Inktober 2018

   Yes, it comes about every year, fills my twitter feed with wonderful things and makes me feel inadequate. I try to join in, but I can't find the desire to eradicate writing time for drawing, so I never manage to participate fully, and the pieces I do come up with are under a lot more pressure. Oh yes - it's Inktober.

   Despite the fact that it feels more like a chore than much else, I do enjoy doing it. I used to draw all the time as a kid and I got pretty good at it, but when I started writing in earnest in my teens, that all stopped. Now writing is my life, and I love it; I feel the same about it as a lot of the artists I follow on twitter do about their work. The thing is, I take both too seriously; I struggle to write short stories, which means that I only bring out a new piece of work every year and a half, which makes it very difficult to catch people's eye, whereas illustrations are far more prolific and a new work for artists could come out every week. If one is a flop, it's disappointing for them, but they're able to recover more quickly before anyone forgets about them. I cannot.

   I digress, though I suppose the two matters are linked. Inktober. Drawings. This year I'm returning to a past plan of one drawing a week. That's still going to be a challenge because, as I said, I take drawing seriously too, I can't just have fun with it, it needs to be perfect. With my writing, that's because I'm trying to sell it. It has to be perfect. With drawings, however, I always feel like I have something to prove, and that makes me nervous. But, ultimately, I do enjoy the tactile sensation of gliding a pencil over paper, and how different inking can feel. I love a brush with liquid inks; it's much different from painting.

   This year, though, I'm not following prompts. With one drawing a week, there's no point. As long as I'm taking time out to draw, that's what counts, because I do want to do it more, but...I want to write even more than that. But that means that Inktober is the perfect opportunity - I know it's coming, I can set some time aside, and I can also cheat and come up with some foundational lines before the fact.

   Rather ambitiously, I'd like to try to post one drawing a week on Wednesdays, which means a total of 5 drawings. I'm crossing my fingers that it will happen. I've decided to draw some of the characters from The Zi'veyn because I draw people more comfortably than other things, but because I'm inking it, I plan to keep it simple. It'll be more about character getting through than how they actually look, so I can sit happily with that.