Annie Room or Ante Room?

I could easily go to bed right now. Easily justify it, easily accomplish it. But I'm not really excited by the prospect. I'm excited by the prospect of reading and writing. I'm excited by the prospect of drawing. But my conscious and subconscious minds are pulling farther and farther apart. It's an odd sensation.

All the basic functions are at the surface and responding just fine. Move, speak, formulate coherent sentences, type. But the part of me that does deeper thinking, analysis, and produces creative ideas is on the other side of a widening chasm. I can tell when my trapped muse is speaking, but not what she is saying. I shout, "What?" but even that, despite its echoes, can't breach the barrier of emptiness.

Perhaps this reveals a flaw in the New Plan, or perhaps I'm just not operating at 100% of my mental capacity due to all the drugs I'm taking.

I'm doing much better.

Today was a good day. I don't see Reagan much, between him doing care-taking tasks out of the room, working, exercising, and sleeping on a different schedule from mine, but today had some good quality time nonetheless, and that makes me happy.

While I was soaking my leg today I looked through Joy of Drawing for a bit. It was originally published in 1959 and has a drastically different approach to creativity than the one Reagan counsels me with. I think that modern genres like the graphic novel would baffle the author. Off the top of my head I can't say what the fine arts community thought of comics in the 50s and 60s, but I'd guess that the sophistication in the art form was much less common then.

The advice in Joy of Drawing isn't gone from writing books published these days, but those books aren't the ones that I'm pointed to by people who grok my interest in the craft. Joy of Drawing focuses on still things: abstraction, technique, inanimate objects, and landscapes. The modern advice I absorb is about movement and expression and style. Sometimes I feel I should be starting with the basics (drawing lots of fruit and geometry), but more often I'm enthusiastic about moving directly towards what I want to do.

It's very confusing. The only consistent thing is quantity, quantity, quantity. That's what I need to keep reminding myself to work on.

I bought Joy of Drawing before I met Reagan, and it was somewhat useful to me then, although I didn't read the whole thing. Today I picked it up after at least two years apart and had a difficult time not arguing with the author, who writes about his way with more confidence than I think about my way. The battle of wills made me uncomfortable and I went back to drawing as I usually do... but peppered in abstract line drawings (from the book) using the hand-not-touching-paper technique (also from the book).

My practice habits are improving steadily with my leg. Tomorrow will be even better. (Reagan and I made a pact today to cut back on dicking around on the internet.)