[Risa's Scrapbook] Tales of the Infirm

by **Risa Moontide** on October 22nd, 2011, 7:31 pm

First off, I just wanted to say thanks Goss for those words. I let my insecurities lay bare in my scrapbook and you and Lisa and everyone really help me think realistically about them, focus correctly. Thanks guys. You all are great friends.

Now for my scrapbook post.
Immature Attitudes
For some reason, certain people believe their ailments make them popular. It often happens with pre-teens and the like, I'm sure I did it too at some point. They like to tell people that they have some illness or problem that is unique or special because it's SO DIFFERENT or unusual or magic! That or they take a normal ailment and just play it up so much like 'EEP I can't possibly watch that show with a spider in it because I'm SO arachnophobic!' It's not that they have the problem that bugs me, just that they play it up like it should be the center of attention.

It's childish. It's immature. It's a person who just wants to feel special for a moment, trying to grab attention instead of being realistic about something. If I put a TV show on a spider documentary because I love documentaries, ask me to change the channel. Don't storm off and lord the fact that you hate spiders over me. Don't whine to your boyfriend and then make him talk to me. Grow up.

I hate when people do this in general. It's annoying and extremely irritating. I'm a firm believe in the fact that people aren't as special as they think they are. We are all unique, bu that doesn't make us special. Probably my pessimism shining through, but that's how I feel. People need to grow up and realize that 'Hey, maybe everyone else has problems too. Maybe mine aren't so important that you should bow down to them.'

I know I push people's buttons sometimes IRL. I want to understand why people think they're special. So if they try to act like a kid IRL, I go out of my way to do something that will force them to question their own illness. I only do this after they act like kids, and it causes problems. But I'm not going to stop doing it, because hopefully on day it'll wake people up.

That's all I really had to say.

by **Bolden Denusk** on October 23rd, 2011, 5:24 pm

*pat pat* I understand sweety. When you're a young teen, you want recognition and attention for everything so you can feel important. Attention seeking behavior is normal in children. Should the Look At Me behaviors linger past 18, that's where interactions are difficult. The egocentric sentences like, "not that anyone will notice, but..." or "I'm so sick/in pain/(pretend)dying even though you probably hate me.." etc, are made to scream gimme attention!! If they must act like children, then treat them like the children they behave as. Ignore the eccentric Look at me stunts, meeting them with silence and a turned back. When the drama gimme attention behavior ceases, praise calmly and carry on with your life.

*hugs n hugs some more*
You're terrific Risa and I'm glad to count you as my friend. You have as much tolerance for juvenile drama bs as I do; none.

*offers coffee and pie* You rawk. 'nuff said.

by **Duality** on October 23rd, 2011, 9:05 pm

Haha, thanks Lisa. You are likewise a great friend whom I'm lucky to have. I guess I'd be a little more tolerant if the woman I mentioned in my scrap post wasn't in her mid-thirties XD

by **Cheshire** on October 24th, 2011, 4:48 pm

Hello Risa!

I just finished grading Haraza's solo hunting thread and I am 90% sure he is yours (if not smack me and I'll move this post to the rightful scrapbook!). First off, I loved the thread. Secondly, the whole topic of him and the girl who wanted but could not have reminded me of one of my favorite poems, "Hades' Shade" by Jon Orison. I have it in my scrapbook but I'll post it here as well. The entire solo just screamed this poem out to me.

Hades' Shade
By Jon Orison

I woke up with a feverish pitch piercing my hidden mind.
Sweat dripping in slow beads from my helpless fear,
Guarding my sorrow through a wind blown night,
I felt a knock at a door unused in years.
A fence of tears mounted a barricade around movement,
Held in position to remember her.
To touch her uneven eyes with no candle light,
A dark trek into an unforseen life,
No control and no sight,
Emotions played without ploys,
Only quiet tries,
Yelling whispers to the lonely night --- I love her.
Will she ever know?

Frozen souls become melting snow,
Riding down avenues with pictures of old beliefs.
People forgotten but still seen,
Killing love,
Killing everything!
Unholy witness to a dying dream.
And me,
Along to hold the blame,
In a desert home left to feel her shame,
Old conversations chase her away.
The magical (four),
Out of (seven) he stays,
Holds her at present,
Not afraid to watch the young woman fade.
Wants her in elder years,
Wants her beyond the past,
Wants her to be the last,
To change with the young man!
To bathe with the young man!

Walking into holy lakes never seen,
The heart has nightmares of a lovers dream.
This one he needs may rest uneasy,
The wounds she feel spill into this night.
He could not sleep again in places she's been,
Reaching through the air to touch empty sin,
To touch something to defend.
Will this woman love him?
Or will he rest uneasy in a shadow parade,
Left to burn slow in an edited frame,
Pleasure is a show to a past filled with pain,
His heart cannot live as a link in her chain!

The sorrow would push him to Hades' shade,
Can't talk to the others,
Can't make them go away.
So he walks with the struggle-
Love brings a new day.

Erin, my heart hurt last night…

by **Bolden Denusk** on October 24th, 2011, 7:19 pm

mid 30's??!!!!
Hon, throw in the towel and just walk away!

