The Art of Distraction
We know is how magicians work their magic, how they misdirect our attention so they can razzle-dazzle us. We also know this is how con-men work their dark arts on us as well.

I’m performing my own sort of art distraction on myself. I’m trying to fill my attention with my new novel. I’m trying to also continue to fill my time with my artwork. It’s difficult to fill your attention when you have such a short attention span. And that’s one thing I realized last night, my attention span last night has cropped. I think part of this is because I’m so distracted waiting to hear from The Tumor Board. But part is that I’m just not able concentrate. Chronic pain will do that to a person.

But I’m filling my time right now learning how to write a novel. One of the tools I’m using is The Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson. I’ve signed up for his zine, and I figure the man has something to teach me. I’ve been crawling the boards and forums at nanowrimo trying to learn as much as I can about character and plot development before I can start writing. I’m also making heavy use of the character sheets and other resources I found at the National Novel Finishing Month site, NaNoFiMo. It’s a spin-off site from nanowrimo, and I’ve found it very useful. I found it while digging through the forum. I think it’s worth checking out.

So, I have several of the characters, in outline form. They aren’t even line drawings. Just vague shadow forms. Need to get cracking with those cool character sheet tools I was just bragging about. But it’s just so much geek fun playing with the active forms Pookel has, with the drop down boxes, too much fun to actually get any real work done. I need to poke around on the forums and figure out how to make my main villain not cardboard and cartoon like, anymore than he has to be of course.

I don’t have a name for my novel yet. Still working on the plot out line too. I had fun with a new character tool today. Apparently you run your character through the Mary-Sue test to see how believable they are. I ran myself though it, I’m apparently not very believable as a fictional character. And they didn’t even have any of the weird Perils of Pauline plot twists I’ve had in my life. If your character has greater than 56, you need to seriously rework that character. According to one test, I personally come out with a Mary-Sue score of 110. I think it will be fun to see if there are other people out there with ridiculously high personal Mary-Sue scores.

It’s kind of funny, that November 1st deadline, when there is no writing permitted, sort of like the excitement for when I get presents and gifts. Everyone makes me wait to open those packages. I don’t’ care who that package is for, it needs to be opened, NOW!!!!! No taking it home to be opened later, open it NOW!!! I’m such a child. “Whadja get? Whadja get? Whadja get? I wanna KNOW!!!”

Speaking of it’s, I need to figure out once and for all the difference between its and it’s. I’m just going to have to get a yellow sticky and stick it to my monitor. That and the difference between affect and effect. I have no idea why those just won’t stay in my brain.

Well, I think I am going to go work on my latest painting. Ok, I have no idea if I can call it a painting if I use pastel oil sticks, but since I use mixed media, the pastel oil sticks and water color I call it a painting. Of course, I might just do the back ground in oil sticks… I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as I’m the artiste and I’m the one doing it. I can call it a painting if I so choose.

(and WooT! I'm Exalted with Frostwolf Clan! My son's so jealous.. and I’m back to being Stone Guard. I really wish I could go on some serious raids. I can do some grinding, but anything serious is out of the question for now. )

Today's art I call "Coffee with Capt'n Jack" It's for my favorite Banded Pirate Chiropractor in OR... Graphite