Patience and Paintings
I’ve talked about patience before, but it’s blindsided me again this week and I thought I’d talk about it again.
I so badly want to be finished editing RBRP, I can taste the finish line, especially with twitter contests and PitchWars and WriteonCon and conferences and more more more fabulous books being published. I so badly want to be there.
But I am not finished line editing yet.
It’s so hard to be patient. SO hard to be patient to make RBRP the quality I know it can be.
And it reminds me so much of painting.
Again, I’ve mentioned this before, but with watercolor–ESPECIALLY with watercolor–you need a tremendous amount of patience.
When you lay down a layer of paint (called a wash), it has to completely dry before the next layer. Otherwise you end up with ugly squiggly marks called blossoms. You also have to plan out the painting, because removing mistakes is really hard to do. You have to incorporate them or scrub them out, which is not guaranteed to work.
Patience guarantees a higher quality of art.
This week, I’ve been trying to slow myself. And be patient.
I’m realizing when I purposely create weekly room weekly to paint, I tend to be more patient in my writing. So I’ve sketched a fox for a friend’s baby room to paint this week. I’m tackling a scene a day for line editing. I’m trying not to compare myself to other writers.
And, eventually, patiently, I’ll be completely finished with RBRP. After all, “little by little, one travels far.“
Does patience come easily to you? How do you make yourself be more patient in accomplishing your goals?
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Abby, I can’t rave enough about your beautiful watercolor paintings! They’re so gorgeous! I love the layered colors, and really just your style.
I’m naturally an impatient person (not sure why I ever thought novel writing was a good idea, LOL). I constantly have to remind myself that creating art, writing to the best of my ability, takes time. I’ve found that writing short stories has helped me have more patience with my novel. There’s something gratifying about starting and finishing a project in a month as opposed to a year (or more!).
You mentioned writing cons… did you decide to go to RMFW?!
That’s a good way to look at short stories–I have a file of (really) terrible poems I did a while back when I needed something gratifying to cling to. But that was before I got into painting.
megghghgh. As of right now, I’m not going 🙁 I even did a pro/con list. That’s how undecided I was!!
Well, there you have it in a nutshell, Abby. Watercolour needs patience. That’s why I do line drawings, pastels, acrylics, even oils. But I haven’t got the patience for watercolour! Thus it is with my writing, too 🙂
But we are who we are, and I think painting and writing make for a great combo – keep it up, it’s beautiful!
aww thanks 🙂 oils! I think those take a lot of patience–at least while you’re waiting for it to dry. 🙂 I’ve never worked with them before. I have a feeling I’d get really frustrated. Whenever I use acrylics, I end up watering them down until they have a watercolor consistency. I don’t think I can do that for oil 🙂
What do you write?
The Princelings of the East series for older kids and just working on the first in a nw scifi series starting with The Perihelix 🙂 That’s kind of grown out of my flash fiction fridays on my blog!
Oh, I’m in exactly the same place as you Abby. Patience does not come naturally to me and I’m now ‘just’ 10 pages and a new ending away from finishing the final draft before publication. Doesn’t sound much but it feels like miles. Oh, and when I say ‘final draft’ I know I’m going to have to read through once more and balance the quality/finishing equation as I become tempted to tinker. Patience… breathe…
You can do it!!! Inhale, exhale 🙂 ugh. rewriting endings…. Why can’t we do it perfectly the first time?
Can I ask what your book’s about?
I’m glad you asked… although I’m terrible at describing it… better work on that eh?? 😀
It’s a contemporary urban mystery with a healthy dose of romance and quantum physics.
Naturally 😉
Oh, and stunning watercolours BTW. Amazing.
Aw thanks!!