Recently on tumblr I can across this wonderful piece of fanart, “High Fashion Disney Princesses” by Shasiiko-anti (on deviantart):
art by shasiiki-anti
And being in a sentimental mood, it reminded me of all the fanart I did as young girl. It wasn’t called fanart back then, at least not in respectable circles, and honestly most of my fanart was AU in nature as I drew and wrote some (truly horrible, omg, I was like 12 okay?) mary-sue fics.
What really struck me as I thought about it though was that I realized I spent hours and hours of my life doing “character design.” I would create original characters and draw them over and over, designing their clothes and their personalities and stories. Well, these days I know I doing character design; back then, I thought (and certainly, my mother thought) I was just wasting my time.
And so I could go off on a tangent bemoaning my life choices and what I feel was robbed from me, but I think I’d rather look at the uninhibited nature of that kind of creation: while I understood from the adults around me that what I was creating was not important or substantial, I didn’t care because I loved it. I enjoyed it for the sake of doing it. I think I’ve lost that drive, or rather, I spend a lot of time ignoring it to focus on what I’m “supposed to be doing.”
Part of what I want to be doing is focusing on Patience and Fortitude, which is just now (two years after launching) getting some recognition from the community it was created to serve. So that needs my energy and focus, and I can’t wave a hand and call it just a side project, because while it IS a side project, it is an important one. Yet I tend to push it aside because there are a lot of other things I’m supposed to be doing.
Another issue is that my theme for this year is “self sufficiency”. That is so I can spend time doing what I love, which is writing and art (and dancing!). Having a good professional job now with FSU helps a lot, but it’s not the end-all here. So part of me gets really wound up in what I supposed to be doing to make that happen…sense a theme here?
But the way to make that happen is not solely reliant on a job or a book or stroke of luck. I know I have to do a lot of things — pay bills, feed the cat, keep my job, and yes also write — but I think I’ve spent so many years focusing on the “should” that I’ve quite forgotten about the “want.”
Which isn’t entirely true, given that I write fanfiction for fun, and that is pretty much the epitome of “pointless life goal”; but it’s like I have funneled all my ability to relax and not take life seriously into that one activity. Art, original fiction, dancing, my blogs — all so terribly weighted down by the spectre of “productivity.”
*sigh* You can tell this is a personal blog because this post is, itself, pretty pointless.
Maybe I should just go back to drawing character designs.
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