Working on Goals

It's June 22nd and I hit the ground running when I got back to NYC on June 2nd.  I've been going to play readings and poetry readings, doing some of my own readings and promoting my new book.  I've also reconnected with my writing group and have been diligently working on new written pieces (both poetry and playwriting).  As well as reconnecting with family and friends.  Needless to say it's been a very busy time!!  

I was also accepted into NYFA's Entrepreneur's Boot Camp workshop which meets every Saturday from 10am to 4pm.  We have been asked to work on a business plan for our creative life.  This is not an easy task, especially since my creative work extends to theater and visual arts.  However, I thought for now I would narrow my focus and work on the creative writing, poetry portion.  

One of the NYFA members wrote up his own business plan.  Seeing P write out his own version inspired me to get cracking.  I've been writing out goals for awhile but I find myself getting antsy and have always managed to find something else to do instead.  I sat down and wrote this working draft.  I kept in mind that this is just a draft, it's a living document that I can continue to build upon.  In fact, it's just one aspect of my creative life.  I'll do the same for playwriting and visual arts.   Anyway, this is my first rough draft.  

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Briefly describe your goal for your business as an artist.

Work creatively every day. Create a schedule so that it happens.

Cultivate an audience for my writing.  As a poet, I can reach out to the poetry community and their many venues to book some readings.  There may be opportunities to promote and sell the book I just self-published.  Visit independent bookstores and book some readings to promote my book.  This falls under short-term goals. 

Work on building my website.  Create an online CV and Visual Arts portfolio of completed projects as well as works in progress. Plus link up books, blog, fiscal sponsorship onto site.  This falls under short-term goals.

Cultivate donors for these multiple projects.  I would like to raise money for these projects.  I’m receiving fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas so I would like to cultivate more donations.  This falls under long-term goals.

Proposed timeline

This is a 6-month deadline.  By the end of the year, I should have a working website, booked some readings and created new work. 

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It's a start.   I'll have more time to continue to refine these goals as I process all the information NYFA is throwing our way. I'm excited about pinning some of them down.  I've been consciously working on them for the past year but I think now they finally seem to be gelling.  Perhaps it needed a year of incubation in order to get to this place to start figuring out what next with the creative work.  Serendipity is a lovely thing.  

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2010 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.

How's The Progress/Process?

An anonymous reader left that question from the previous blog entry and I thought it was high time I wrote a full on entry.  Well, let's see, I'm back in NYC after a flight cancellation, then a new plane ticket out KC and thunderstorms both out of Kansas City and into New York City.  Talk about making an entrance.  The plane circled around NYC for about an hour and a half and I was grateful for the window seat as I watched storm clouds moving through.

So my new motto is supposed to be "aiming for mediocrity".  Good lord that is not an easy one for me.  I can feel my teeth clench at that notion.  However, soon after I wrote those words I was trying to work on a scene...yes I'm writing another play.  I was sitting there writing it out in long hand since my computer was on the fritz and I kept starting and stopping on the second page.  I could not move beyond page 2 because I was already judging the writing before I even wrote it out.  I thought "this piece is crap, I'm never going to get anywhere with this piece, I should never write a play again".  So I called for back up.  Tony reminded me that it doesn't have to be anything, it just needs to come out.  I took a deep breath and plowed through.  Four hours later I wrote up 10 pages (front and back) of some little story that has been floating in my head for about two years.  I didn't even know so much time had passed.

Right!  So I gave myself a little break, made some dinner and I thought I was going to leave the piece there until the next day.  But as I cooked up some spaghetti, my brain was still mulling over the next scene.  The words were coming and there was no use trying to put it on the back burner.  I scarfed down a small bowl of pasta and went back to work.  Another 2.5 hours later I wrote up another 8 pages and finished the story arc of this very rough draft.  I told myself I was not allowed to judge it, that all I needed to do was transcribe it onto Word document.  I attempted to start transcribing that night but I knew I was too tired to even try.

The next morning, I made myself a quick breakfast and went straight back to work.  I had already re-worked the first scene somewhere in the time between falling asleep and being in front of the computer. So I typed up what I had...it came out to 26 pages in play format.  I was stoked!  And then I read it and I began to dismay over the quality.  I gave myself a hard shake before my mind went too far down that self-doubting road and reminded myself that nothing is written in stone and that I can always revise this piece.

Fast forward to Fri, June 4th, my writing group took a look at my very rough draft and their feedback was so right on point that I have a better idea of what to tackle first.  Having the bones of the story is key because the rest of it is about fleshing out the scenes and some of the characters.  My group was gentle with the draft and it was safe to talk about the piece in the context of where it was, instead of focusing on the final product.  I told someone a couple of weeks ago that I have always wanted to be a writer.  I knew this fact in second grade...yes, second grade....I wrote up a little story and read it in front of the class.  I can still see my teacher's face as she cracked up over my story.  It was supposed to be funny.

