A Year of Creative Challenges

 

It's January. I don't know how I feel about it. I'm listening to Debussy. We've just come off of 2022, and for me, I just graduated from Front Range with a degree in graphic design. It has been the most fun experience I've had in school, ever. It's probably because graphic design, for me, has been a creative endeavor. And if there is anything I like to be, it's creative. Perhaps I should define that differently: I like to have created.

I'm no stranger to a creative challenge. I suppose my first creative challenge was NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month which I first did in November of 2017. For anyone not in the know, the basis of the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days which breaks down to 1,667 words a day. It is no easy task. NaNoWriMo offers three such challenges a year. Classic NaNo is in November, but they also have Camp NaNoWriMo in both April and July. I have participated in these since November of 2017 with the exception of 2021.

I got hook on these challenges, doing the now defunct SoFoBoMo, or Single Photographer Book Month in August 2018. I later did this challenge on my own every August since. I have done poetry challenges too.

Last October, my friend Kimberly and I did Inktober, which is one ink drawing a day in October. It's an organized event like NaNoWriMo. I found this challenge very worthwhile for no other reason than how difficult I found it to be. And I immediately followed it up with a novel in November.

I had to wonder, if these are month long challenges, would I be able to do one a month for a whole year? I asked Kimberly, because I knew it if was an art challenge, she would do it with me. We talked about all the challenges we could do in a year. And I was very excited at the prospect. After all, I really like having created.

This was an easy thing for me to outline. After all, I plan to do all 3 NaNoWriMo events this year. I also want to do at least 2 photography projects, May and August. That's already 5 months. I decided to do Inkober as well. The question is what about the other six months? I could do another poetry project come September.

That left: January, February, March, June and December.

Kimberly found a winter drawing challenge for January, complete with prompts, which we're doing. We decided on a watercolor challenge from Kick in the Creatives for February. For March, knowing my buddy has a little story book she wants to finish, and I have a mini comic series, we decided to do that. For June, I want to do another painting challenge, more on that later.

December is a strange one. I haven't decided what to do, but I think I may do a submit a story a day, everyday, for 31 submissions. We'll see.

In the meantime, how creative can I be in a 365 day, 12 month period? We'll see.