When confronted with her, simply paste a polite distant smile on your face, look over her shoulder, let her yap, nod occasionally, say mhmm, and just walk away! *noms on her* poor dear.

by **Risa Moontide** on October 26th, 2011, 8:49 am

Whoa, Cheshy, that poem is deep. I'm still trying to decipher it, I keep reading it again and again hoping to gleam more and more meaning from the words. I'm glad you liked my thread, the idea of love-sickness from a man's point of view drove me to have him try to outfight his own emotions through physical work and the thread kinda grew from there.

Haha, Lisa, I would walk away if I could. For now I'm just going to limit my interaction with her to a bare minimum. Not like go out of my way to avoid her or ignore things she says but keep things short and polite and distant. That should help.

Now for my scrap post:
The Shadows of Giants
I for some reason feel like crying. I've gone over these woes before, the sickening feeling, the horribleness of it all. It's really depressing.

I've mentioned to chat at some point that the guy that sits two desks away from me writes a webcomic called North World.

Gah, I lied. I no longer feel like crying but I'm actually crying. I'm just trying to hold myself together. Why am I letting this happen, why am I getting emotional over literally nothing?

Anyway, Lars from North-World noticed my doodlings and has been giving me some pointers. He randomly gave me a box filled with anime he picked up in Japan, lets me read through comics at work, and is basically encouraging and nice so far. I see him paint and I am so jealous. My art doesn't hold a candle to his.

And today I just was suddenly disillusioned with it all. I tried drawing and I have no idea how to get better. people tell me to practice and practice and work on it and I have. Sure, I'm a lot better than when I started. I'm making improvement. But I have no idea how one can go about making their art go from bleh to publishable material. I can't understand how they got so good so fast. I can't seem to will myself to draw any better.

I'm not exactly sure why I'm crying. I'm just feeling so hopeless. Like my writing and drawing and songs and art won't take me anywhere and I'm just kidding myself by trying. It hurts and I'm hurting myself by thinking that way and I can't stop. My brain tells me that its being 'realistic' but it's just being mean!

Part of the hurt is my artistic chameleon ability, which is less an ability than a curse. That name was picked out on another site where I had similar laments, in an effort to cheer me up. It sorta worked, but now it is just my shame to bear. '

What I call 'artistic chameleon ability' is simply how I describe my muse. I often have a hard time drawing without first looking at art. I have a hard time writing without reading words. I have a hard time doing anything creative unless I at first view the work of someone who was creative before me. I feel like I don't really know what inspiration is and I'm just hanging on the backs of the real artists who came before me.

I used to think of myself as an artistic leech. I have some need to copy what other people are doing like I hope it'll validate me or something. Gah, sometimes I just want to throw in the towel and stop trying to be a creator when I'm only a puppet, a shadow. I'm tired of my own mind tearing my thoughts and words and feelings to pieces for its own sick enjoyment. When is it going to end?

Still, i find myself feeling sad and alone with tears in my eyes in the middle of the night because of how out-scaled my work is to those who stand so far above me. That's not right, that's not who I want to be. Make it stop.

by **Faroul** on October 26th, 2011, 8:56 pm

Risa!

First off, hugs!

Secondly: You make me smile. Seriously. It has been a joy to write and plot with you. No matter how you feel about your own work, no matter how you judge it, you have brought fun, happiness, and partnership to the people who create with you. That is a tremendous and wonderful thing. It's also something your "inner gremlin" voice can never take away. It can never undo the joy and excitement you have spread. I hope you will remember that whenever you have a bad day.

Skill is only one part of art. The other part - and arguably the more important part - is the effect your work has on others. The aim isn't just to put something pretty on a page, but to communicate. By that criteria alone, you are a very successful artist. The fact that you are actively working to improve on top of that means that you DO have what it takes to get where you want to be. It's not hopeless at all.

In fact, every artist I know, no matter their medium of choice, has gone through these same feelings. Me included, and professionals included. Seriously. One of my friends is a professional animator at a video game studio. Her art is beautiful and incredible, but when she arrived at work, she found there were people at the studio even better than her. It drives her into a frenzy and she strives every day to improve. Another friend? A musician whose band took New Hampshire's electronic scene by storm this summer. And guess what - despite his success, there are people whose work he worships and feels that he will never match. And for still one more example, there's another guy who illustrates comic books for a living. Every artist's dream job, right? And yet, when he started a collaborative comic with his concept artist sibling, he found himself outperformed by his own brother.

The point is that no matter who we are, we all stand in the shadows of giants. For beginners, advanced amateurs, and professionals alike, there is always a bigger fish. But despite feeling inadequate at times, the people I mentioned never stopped pursuing their dream. They stuck to it, struggled through the setbacks, and now they feed themselves with the skills they built. They aren't the best in the world. There are others who are better. But perseverance enabled them to make a living doing what they love. If you really want it, if you really fight for it, you can do it too.

