Making Something 365

All right -- the studio is finally functional! To celebrate that, I'm committing to a productive streak of unprecedented proportions (for me, at least).

A couple of years ago, my friend Noah had the idea that he would create a different skull image every day for a year. Out of that idea was born Skull-a-day, which blossomed from being a record of his creations from day to day, to a book published by Lark Books, to a continuing site featuring reader-submitted skull art projects. It's been inspiring to see what consistent productivity (coupled with Noah's singular energy and talent) can result in.

Well, Noah has a new book and blog in the works now, encouraging people to take up their own year-long creative projects. It's called Make Something 365. With our studio renovation mostly complete, it feels like a great time to take up the challenge.

I'm tailoring the Make Something 365 idea to my own situation. Instead of making one thing 365 times over the course of the year, I'm interpreting it as "[At least] Make SOMEthing 365... ANYTHING".

If you're reading this, you're probably familiar with my work with handmade books and artists' books. That will be a big part of my Make Something 365 year. But I also write haiku, poetry of other kinds, short fiction, and translate the same from Spanish. If I stay on any one thing for too long, I get antsy to be producing in another genre or form. My Make Something 365 mission is to be productive in the full range of them. That will keep it interesting and fresh, and I won't feel like I'm neglecting any particular area.

I do have a rough schedule to give myself some structure:

Monday: new poem
Tuesday: new haiku
Wednesday: new page for an ongoing artist's book project
Thursday: new translation
Friday: new flash fiction piece
Saturday: anything goes
Sunday: blog entry

But those are just suggestions to serve as spurs if I'm stuck on any given day. If I'm rolling on a book project one week, I'll stick to that. If Margarite and I have the urge to collaborate on something for a month, we'll do it. To keep it going, I think I'm going to need to find the right combination of freedom and the whip.

I'll be sharing some of the results here -- probably not everything, since a good bit of what I produce in such a time frame will be... um... rough. Wish me luck, bon voyage, break a leg or what have you -- and I hope you're finding time to make what you've always wanted to make.