A Thought and an Announcement

A double post? From me? Aw, of course not! The post earlier today was . . . uh . . . time traveling! Heaven knows I've done that enough, at least in Animal Crossing.

Anyways, I don't have much to say right now, but there were two things I wanted to touch on, mostly because it's late and I have nothing else to do.

First off: look at this poll.

For those of you who are rebellious and didn't click the link, good for you. Always question the man! The question was, "Do you believe that art can fundamentally change your sense of who you are?" Besides just a poll answer or a comment, I figured I'd share my own thoughts.

Short answer: Yes, I think art can change you.

Long answer: Yes, I think art can change you both introspectively and extraspectively (is that a word . . .?). AKA, it changes you on the inside and on the outside. I think it changes you even more when you're the one making the art.

Lemme give you some examples.

The series Naruto and Naruto: Shippuden are based off of manga, or graphic novels, as we'd call them in the US. It's dialogue with pictures; it's not hard to find scanlations of the chapters so you can read or else keep up with what's going on. I mean, buy the books if you're going to be reading it a lot, but if you want to keep up because Japan . . . well, whatever, I don't judge.

In my case, Naruto has influenced me to a huge degree. It's influenced my writing, which I'll talk about later, but basically, it's what's helped me get into and stay in writing. Naruto is also the reason I met my best friend, which I'm never going to forget, because I really like my friend. I'm also a fan of drawing the characters sometimes (often in drag . . . sorry, Madara!), so it's helped my drawing skills. So it's influenced both my art and my external, working self.

The other example that I can give is about introspective changes inside, or at least demonstrating those changes; when I was younger and had a more difficult relationship with my dad, I noticed after time that all of my character's fathers were either A) not there or B) fairly . . . bad. Them being bad was, of course, on a different level than my dad; he just wasn't around all the time because of work. But some feelings about my dad not being around leaked into my work, affecting my characters.

Art is also a form of support, too. There's a reason we have art therapy, after all, and I know people who make art because it's either that, or having to deal with . . . compromised health (and that's as far into that as I'll get). In my case, I'm writing a novel right now because I know I need to in order to cope with the fact that - surprise! - I'm moving away in a month and a half. Not only that, but guess what kind of novel I'm writing? A coming-of-age novel! See what I mean?

Lastly, I think that art made by onesself can also help explain our thoughts and expound upon them. A few years ago, I was writing a piece that included a part about the main character's religion, or lack thereof. At the time, I'd been having some issues with my own religion, specifically that my mother thought I couldn't "choose" my own religion at my age. When I wrote the central scene for the religious subplot, so much of what was written just popped into my head and onto the page, and I realized only later that what I had written was exactly what I had been wanting to tell my mother: religion is a personal thing and for the person themselves to choose, not their parents. So by making art, I further knew myself.

Anyways, to sum it up again: Yeah, art changes us. But it also helps define us, which I think is fairly important for those of us who need to understand who we are and what the heck we're doing.

***

Anyways, this is the announcement: I have another blog now.

And it's for my CampNaNo novel.

I've been writing second-generation fanfiction for the Naruto series, and I decided early on that I wanted to edit the chapters and publish them along with my work. After thinking about it, I realized that my work was a little more intensive than I thought, and I knew I didn't want to post it all on this blog. As a result, making another blog was the option.

To quickly explain to those who are curious: the story I am writing is about a girl named Katya whose parents, one of which is Itachi Uchiha, are ex-criminals. In order to try and escape the persecution she faces at home, she decides to travel and make a name for herself. Of course, this doesn't go off without a few hitches, though.

You can find my blog for this Camp NaNo novel here; there will be no chapter updates until August, but I will be posting some of my research as I go along, so stay tuned, okay? It's going to be a wild ride!

Titled: Title - Part 1

Yes, I really am that bad at titles.

On my hops through the internet, I've managed to find lots of juicy goodness for all kinds of people. Artists, linguists, creative types . . . really, if you're a human being, you'll probably find interest in something I've scoured up (or so I hope). I mean, I make no promises, but let's be positive for a little bit, right?

This being noted, I do think that it's my responsibility, when I find cool stuff, to share it and let others discover some new stuff too. After all, the only way I found some of this stuff was via others recommending the stuff to me, too! The Internet leaves us in a unique position to share stuff with other people, including with those we don't even know. But the only way to really make it big on the Internet these days is to get people to talk about your stuff, so if you find something new, you've gotta share it - it's the easiest way to get that person noticed and to do them a favor! That's yet another gem I found reading Austin Kleon's books . . .

Moving on! Here's what I've found over the last few weeks that I've wanted to share with y'all. Hopefully you'll find some of your own gems in here, too!

• Charahub. This is perfect for writer types (like me) who need a place to keep track of all of their characters. I generally have 2 ways of remembering my characters' details: writing down on scrap pieces of paper, or using a template I found on deviantArt to list the important stuff. There are pluses and minuses to each, of course, but Charahub has quickly become my third method for logging stuff about my characters. You start off by entering the name of the character, and from there you go into their bio, links to other characters, and answers to selected questions by Charahub. You can even get rid of a question if you don't want to answer it for all of your characters! There are some downsides, i.e. I think they repeat questions sometimes, but it's a pretty good tool for keeping track of your characters, and hey, it's free. Found this on tumblr via a friend's link, although I've since lost that link. D'oh!
• Seibei's post about the 50 Tee Challenge. This is just one form of a pretty awesome idea that seems to be running around the creative community. At the risk of butchering his explanation entirely, I'll just simplify it like this: Seibei makes T-shirts, so in order to make some decent designs, he forces himself to draw 50 shirts and decorate them all, without overthinking, overworking, or overjudging any design. He's recently expanded this idea to encompass 1,000 t-shirts, which is an awesome idea. I got this gem from Austin Kleon (linked above) yet again, and it's been making the gears in my head turn ever since. Think of the versatility of this! You could expand this idea to drawing 50 characters in a week, making pneumatic devices for 50 foreign language words in a day, or even writing 50,000 words in a month! . . . wait a second . . .
• Duolingo. Having officially graduated from high school (Booyah!), I've been super excited to go to college for arts, languages, and all of that jazz. Here's the problem, though - the school I'm going to doesn't offer much in terms of Spanish, which is my second language. Pooh! However, I discovered Duolingo due to an imgur post and decided I would just derp around with the Spanish course before delving into French, thinking it would be a series of lessons I could finish like that *snap*. I was so wrong! Along with lessons, Duolingo provides discussions and immersion, which I've already hopped into by offering some translations for an article about Chambao (more on that later). While I've only had a few hours to explore it, I'm pretty pleased with its range of activities. It even allows you to take a placement test that will helpfully get you past some of the lessons you might already know! There are lots of options to go with it, and I'm excited to continue with the lessons!
• Chambao. Oh, hey, it's later! While translating an article on Duolingo about this band, I decided to do myself a favor and listen to some of the music while I worked. This sort of music isn't usually my thing, but it's pretty chilled out, and I can get behind that! It's Spanish, of course, but it's great if you just need some background music to work with. Of course, they say that music with lyrics hampers work, but I don't believe that . . . anyways! If you need something new to listen to and don't mind some Spanish, check them out! I linked to a Youtube playlist above.

I have some more I can add to this list, of course, but I think I'll hold onto them for a little while longer - gives me some excess material to make another post about! Have fun with these sites, and don't forget - the Internet is a lot more fun when you're sharing your stuff with everybody else.