This means, though, that you have to accept the struggle. Gaining a new skill, seeking competence and mastery, means frustration and some degree of pain. It happens when we cross the boundaries of what is easy for us and plow into new ground. In fact, I would be worried if you WEREN'T struggling. If it were easy for you, then it would mean you weren't pushing yourself. It would mean you had gotten to a point and said "that's it, I'm perfect, I don't need to learn anything else." And that is absolutely ruinous to growth. As long as you are always trying and always challenging yourself, you will improve.

If you're stuck and don't know where to go from here, try finding a teacher or taking a class. Formal instruction will help you master the basics and show you how to take the next step. (And don't think advice to focus on the basics is an insult to you. That professional comic artist I mentioned above? His sketchbook is entirely filled with basic head constructions, line practice, and anatomy work.) Even if there aren't university-level classes available near you, a lot of towns have community workshops for art, or night classes at a high school. Put aside some money for it when you can - make a "Sharpie Art Fund." It's worth it to invest in yourself. The times I have taken classes have really, really helped.

Also, the 'chameleon' nature of your muse, where you need to see creative things to feel creative yourself? That's not a cause for shame at all. That's totally normal. It's your brain's way of getting into the proper "mode" to create. It's kind of like a multilingual person hearing a language she knows but doesn't speak natively. Sure, she could recall it while she's sitting by herself, but it's much easier to jump into the mindset of another language when you're surrounded by it. Writing, visual art, and music are all "languages," in a way. Immersion in it reminds you that you can speak it. Really, nobody just jumps out of bed feeling in touch with their inner artist. You have to stoke it like a fire, otherwise you'll just worry about mundane human things like eating and sleeping and going to the bathroom and getting this or that errand done. Art is designed to knock us out of our mundane concerns and get us thinking or feeling - so if art works on you, and pushes you into a higher language, that's awesome, and nothing to feel bad about.

Likewise, copying other people's work is not bad. It's one way to learn and practice art, and people do it all the time. It's only bad when you claim the copied work as your own, or do nothing BUT copy. As someone who draws, I look off existing works all the time. Sometimes I set a picture up next to my workspace and try to copy it exactly. It's a good exercise for improving your eye. Ultimately, you learn what another person did to get a certain effect, and you incorporate that lesson into your own work. You take what techniques you like, discard those you don't. The foundation of all these influences coming together, with your own methods and experimentation on top, are what make your style. So don't feel bad about this either.

Every artist is in some way a "leech" or copier. Humans in general are leeches and copiers. That's how our culture is spread - by passing ideas between people and generations. At some point, some human took what they knew, and used that knowledge to generate a new tool, technique, or skill. They then passed it down to their students or children, who in turn took this hand-me-down knowledge to generate something else new, and so on. Inspiration and knowledge don't come from nowhere - they are taught and lended. That's the chain of human learning that connects Leonardo da Vinci to you.

Being an amazing artist isn't about reinventing the wheel or about having ideas spring from nothingness to reality. It doesn't work that way. Instead, take the wheels humanity has already made and put your own crazy car on top. Don't feel bad about being part of this process. Don't feel bad about not being a master at it yet. It's magical. You have a penchant for it. And you will only get better.

by **Bolden Denusk** on October 28th, 2011, 3:56 pm

Faroul is so right! You may call it leeching, but I call it learning. When you see (or I see or anyone who's artistic sees) a picture that's eye catching, you try to copy that drawing in an attempt to study, practice, and use that particular style. You dont' realize it yet, but your artistic side is attempting to learn a -method- of drawing or painting so it can use it for later creativity. I've done the same accidentally! My nephew wanted a picture of Charizard for his 11th birthday and I sighed, looked up some cartoony dragonish thingy, and studied a few pics of it. Then I found after I drew the thing, that it was the head from one pic, the fiery tail from another, and etc. It's good that your brain is striving for information to keep learning. You may feel that it's leeching, but it's actually admiring an artistic method and trying to teach it to yourself. Keep being the fantastic Risa I know and luff--and keep on drawing! *hugs*

by **Risa Moontide** on November 5th, 2011, 5:49 am

Oooh, Tapioca pudding and home-made cookies. Not to mention home-made cookie dough! What blissful rapture has descended upon me? Nothing like some treats to get yourself in the writing mood!

Also thank you both, Faroul and Lisa. Your comments always help ground me, stop me from panicking more and more and just stressing myself out. You are both invaluable friends.

Lastly. WriMo Update: not going too well? I'm behind, but I have a lot of threads to get done that will hopefully catch me up tonight. I guess we'll have to see. LET'S GET TO WORK!!!!

by **Duality** on December 3rd, 2011, 6:34 am

I'M BACK!!!

I'm so excited. My laptop cord just came in so therefore I CAN GET ONLINE AGAIN!

This is great.

But I owe a lot of you apologies. I kinda disappeared without too much explanation the last couple of weeks. NaNoWriMo fell through. I'm really disappointed in myself.

What happened was my laptop cord melted. So my laptop wouldn't be charged and I couldn't get online. It's been a hellish last couple of months. I'm really sorry for the way I dropped off the face of the world, I know a lot of you were counting on me. I feel terrible.

I'm going to fix everything. I'm going to be twice the Mod I was before and get everything I needed done. I'm ready to get going!