  One of the premises of FAWM is that practicing a thing makes you better at it.  So far, that has proved to be accurate, since every year I've written more songs in February than the previous year.  Last year I got more than 30!  (I'm still astonished).  I spent months getting to really know the best songs I wrote then, so I'm not aiming to keep up the increase in quantity this year.  Instead I'm hoping to increase quality and to also manage to keep up writing at least a little fiction on a daily or almost daily basis.

Writing.  I write fiction too, though not as prolifically as I want to be doing.  Some of that is the emotional and physical chaos.  I'm (still) working on getting my bedroom renovated so I can buy a new bed, and there are still things I haven't found after repeatedly having to hurry to move stuff out of the way of things like roof leaks so they wouldn't be damaged, or out of rooms that had to be emptied and repaired because of those leaks  Writing takes mental bandwidth, so all the things that steal that bandwidth slow me down.

Art.  I paint and do fabric arts.  The fabric arts I love the most are time-intensive, sewing lovely things by hand.  A lot of them owe a lot to crazy-quilt, bringing diverse fabrics and colors and threads together to repair a thing or make something new.  i do some machine sewing too, but the chaos in the house has not been helpful for that either.  The hand sewing is also a meditation for me, sometimes a prayer for the world, that all of the diverse people and beings of this world can come together harmoniously and in beauty.

This started out as a dress.  Initially I repaired the top part with some of the dark blue flowers you see here, but eventually that didn't hold and I turned it into an altar cloth.  I am slowly lining the last unlined bits, and hope one day to have reinforced the fragile initial fabric enough that it won't need any new repairs.

This is a painting I did of a frog leaping into the sky.  I took the picture with the paintbrush on it, and decided I liked the whimsy of having it look like the frog is grabbing it.  The painting is acrylics on an 8 inch square canvass.

So, that's a little about me and my creative life.  It's that openness to creativity, both making your own and celebrating what others make, that drew me to and keeps me in fandom, I think.  Nobody here tells me it's a waste of time to sing a song, read a book, or sew flowers and butterflies on something old.

Eat Less, Create More #Snowflake Challenge

Challenge #2

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

First, I am very much a fan of making my goals "most days" instead of every day. That way, one day missed doesn't make me feel like I've already failed at a goal, and thus I'm

So, as I said, I am doing January Practice Month, which is a less formal precursor to FAWM. The goal is to practice some music every day (or most days) in January, to get the music-oriented part of the brain moving and the physical skills in better shape to support writing lots of songs the next month.

I'm definitely doing FAWM. FAWM is February Album Practice Month, and the goal is to write 14 songs (which is enough for an album) in the month of February. One of the guiding principles of FAWM is that you get better at things if you practice doing them, and songwriting is worth practicing. Another is community--it's a fun and supportive "place" to be. The first year I joined, I got only a couple of songs and counted it a win because I knew without it I wouldn't have gotten any songs at all that month. Every year since then I've written more songs than the last year, with more than 30 (!) last year.

This year I'm not going to try to increase the song output, though if it happens I won't complain. But last year I had too good songs to learn (in terms of being able to perform them reasonably well) right away and a few songs I still love, and I'm happy with that. This year my goals are to keep on writing fiction while songwriting, and to have a higher percentage of songs I love. If anyone wants to join us, it's at FAWM.org, and the site opens for people to make preparations tomorrow.

And maybe I should actually make an album!

I need to get my bedroom finished so I can get a comfortable bed and stop sleeping in the same room I do music and writing in. That will at least mean I'm sleeping better and I have hopes that creating more of a work and sleep separation will help me to get more done. The walls and ceiling are at least repaired, though not perfectly, and painting has started.

I want to post more on Patreon. If I can get more regular at posting there, so I feel less imposter syndrome, I would like to get more patrons too.

I want to get a sewing area set up (for the sewing machine, the hand-sewing can be done anywhere) and a painting/crafting area too. Eventually.

And there's more too. I really do seem to want to do all the things, don't I? Or at least a lot of them. So I'll add resting enough and eating healthy and being kind to myself.