#Practice your craft

[trickstersaint]

fr though you have to write bad poetry. poems are not handed down to you fully formed by god they are things that you have to work on and practice your skill at creating. nobody would expect you to sit down at a pottery wheel and end up with a perfect vase with no practice. it's a skill! art is a learned thing!! you have to make the shitty little pots with dents and marks and your fingerprints all over them in order to get better. and you're allowed to be proud of those first little pots you made too

[cozylittleartblog]

small PSA: if you shop at craft shows or artist alleys, please bring more than apple pay or a virtual card - especially if you're not comfortable entering your card number manually. not all of us have fancy card readers, so please also bring your physical card or cash, even if it's only as backup 👍

[onebizarrekai]

I don't remember if you answered this question, but did you go to art school or are you self-taught? Have you studied from YouTube videos?

nah, I never did art school. I learned a few things from books when I was a kid and got signed up for a short summer art class one time, since I was thinking about being a professional artist and my parents were trying to help me along. I learned how to use digital art programs from tutorials when I was a teenager, but I haven't used tutorials much besides that. pretty much everything I know has been from observing other artists online and experimenting. so yeah, I guess that means I'm self-taught, haha.

I went to school for music and vocal performance, but I could tell a long story about the university I went to, how they weren't really qualified to train musicians and how I dropped out. I've already been working professionally as a performer for 7 years, working with a private teacher and as a teacher myself, and I have tons of experience that I never would've gotten at school, so it's all working out really well.

[hiddenhues]

It’s that simple . You valuable. You are needed here . You have a lot to offer to all of us … to this big puzzle that we call life , earth and universe :)

Happy New Week

[assi9art]

ADHD gods said to make junk journals today. not sure what ill do with 18 of them tho....but its better than having material collecting dust :D

[witch--tips]

you NEVER need to wait “until you have the money” to start practicing witchcraft. you do not need ANY money for witchcraft. you can have all the money in the world and practice witchcraft every single day without spending a single cent on it. everything you need you already have, inside of you and around you as well.

[mumblingsage]

I think I've recommended it in passing a few times, but writers seeking more craft books: I would run, not walk, in the direction of Matthew Salesses's Craft in the Real World. It's one of the most exciting books on writing that I've read in years (up there with Ron Carlson Writes a Story, Samuel Delaney's The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, Kim Addonizio's The Poet's Companion and June Casagrande's It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences). I think it might be most helpful if you've already read some other books on craft--it's a sort of 201-level response to 101-level advice, and if you aren't familiar with the 101 advice you might miss some of the significance. But parts like the revision exercises definitely stand on their own.

Salesses re-evaluates and explores a lot of common writing ""rules"" with the understanding of how culturally contingent they are, and how this is a disservice to writers and readers from backgrounds and cultures outside the presumed "norm." At the same time, he offers modifications of the tools and new techniques/new ways of thinking of old techniques. I'm in the middle of his re-definitions of terms. For instance, Salesses recommends looking at Characterization as "What makes one character different from everyone else." Character + Story Arcs are "What changes or fails to change." Craft itself is "a set of expectations."

Lightbulb moments everywhere.

(While I'm sending out book advice: for less 'exciting' but super solid grounding in techniques designed for nonfiction but applicable broadly, try anything by Roy Peter Clark. Ursula K. Le Guin's Steering the Craft is short but rich; it's one of my first recommendations to writers just getting started on reading craft advice. In the Palm of Your Hand is another poetry workbook that has advice on vocabulary, detail, and narrative that applies well to fiction too. For anyone looking into self-publishing, it's out of print and parts are dated but if you can secure a used copy through your library or secondhand sales, Catherine Ryan Howard's Self-Printed: The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing is hugely informative and amusingly written.)

[herbs-spice-and-everything-nice]

Sometimes I wish there was a resource where it was like "Select a magic user from your fave media and we'll list all the books you should read/videos to watch to learn the level of knowledge and path they're on"

with a submission section you can submit characters and they can add them after review

bc yeah I know each path is specific to the witch but it'd be great to have such a direct studying source with vetted sources

Strega Nona? Boom a list of green witch, kitchen witch, familiars, and folk magic resources

John Constantine? Bam a list of resources of demonology, classic sigilcraft, the Old Gods, spirits and hauntings, protection magic

Sally or Gillian Owens from Practical Magic? Protection spells, hexes, love spells, graveyard craft, covens, ancestral magic, general witchcraft basics

Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service? Familiars, kitchen witch, ocean witch, folk magic, forest magic, herbology, potions, tarot, love magic

Just overall magic that's been shown in the media overall or directly what the character knows, there are soooo many more but like this was just off the top of my head

[princessmyriad]

Any lovely witchy friends out there have advice for reaching out to a deity?

[uncanny-tranny]

Fiber arts (crochet and knit, especially) tip I found helpful: It's great to be a yarn snob, but first, find what you actually like to work with. When you're beginning, you might be working with acrylic, and that's fine. There are plenty of great options for acrylic, and even that one material can be vastly different between brands (honestly, I think people don't recognize this enough! Acrylics are actually a diverse material!). However, you might like working with other materials more as you progress, and it's good to see what you'll like! I've been working with 100% cotton recently, and I really, really like it - much moreso than the acrylic I bought when I first crocheted, and I never knew that I would have liked it more.

It's okay to work with whatever you can, especially when it's your only option. When you get the chance, though, think about some things you like in a material. What textures do you like? What colour options do you prefer (bright/muted/natural)? What is realistic for you when it comes to caring for your projects once they're done? These are all important, and they're things that are specific for you. There is no such thing as a "bad material," only materials you like and want to use. It can be intimidating to feel like you're not at this pristine place of yarn-snobbery, but truthfully: it doesn't matter as long as you make things that you like, and being able to explore what you like can be really helpful.

[trans-xianxian]

"wearing leather/fur or eating animal products is unethical" SHUT UP SHUT UP WE ARE PART OF THE ECOSYSTEM!!!!

[icewindandboringhorror]

If you became super rich and could design your own house, but could only add THREE unnecessary/random/expensive home additions (like how people will have bowling alleys, movie theatres, closets with museums of shoes, car display rooms, spa rooms, wine cellars, etc. in their mansions) - what three would you choose?

[hereforthefunnyguys]

Being really passionately into your own genderbend au is all fun and games until someone has a different completely harmless headcanon about something you happened to have an extremely strong-set belief in and oh no it appears i have written a small essay in my tags on marik ishtar gender identity. How did that get there

[simply-sithel]

First attempt at woven basket was twisting some split reeds and grass and winding them around split segments of a ridged stalk. Easy enough but rather delicate. I liked the calm and meditative task of splitting the reeds but the stripped blades of fresh grass looked better even tho they were more obnoxious to twist in.

[aculeus]

The drastic decline in the quality of my art is something that needs to be studied...

[higgsboshark]

So I went out drinking with some other manager types and

Other manager: I hate it when I catch employees faking sick

Me: I know right? I keep telling them, you gotta lie well enough that I can plausibly say I believed you. Don't half ass it

Other manager: What

Me: What