Author: Christine

Christine http://www.mombie.com I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Co-Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm the current president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

Tea and Art

Last night, while watching a movie, I made a bunch of patterned drawings* and I really liked how some of them turned out.

I had a few others that didn’t work for me but I didn’t include them in the photo.

It wasn’t exactly deliberate.

I had laid the ones that didn’t work to my left and the ones that did to my right, next to my tea.

I liked how the drawings looked next to my tea and snapped the photo.

A cup of tea and 4 drawings with repeated shapes and patterns
My large cup of tea in a glass cup with white stars on it and four drawings on rectangular pieces of paper. Other art supplies are present in the background. The drawings each feature their own repeated shapes, colours, and patterns. One has features red, blue, and black shapes with gold lines and dots, one features squares in different shades of green with gold dots, lines, and shapes, black shapes and dots and some black lines. One with circles in shades of blue and purple with black lines and dots. The fourth has blocks of bright pink, sweeping shapes of aqua and thick navy lines with some thin black lines as accents.

Then I spent a bit of time considering all of then while drinking my tea.

What is the difference between a bunch of shapes and lines on paper and a unified piece?

How can I tell which ones are done?

Do these pieces need something else?

Why didn’t the others work?

Which elements of these pieces would I carry forward into another project?

Is there anything from the other ones that might work in other contexts?

What other kind of practice should I do before practicing similar work in a larger format?

I don’t have the answers yet but I’m enjoying considering the questions.

*Is this abstract art? I was playing with colour and shapes but I wasn’t trying to express anything in particular so I’m not sure.

Weekends and weekdays

I try not to do work-work on weekends but because my work is similar to my hobbies and because I am never sure where my volunteer work fits into the work/personal/hobby divisions, I sometimes find myself leaning into my hobbies on my weekdays and doing work/work on my weekends.

After three sick days this week and knowing that I have a bunch of appointments on Monday, I had planned to spend today doing some work-work stuff just to get then all moving.

But today I woke up with an evil headache.

Not a migraine but a tension headache.

And now my work-work day is tomorrow.

But even with the way I balance things out during the week, I still feel like doing work-work on a weekend is a sign that I am working ‘too much.’

My brain is such a pest.

Friday List

I’m almost at the end of Planuary and I feel pretty damn good about the pacing and scheduling of this month – even though I have been sick a fair bit.

I don’t feel overwhelmed.

I don’t feel done-in.

I don’t feel like I have been dragged along and dumped out at the end of the month.

These are all new feelings for me.

And I’m sure the majority of this is down to the fact that I am better medicated than ever but I also think that some of my choices from last month – the choice to finish soft for example- has made a big difference, too.

And now I am making a short list of creative projects for February:

1) Write 4 blog posts for my coaching blog

2) Draw and send 10 valentines

3) Create 1 informational zine

4) Send out 1 piece of flash fiction

5) Revise 25 pages of my novel

Now I need to schedule time to work on each of these things.

On getting enough rest

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been sick this week.

And I’ve already been sick a fair bit of this month, including having a few migraines.

And I hate how feelings sick several times in a row for something starts to feel wrong, it feels like trying to get out of something, even when I’m just sick.

I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it must be for someone with a chronic illness who has recurring bouts of being sick how difficult that must be to navigate.

I’m not sure what someone feels in those circumstances but I can imagine that it must be very hard on the brain and you must feel very frustrated by other people’s reactions and questions.

Today, as I’m starting to feel better, I’m trying to find the balance between continuing to rest and slowly doing the things that are important to me on my to do list. The things that are within my capacity, of course.

I’m not well enough to do things that have to be completed all in one go. I’m not well enough to do things outside the house. I’m not well enough to do things that involve other people that aren’t on zoom right now.

But I feel like I might be at that point tomorrow so my goal today is to ensure that I don’t ruin things for myself for tomorrow by trying to do too much today.

And to try not to feel too weird about not doing things that I technically can but that would wear me out or set me back to where I was yesterday.

On stories and planning

I had a great meeting yesterday about a story I am preparing with someone.

We were both exploring ways to make the story develop, to help it come to life, to make all the parts work, and it made me realize once again how much I want to get better at slow, deliberate work.

My natural instinct is to find the straightest line from idea to done. I assume that comes from a desire to ensure that I don’t forget or abandon the task at hand, a desire to let the urgency of the moment draw me forward.

But it comes at a cost.

Some of my work, especially my personal creative work, is not as developed as ai would like it to be, there are things left unexplored.

It’s not as good as it good be.

And I’m not putting myself down with this, I’m generally pretty pleased with my creative work, but it could be even better.

It’s could have more depth, more nuance, more meaning.

It could resonate with more people.

If I can learn to work slowly and give my ideas time and space to develop more fully.