Translating: People to Characters

I really want to write a webcomic or graphic novel or anime or something.  I'll probably do something that only requires a writer and an artist, because I can be both of those things.  What's most important to me is that I get a set of characters, a set of ideas that I want to convey, and a really compelling plot that helps me express what I want to express.  Having a large readership is a really useful tool in getting across a message, so I need to make my story engaging to the demographics I want to reach - which should initially be the layman, but which should have a lot of appeal for the people like me and the people who can bring about the changes that my work calls for.

So right now, I'm starting to compile characters that are inspired by people I know in real life.  These are people whose motivations I well understand, and I hope to use what I know about their ways of living to guide the characters' decisions.  I want to make the story believable and fluid, so I want to put the right people in the right situations for the right reasons.  It's interesting, thinking about what would be needed to make a certain event happen, and which characters need to interact for a certain debate to be had in a way that doesn't seem like a writer's soapbox.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'd really like to get it on paper so I can get really writing a long-ass story and draw things to match up with it.

Direction for an Art Project

I found an interesting introspective essay about a man's journey in overcoming his depression.

It is interesting.  I like the idea of giving one's unhappiness a face.  Especially when it acts as its own entity, completely independent from what you know is your own agency.  There's something to be said for the process of creating a partition in one's mind.  Distinguishing the parts from one another.  As complexly they may be interwoven, they still operate with some independence.  There is localization of cognitions.

I've been telling myself that I'll do art.  Now I think I have a project that can give that nebulous ambition some direction.  I will give form to the parts of me that I can't stand, the parts of me that I love, and the miscellaneous parts of me that I feel deserve some kind of shout-out.

So I'll do a little reading, organize my materials, then get started on the easy stuff.  I'll work my way up to the more nuanced and difficult parts of this project as I develop a way to think about and do this internal analysis.  Now that I've settled into my new home, I'm regaining some of my old skill at reading myself.

I have two hopes for this:

*Develop some sort of voice in visual art.

*Overcome my... feelings.

Beauty Around Us

I love the feeling that I get when I am listening to the  music on my ipod, and I come across a song that I don't recognize.  Something that I took the care to put on a playlist, but then completely forgot about.  When I run a list on shuffle, I spend the first few seconds of each song trying to put my finger on what the title and artist are, deciding whether I want to listen to the rest of the song or if I'm looking for a different vibe for the moment.

Then I'll hear something, that sounds just like new, I am reminded that my music collection is incomplete.  That there are new things to discover.

Exploration will never outpace creation.  As long as there is life, we will grow, we will conceive other life, and we will morph the nonliving into new shapes.  The dynamo of invention is so important to humans' dual nature as animals and people that I don't believe any individual can say they've lived life to the fullest without investing in creativity.

I so vividly crave exploration.  The vastness of the unknown is a glorious thing.  I wish I wasn't so stuck in this tiny moment of my life, so shortsightedly mired in an inconsequential lifestyle, and that I was brave enough to go explore the abounding frontiers of my world.