Writing up those 18 pages long hand a couple of weeks ago reminded me how much I LOVE to write, how much I LOVE to write scenes and it's been so long since I felt the full on pleasure of it.  Trust me, I found it again.  That love is blossoming.   That is my very long answer to my anonymous reader's very short question.


All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2010 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.

Feeling the Crazy

So yesterday wasn't a good day...my computer crashed and is currently out of commission, a friend finally called quits on our friendship, and my brother Bleu decided that my needing system disks overnighted to me wasn't a high priority and waited until a quarter to five to post the much needed disks.  Yesterday, I was calm and really took all issues in stride. 

Today, I'm feeling the crazy.  My teeth are on edge because I'm thinking the worst case scenario regarding my computer (despite reassurances from Tony) and I'm kicking myself for NOT having backed up my computer in  three weeks.  I won't receive the disks until Saturday so I have another day to worry that I've lost three weeks worth of written work...not to mention that my whole life is in that MacBook.  I know, I know I'm being melodramatic but like I wrote earlier I am feeling the crazy.  The rational part of me knows that I at least have a back up drive...so that if this computer is fried I have at least some semblance of work stored.  It's scary to think of needing another computer right now and shelling out a grand to buy another Mac.  And yes I'm a die hard Mac user...a PC will not suffice.  (That just made me giggle, I sound like a Mac commercial.)  I have an old titanium powerbook that I could brush the cobwebs off of at home but that system overheats so much to the point of being almost useless.  * sigh *  Do you see what I mean? Watch as head spirals into the bad dark place.

Today I didn't want to get out of bed to face my day.  I really didn't.  It's cold and raining again as it has been for the past three days or so and it's supposed to rain the rest of the weekend.  I forced myself to get up.  Took a shower, ate some oatmeal, had two mugs of earl grey tea and I forced myself to go out and take a walk.  I walked a couple of steps out into the world and the earth is soaked and muddy.  My inner whiner wailed at the prospect of going any farther but I forged ahead.  I walked down the path and left some apple pieces on a flat rock for the very many squirrels and rabbits.  That did make me feel a little better.  I kept walking but I was so focused on watching where I was going (muddy, slippery path) that I startled a large animal. I didn't even get to see what it was...it was grey I think and it made a weird sound as it ran/flew (?) away.  All I saw was a dash a fur or feathers (?) and the wake of branches moving down the path where it to took off.  I was so busy trying not to fall on my ass...I might have missed a sighting of Big Foot.  LOL!  But I'll never know now.

I meant to take food scraps down to the compost heap and realized at the bottom of the hill that I forgot the pail.  I told myself I'd do it tomorrow.  I knew that if I went back to the studio...I'd just go back to bed.  Hehehe.  It's TRUE!!  So it's still raining but I stop and say hi to the cows....one made this weird coughing noise...do cows cough? do they get colds?  Trust me I've seen the runny noses, ick but is that a sign of cold or just normal body function for them?  It's strange the kinds of questions that pop up in my head whenever I encounter an animal. 

I digress, so I went to the dream studio, my jeans completely soaked from my knees all the way down to my toes...my boots are no longer waterproof apparently and my socks were soaked.  I sat on the floor, lit a stick on incense,and  hoped the smell of sandlewood would calm my damn nerves.  I pulled out Carol Lloyd's book, Creating a Life Worth Living: A practical course in career design for artist, innovators, and others aspiring to a creative life. I've been working through the exercises trying to figure out creative goals and practical plans for the future.

Today's chapter centers around the Daily Creative Process. It helps me self-assess my daily routine, what motivates me, what attitudes I have about the creative process.  Right! so she has this little checklist of unhealthy processes and I came across something she calls the Ambition Virus.  OMG!! She may have written this portion directly to me.  She talks about my trouble with procrastination, check; feeling like I'm playing catch-up with time, check; feeling like I've wasted years and now I have to make up for it by working like mad, check; I have lots of regrets, Hello! Big Double Check; booming judgmental voice in the background whenever I've made a "bad" move, Holy Hell! Big Ole Check...and it goes on and on and I can see how sometimes my relentlessness takes the joy out of the creative process for me.  So a suggestion to counteract this little virus was: "Actively reign ambition in....your new motto must be 'in search of mediocrity'".  WHAT?!!! I actually laughed.. Seriously?! I laughed out loud and thought to myself there is NO WAY I'm in search of mediocrity...sorry nope, can't seriously wrap my head around that AT ALL!  And of course, as soon as I felt the resistance in my body, the observer in me thought, "huh, interesting, what's up with all this resistance."  Good god...all this introspection is making me mad (crazy-not angry).

Anyway, the Lloyd chapter helped divert my mind from the tension earlier.  I can't really write about letting go of a friendship...it's a fresh cut so I'll leave it there.  But the rest, I can manage.  So now I'm off to go figure out some healthy creative processes to take back to NY with me.  How can I take what I've learned out here at OAC back out into the "real world"?  This place has felt like a sanctuary and I want to continue finding healthy ways to "focus on the enjoyment of the act" of creating.  Sweet!!
 

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2010 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.