every year, the visual artist community organizes the challenge "inktober," where participants draw according to a prompt every day for the month of october. in 2020 i followed this format with digital doodles — in 2022 i challenged myself to write a poem every day. following this two-year cadence, i want to challenge myself to create *something*, every day in october. throughout high school i did writing challenges as well: blog-a-day for april, 50K words for NaNoWriMo.
this year, i'm holding myself accountable to a similar challenge. the constraints are minimal. it is impossible to choose a hobby — between prose-writing, photography, poetry, drawing — so this year, i want to hop between them all. i'm going to forgo the prompts — they've gotten a bit stale after so many iterations. all that matters is that every day, i prioritize creating something.
as a self-termed multimedia ~ creative ~, i often take a step back from all my interests and try to find the common thread. creativity feels like a force, some sort of momentum that can be transferred from one piece of an art to another. that's why when i write something, i get inspired to draw — when i look at a painting in a museum, i'm inspired to write — when i watch a movie, i want to go on a photoshoot. maybe it's because the themes i fixate on are so universal, almost basic. but there's nothing more inspiring than seeing the work of my own creative friends: their momentum drives me to create.
in the past i've documented my progress on daily instagram updates (priv igs, so truly shouting into the void). this month, i plan to post every day on substack, with whatever drawing/writing/photo/creative output i come up with. (NB: for these posts i'll turn off the email notif, so i won't spam my lovely subscribers :'))
creating in public will keep me accountable and also lower the pressure of posting on substack — many of these creative outputs will be unpolished, but i want to reward frequent drafts as a way to build this habit. (part of me secretly hopes my other fellow friends will join me on this challenge — i can imagine
working on music every day, or making her poetic art, or writing up his thoughts on community).when i look back at previous iterations of this challenge, i normally don't end up with anything i could proudly send to a lit mag or publish on my own. and that’s ok! i picture myself working on a lil baby piece on the subway commute, or in between meetings, or right before bed. my goals are loosely:
develop a habit of drawing / writing
spend less time on doom scrolling apps
spend more time observing what's around me
try posting on substack from my phone (it's a feature i don't think i would use except for something casual like this)
come up with a better name than create-tober (lmk if you have any thoughts !)
inspire at least one person to create one thing!!
Day #01: Return to Ink
i was originally going to do inktober but now inspired to just make something everyday! daily practice kinda reminded me of this - https://www.internetvin.tv/my-experiments