I have A LOT of personal stuff going on in the next few months. I have been working hard, sometimes overtime (plus a long commute), trying to get my own apartment, and preparing for some new steps to be taken on my educational and professional journey. That said, I don’t know how much time (or funds) will be left over for fun creative projects, but I’m hoping that at least a handful of my many ideas can manifest within the next year or so. I wanted to share with you all some of the ideas I have had lately:
1. First of all, I plan to participate in NaNoWriMo next month, so that will be a test of my time management skills and perseverance for sure. The challenge is to write 50,000 words of an original work of fiction as the first draft of a novel. I have characters, a setting, and a trigger event. Beyond that, I have no specific direction that the story will go, it will depend on the decisions the characters make and how the world events fall into place, so it will be a fun journey even for me. I will be posting updates along the way.
2. I have been editing and adding to my book of magic – a long-term project to create a sort of guidebook for an eclectic, inclusive, scientific-religious-philosophical worldview and magical practice based on my own spiritual beliefs and lifestyle (not to be published, just for my own personal benefit and to pass down to my children) – which has been really uplifting and relaxing to me lately. I want to continue this project by experimenting more with natural ingredients and creating more magical crafts. I will begin a new journal soon, so this will be a helpful tool. I have also thought about hosting workshops in which friends gather to discuss their own spirituality, make crafts, and participate in group rituals. (But first I need a space in which to host these events and money for materials).
3. I have five or six albums I want to record – the songs are written and I know which ones go together, it’s just a matter of having the money for studio time (and the time for studio time). In particular, though, I want to create an EP of the six most recent songs I wrote (excluding a short, personal one), several of which have not been heard more than once by anyone. These songs are very good representations of my music and the direction my writing has taken recently (despite a terrible bout of writer’s block that I’m still struggling with). I think this would be the perfect little collection to pull Alice In Space out of her musical hiatus, once I’m able to make it happen.
4. I want to make dolls. This has been on my mind for a long time, and I don’t know when it will actually happen since I don’t know the first thing about making dolls, but I have the characters in my mind and eventually there will be dolls.
5. I have a very special project that I have already begun but which requires a lot more work before it can be revealed. It is a storytelling project involving writing, art, and possibly music. It will probably rise up pretty high on my priority list come the new year, once the other more immediate priorities have been dealt with.
6. I love the idea of starting a little comic strip featuring my plush toys in which they journey through space searching for treasure. This was inspired by Steven Universe, and I don’t think it would be very difficult to do one or two little doodles a week.
7. In general, I want to do more arts and crafts – more drawing, painting, sculpting, sewing, scrapbooking, cooking, potion-making, etc. Part of this is because the “very special project” mentioned above requires a lot of art which I feel I don’t currently have the skill to produce in the way I imagine it, so I want to practice and build up to it. Also, I feel like I haven’t truly been able to express myself openly for about a year now, as I’ve been flying around (or “falling with style” you might say), and doing a lot of consuming – listening to other people’s stories, gathering information, reading – and now that I am a little more grounded I feel the urge to “unpack” and let some of this inner stuff out so it can be untangled and woven into something beautiful.
So there you have it. Those are just a few of my ideas, and only the creative ones not including all the intellectual or research-based projects or any of the other skill-based life improvements I want to make. If you read this and you want to talk with me more about any of these, please send me a message on facebook.com/alicedaisyspace or email me at alicedaisyspace@gmail.com!
Alice In Space 