Instead of writing while I watered the garden tonight, I did some sketching.

No, the picture above is not it. That’s one I did a few years ago for Inktober. I’m not ready to show the one I did tonight.

It always scares me a little when a sketch turns out decently. Drawing, painting, and the like still feels a little outside of my skillset and it surprises me each time I step back and realize that I did that, whatever that may be. I wonder if I will ever get over that.

Probably not. I still am always amazed when I finish a book and think about all those words I just committed to building a story.

Art still feels differently though. Maybe it’s because I always loved to create with my hands but I never felt like an artist. I enjoyed painting, but my work always lacked. I would sculpt with clay, but my creations always looked like indescribably blobs. Even my paper mache reindeer looked sickly, starving, and anemic. I hated my mother pulling it out every year at Christmas time, especially since she’d place it right next to the one my brother made (when he finally made it to the grade I’d been in when I’d made mine) and his looked less skeletal and a bit better fed. I always seemed like I would just fail every time.

Now, when I look at something I drew, it amazes me at how much different it is now. I mean, I drew the ruins of Petra for my webcomic for goodness sake. Yes, I used some gradients and overlays to give it texture, but the actual line work is all mine, done in my hand and not traced. Granted, it’s a bunch of rectangles. But the point is that I would never have been able to do that back when I made the shriveled reindeer.

I stood out there just telling myself that I needed to practice more. Muscle memory — that’s what I need. I learn a skill but I don’t put it to use, which means I have to relearn it. I need to do it and practice, practice, practice until it becomes that muscle memory. Once again, we’re back to that consistency thing. (grin)

While I didn’t write tonight, I did pull up the story and added a bit more setting to it. I will still have to go back through again for another round, but I think I’m ready to continue on a little further with the story. I know what happens next.

I also want to finish Siva’s story. It is definitely not the romance I thought it would be. I’m starting to wonder if I can even say that it has “romantic elements” in it. Yes, there’s a building romance at the core, but there’s so much other stuff (gritty, nasty, stinky stuff) around it that. It gets a little dark in places. When I’m not comparing it to what I wanted it to be and think about what the story is, then I’m very proud of it. It needs finished.

Tomorrow I go to set up for Shoshone Art in the Park this weekend. I’m excited. It’s always a fun show. I just wish I had a little bit more art to take with me. But, I’m going to take my big, oil, waterfall painting again and hope that the right buyer comes to see me for it. It’s time that piece sold.

It’s show time!