Taming the Chaos

On Wednesdays I get my response email from my mentor. She reads whatever was assigned to me and gives me feedback, advice and when necessary, admonishments. It’s that last one that’s where all the value is. As nice as it is to get a pat on the back from someone who knows what they are doing, it is in the failures that all my writing growth comes from.

And such was the case with the last two assignments. She had noticed a pattern in my writing that if I did not learn to get it right, then people would abandon my stories by the first page.

Last week she marked up my manuscript point out where I went wrong and when I got things right. And then she explained what was needed to make this a story people would want to read. Now I had taken course on this and understood the point of all the techniques and what was necessary, but doing it is a whole other thing.

And I wrote more than fifty-two stories in the space of a year, so you would think I was well practiced at it by this time. The difference is I am no longer working in a void. Before it was just me trying to get better, but now I have seasoned professional telling me why things aren’t working and what things are. The ability to improve increases exponentially, which is no surprise to anyone who had done sports or had a private one on one teacher.

You can imagine the joy and sense of accomplishment when I received the response email this morning. From the warm comfort of bed, I read it with sleep blurry eyes and braced myself for the words of admonishment telling me I still did not understand what was required.

The first paragraph was complimentary. Good right? But my mentor always starts with a positive, so my eyes searched for the ‘but’ that must surely follow. I sat up in bed and surprised to see I had succeeded at the task. I felt I had done a good job on the assignment, but self doubt plagued me for days wondering about the assignment and what it would mean if I didn’t succeed this time round.

And as usually I use my three-step process to take in my mentor’s assessment of my work. This time, I could bask in the warmth of praise instead of rebel against the admonishments.

I read it again later in the day and smiled. It’s an easier pill to swallow when it’s coated in sweetness.  And then I re-read it a third time and let it sink in.

And now the harder part begins, but also the fun part. I get to move on to others writing skills with a wary eye towards what I have just learned.

The new assignment is to write the rest of the story for the scene that was last weeks assignment. And this is great because I now have eleven days to write whatever this story is going to be. I know from the first scene wrote that it will some kind of mystery. Two detectives and a missing person are part of the story. But other than that, I have no idea what will happen. And that’s the fun and scary part of making stuff up. I am more comfortable being in that chaotic unknown that I used to be. Writing fifty-two stories in a yar broke me of the idea that you need to figure everything out before you start. I am going through the same thing at work right now. We are in a place of chaos trying to bring some order to it. And each day we tame a little more than the day before. It’s a useful skill learning to be comfortable in the maelstrom.

And work was good today. The teams are settling in and work is being produced. Questions are asked an answers start coming in. It feels better to have the entire team working on areas that aren’t well defined yet. Once we produce a painting it prompts a reaction from the people who need to make those decisions. And that’s how we start to tame the chaos and bring order to the process. I’d forgotten what it was like to start a new show and have more questions than answers. It’s daunting at first. Seems impossible and stress levels rise.

But we are getting there.

To help welcome our team back into the studio, myself and the other lead in Ottawa, baked some cookies. It never hurts to have cookies at hand. And I am looking forward to seeing how everyone spent their time off, what adventures they had and what things they made. We are all creatives after all.

I finished a wide shot painting today and started another one that is in a new location. I am still getting used to being a lead and using the new tracking software. I haven’t been a supervisor for about two years now because the animation industry is slow at the moment. Our team is made up of supervisors, leads and seniors for the most part. The nice thing about that is everyone works at a high level, and no one really needs to be babysat.

We managed to get a quick walk in at lunch. Luckily, I didn’t have any meetings today, but there was too much work to go for the full walk. None-the-less it was a nice sunny day, and the fresh air and exercise were just what the doctor ordered.

After lunch, I received a text message from my friend John. He sent me a cop of his newest song he has titled ‘Alien’. It has some cool cinematic sounds at the start and then moves into a heavy metal freight train of a tune. He publishes his music on Spotify and on his YouTube channel. I’ll see if he is okay with me posting links when I see him and his wife tomorrow for Survivor Pizza Hot Tub Thursdays.

I’ll have to take it easy tomorrow night because last week I over did it with the amount of pizza I consumed. And then we went out for all you can eat the next night. I swear I have been suffering ever since, waddling around like an overstuffed penguin. Actually, I felt like that guy eating at the restaurant in that Monty Python skit who was offered an after-dinner mint, “It’s only wafer thin…” and then explodes. I felt like I was bursting at the seams all week and it was only today that I started feeling close to normal again.

