Michelangelo's Legacy

My art teacher once told me a story about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel.

You know the Sistine chapel, it's the one with the enormous ceiling with a ridiculous amount of perfect and colourful paintings adorning it, one painting of which is the famous one where God reaches his hand towards Man's.



That one.

Well, for one thing, it wasn't easy. Besides scaffolding having to be built (hope he didn't fear heights), and the issue of having to continuosly be looking up (makes you want to rub your neck, huh?) there were a few other issues.

For one thing, Michelangelo was forced to do it. Remember Catholic churches had tons of power then, and they could practically do whatever they wanted. Who knows how many paintings sculptures our friend Mike never completed 'cause he had to spend years doing this job.

Second thing, they never paid him. Have you ever had a debtor who told you that they would get the money to you someday. In this case, not counting a few funds here and there, someday never came before Michelangelo's death.


So this famous artist was pulled away from the works he yearned to do for years, and never got payed for it.




But it doesn't matter anymore.




Very few people know this story, I doubt you knew it. All people know is that the Sistine chapel is one of the single most incredible works on this earth. And what is money? He doesn't need it now, and I'm sure he was provided for in the times he did.

So in the end it's not about what someone wants to do, or what they'll recieve from their hard work. What matters is the legacy you create, how you change people for what you did.

Maybe writing is a thankless job, but maybe I don't need that.



Sorry about the nudity

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Dilly-Dally

Writing is hard. Worth it, but hard.



For example, I dilly-dallied today.
I switched around a couple plot cards, and went over what I have in chapter 17 so far. By this way, your not supposed to do that for correction purposes, which is exactly what I preceded to do.

Really, the only thing I really accomplished today was work on the sequel, Ya know, the book that would be about four books away from the part I'm on now.

It looks really good though :P

I mean...shame upon me!

*Sigh*

Well, I'll probably still work on the actual story today. I don't know why I didn't.
Probably because of my own personal laziness. Why did a procrastinator like me get asked to do something like this?

Oh well,

Back to it, I guess.

ReMake

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Magically Organized

Yesterday we visited an exhibit on Harry Potter. I was thrilled.
I'd been a big fan ever since the first book came out (until the fifth, when it got too dark for me), and the movies just added to the...uh...'enchantment'.
Yup, the exhibit displayed most of the major props and costumes from the film.

However, I wasn't in the kind of mood fan girls will find themselves in, "OMYGOSHHETOUCHED!THISSHIRTHARRYPOTTERWORETHIS!!!OHIWANTTOSTEALITSOBAD." I wasn't exactly kissing the ground here. Quite frankly, the actors and set designers would have seen this stuff everyday and thought nothing of it.
No, I was thrilled because it made me want so bad to be a part of something that influenced so many people and that must of been so fun to create.

Harry Potter will be forever be a part of every writer's ambition. The story of a waitress starting a world-wide phenomenon on a paper napkin is magical in itself.

Just one problem...J.K. Rowling is a lot better at writing than me.

See, I started as a novice and continue to be one today. I made two major mistakes: having too many important characters, and starting without a plot. Even now, I only have a few scenes here and there in my mind, no connection, and a very undeveloped climax.

Ooops.

Word of advice to people who think this okay, that as long as it's mostly in your mind, then you can churn out a full novel with little difficulty: DON'T! NO! DO NOT DO IT!

If I ever want to be a part of a major film industry (Maybe someday :P) then I've got to have a plan.

To make a long story short (too late!) I've decided, once again, to get myself organized. I had already made several ugly cuecards (four cut out of a large cuecard) with major scenes written on them, and taped them onto a few pieces of printer paper.

This didn't work so well, paper is so small everything has to be linear. I've got several characters who go different places and do different things. This means that there are several plots that branch off, meet, and generally go all over the place.

Too make an even longer story shorter (too late!), I've got an entire wall in my room covered with many cue cards that are connected and seperated by lines of colored chalk. Yes, it is ugly (you've got to make sacrifices for your art), but it helps. It's a lot easier to see all my gaping holes now.

I started with the 21 scenes that make up the story I know so far. I then wrote down as many scenes as I could remember from the couple years they've been forming in my mind. That makes up 54 cards for the entire trilogy. I am an environmental disaster.

So, today's work is done. And maybe I'm that much closer to getting half as far as Rowling. Maybe I'll have my own exhibition someday (it pays to dream big!)

-Remake

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I will admit one thing to you here and now, let it be know to the farthest reaches of the internet...

I am a visual artist.

"Great?" you answer, "good for you. So uh...why're you telling me this?"

Because the main focus of my life right now, is in fact, not visual art. Not drawing, painting, or creating gaint sculptures of thinking people in marble. It is writing. The artist with the bad handwriting and owful speeling is attempting to write fiction.

A novel.

The first of a trilogy.

Am a crazy? Well, quite frankly, probably a little. I'm an artist, remember?
But I'm another thing, Christian. And when God tells you quite plainly to write a novel, well then by gum, you write a novel.

It's just a good thing I know how to type.

So here I am, midway the seventeenth chapter when I make the mistake of looking at writing sites. You know, those ones that tell you exactly what you're doing wrong before you're probably ready to hear it? Oops. So I got a little discouraged.

But like I said, God told me to write a novel. And after getting discouraged, he told me to just write. So here I am, writing.

See, I figured if I got a blog, I could get in the experience I needed to write, and to catalog the experience along the way.

So whether you stumbled upon this blog and mercifully read it when you could have just clicked away, or got told about this place by a friend (Ha ha ha ha, unlikely), or are just a robot virus, then welcome!

Let me tell you about how an artist can become a writer, and how writing itself is an art.



P.S. I apologise for the state of the site. It's still in a basic template because the new design tool isn't working. I'll do my best to fix that in the near future.

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