
PPBF: The Giant Seed

Where did Day Six go? It was stolen. Jeff Goins, aka Fagin, sent fellow 15HoGW challenge participants out to pick a pocket or two. Nothing new to me as a visual artist: learned by copying, at first unconsciously, then as my skills grew from the crayon stages I looked for great work to emulate. Finally in college a fellow student had copied my work, and it allowed me to believe I had arrived: I had skills and ideas worth emulating!
On to Day Seven: Goin’s advice is to make it ugly first because beauty comes from chaos. I get it. I had recently read the writing advice from Maureen Johnson: “Let me let you in on a little secret. When you are learning to write, you are going to suck. You are going to suck a lot. You’re just going to keep sucking for a while, and feel like you’re sucking, and actually that’s a sign that you’re completely on the right path. (…)” Read more (worth it).
Because of the raging local fire I witness beauty in the beast daily, and was inspired to create.
The break Jeff Goins gave us at the weekend really was a break.
So I messed up. Means I’m an eager participant right! Got my coffee, got writer’s ‘mojo’ and Eurocup eurythmia – no wonder I tripped!
Back from the break we are asked not to procrastinate but to prepare: ship and tweak. Send work out into the world, let the critique wash over and tweak and revise. Then ship it out again!
I’m there, I send out work to my online crtique group, just started a face-to-face crit-group in town (by the way ladies, the lightning we witnessed at the close last week may have caused the High Park fire, now covering 20,000 acres with one confirmed missing (more later)), and I also send work to Rate Your Story, for a free manuscript rating.
And I’ve been lucky with the opportunity to have published authors read a few pieces and share their advice. Recently I made an exchange: a logo design for a manuscript read-through by author Natasha Wing: her ‘on-the-side’ business venture: bumcicles
Then I tweak, revise and throw it out into the world again. Goins is right – I should ship it out next time – it has a more respectful ring to it! And without a real ship the bottle of champagne is mine!
“Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.” - Arnold Lobel
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