I should have taken a second walk after work, but those cookies weren’t going to bake themselves. I did relax a bit and watch some pointless YouTube videos. And then we watched an episode of ‘Paradise’ after which Robyn started reading and I started writing.

I am a little behind on the word count, only about four hundred and fifty words as of last night, which isn’t a big deficit. It’s important I get close to or exceed my word count as much as possible because eventually something is going to happen and I will fall behind.

I think the assignment for this week will keep my busy enough as I don’t see this story being a short story. Most likely it will turn into a novelette or a novella. That’s about as much as I’ll have time for in the next ten days.

I am feeling that writing everyday is becoming the norm for me now. It’s just something I do, normally in the evenings after I have recovered from the day. One thing that is helping with productivity is having my laptop within reach as much as possible. Working on Word and saving my writing to the cloud is great for now as well, since I have access it wherever I happen to be.

When I make the switch to full time writing, I may not wan to use cloud-based services even though they are convenient, simply for security reasons. Stephen King’s next novel has a value to a hacker and could harm the sales of the book, particularly if the ending or a surprise is leaked prematurely. I know writers like Jogn Grisham and David Baldonni work of line on computers that are never connected to the internet to make sure their books are never stolen before the publication date.

But right now the risk is fairly low and I would be lucky if my work was worthy enough for someone to want to steal it.

I’ll have some time tomorrow on the train to get going on the next assignment to finish the story. I am going to write on the way home for sure, but writing on the way in hasn’t been very doable due to the number of people on the train at that time and my lack of consciousness at that hour.

Writing at lunch will be impossible tomorrow as well, as it is the team’s first day back in studio and we will likely all share a lunchroom table together. Our first meal as a team in months. And I wouldn’t want to miss that time with everyone anyways. I might skip eating any food and save all my calories for dinner because….

Tomorrow night, is Survivor Pizza Hot Tub Night, and that means I get off the train, come home and immediately leave with my wife in tow to go to our friend’s house. It should be a shorter episode, I think. I can never tell. Survivor defies the laws of time and space as far as I am concerned. It has more season per year than nature. It’s diabolical.

Robyn has been laid off due to lack of work. She is also in the animation industry. Everyday, she has been keeping her skills sharp and doing a painting a day. She is going to take some of those digital paintings and see if she can get them printed out on canvas. Then she’ll take some oil or acrylic paints and go over it. Jus for fun for now, but it could also turn into a little business if she gets the technique down to a process she enjoys. Either way, I am so proud of her. I always knew she was a talented artist, but the joy this freedom is bringing her is fantastic.

And even though the canvases and paint will be an expense, coming at a time when we have less income, I wholeheartedly support this idea of trying something new. The possibilities of opening new avenues of creativity are endless, and I love seeing her making her own way and enjoying the experience of it.

And although the future is unknown and chaotic, the lessons learned fromstudying writing and working as an animation background artist have shown us that learning to be comfortable in the swirling chaos is where the rewards come from.

Looking at the future, this time I am looking at the Weather Channel app on my phone, I can see the possiblitly of it getting into double digits for Saturday. One of the things I miss doing is riding my GoTrax GX3 scooter. If anything removes the stress of the day its moving at a good speed, the wind in your face and a destination in mind. I like to ride the trails, as my standup scooter is rated for off road. There are some nice trails in our neighborhood, and I find that if I am respectful of the pedestrians no one seems to mind if I ride the trails that are not meant to be ridden with a motorized vehicle.

This means I am often going slower than the people on their bicycles, which for some reason are less intimidating than my scooter. Maybe because people are more used to them or because they usually aren’t motorized. Although, that is had changed in recent years. Many of the kids in our neighbourhood have electric bikes. Man, what I would have given to have one of those when I was a kid! We went everywhere on those things, and you could always tell where everyone was, just look for the pile of bikes lying on someone’s lawn. Who needed cellphones and Instagram. We weren’t dropping Insta’s, we were dropping BMXs.

Well, it’s another early to rise Thursday and I am wiped.

Time for an early night, I really do cherish the nights when I get to bed before midnight. I must be getting old.

Night All!