If you could take lessons on anything, what would it be and why?
Back in August when we got into this second book of prompts, one of the first prompts asked “what is something you want to learn but have been too afraid to try?” I’m not really scared to try learning new things, but it’s been a while since I’ve desperately wanted to learn something new.
In that post I talked about how I hoped to get to Tokyo this summer for the Olympics and how intimidated I was about the prospect of learning Japanese. Unfortunately, we were unable to secure tickets when they went live, and anything that has popped up since has been exorbitantly out of our budget. We’d still like to visit Japan someday, but it’ll have to be put on the backburner for now.
I think it’d still be neat to learn Japanese. I watch a lot of subbed anime and it would be cool to be able to watch without subtitles once in a while, or to have it on in the background while I’m working on other things and still be able to follow what’s going on. If I could learn to read it too, I wouldn’t have to wait for translations of my favorite manga either!
While learning a new language would be fun and have its uses, I think, if I had to choose something to start tomorrow, I would want lessons on writing comics. I have a decent baseline for narrative story telling and world building, but I am nowhere near capable on the art side. I want to be able to write a comic script that a talented author could use to help me create my vision.
In Sunday’s post I talked about how much fun I had working through my ninja-pirate world over the weekend, collaborating with my friend who helped me create the world and characters in the first place, but also how we were gonna hold each other accountable this week in regards to our creative endeavors. My goal was to write another chapter for my NaNo WIP on my nights off from the blog, but I’ve been so consumed by Kita and Leo I’ve barely given half a thought to Al and the crew of the Calico Jack.
The more ideas I have for their story, the more I think it’d work best as a comic or graphic novel. I know I’ve probably said this half a dozen times by now, but it’s beginning to stick in my mind that way. I’m so frustrated that I never honed my meager artistic skills back in middle school. I thought there was no way I was good enough, but once in a while I get bored and go back through my old sketchbooks and laugh at the characters I drew and think “wow, those are kinda bad,” but honestly? They were sketches drawn by an untaught 12-year-old. Of course they were bad. If I had kept practicing and learning new skills like I’ve done with my writing over the decades, I could have even come far enough to draw my own damn comics.
In retrospect, it’s a little funny that I want Leo and Kita’s story to be a graphic novel. The Ninja Spaz was a silly little stick figure character I doodled in notebooks. She was a menace to another stick figure, Average Joe, whom she killed in some manner or other in 3 or 4 panel strips. Seems only natural that her latest incarnation would still want to be drawn. (Side note: I went through my desk and found my old sketchbook and sure enough, I have a handful of those silly comic strips drawn in there. Maybe one day I’ll share them with the world. xD)
I suppose lessons in comic drawing or digital arts would be useful too, but I would rather use my spare hours learning new methods of writing than starting basically from scratch in a different medium. Like I said, I’ve had decades of practice honing my writing. It would take decades more for me to get to a level artistically that I’d be comfortable with drawing for myself and my writing would likely suffer in that time. It’s a bit of a catch-22 I guess.
Wow, looks like there are lots of things I would love to take lessons in! I guess the desire to learn new things is still there. I thought I’d lost that years ago, haha! Heck, I just thought of another non-art related one: tennis! I sure could benefit from some actual tennis lessons and then my husband could have someone worth playing against or as a partner in mixed doubles. Now that the days are getting longer and the weather is teasingly getting warmer (50F is warmer!) I’m itching to get outside and play again.
Well, that’ll do it for this Wednesday post. My new schedule has been leaning towards T-W-F posts for prompts, but this weekend is our 10th “anniversary” (our 3rd wedding anniversary is in July, but we’ve been together for a whole decade as of Saturday and we still like to mark the date) so we’re sneaking away for a mini vacation. Which means, I’ll do the last prompt tomorrow and you’ll get three straight days of content! I still plan to do the vss365 wrap-up post this week, so you’ll also have that to look forward to on Saturday as usual. There have been some good prompts this week and I’ve had an easy time with each so far.
We made it through hump day! We’re into the final stretch of this week! Have a great Thursday, everyone! See you soon!
PS-Like these prompts? Like the short stories I write based on these prompts? Want to show your support? Give the blog a follow! Leave a comment! Buy me a coffee! I put a lot of time and effort into these posts and your support means the world to me! Ok, now go out there and write!
Closet Full of Notebooks 