I’ve decided that I no longer want to pursue graphic design, simply because I don’t think I want the pressure. Moreover, I value freedom and doing things because they are exciting, not because they move you forward in a career. Art can be a career too but I feel with art I would have more freedom to just do my own thing at my own pace. The point is no longer to have a career in something I love but simply to do what I love and take things from there.

So no more 2,000 words a day. Simply, as much art as possible, combined with writing and training as I see fit to bring me greater creative possibilities. Woo!

Simply, the work is just that good. The quality of experience when I am doing graphic design work is unlike any experience I have otherwise. It really is amazing.

So tonight I am going to work on a collage and I am going to draw and colour in with pencil crayon and I am going to see how things go. I am going to get excited about doing the work. I just have to get continually fired up! That is the only thing I can do to stall quitting this venture, is to do it as much as possible. And not do drawing and not do the boring things that I can do in classes or some other way.

I also just want to focus on graphic design and no longer on writing. Writing is good but graphic design is just so much better.

Oh, the folly! It continues upon continues! I wouldn’t mind it continuing if it continued and I had a career in graphic design at the same time.

Dear reader, if you have any advice, it is welcome.

- Making that poster for work.
This was a fun one. I decided what I wanted to do first. I had my concept picked out for me. Then I picked out pictures for locations I wanted to use, materials. Then I cut them out to emphasize the best parts of them. Then I chose a design that they should be arranged in. God, it was fun! I placed them in an arrangement, then wrote to fill in spaces. I spent some time arranging everything so that it looked perfect, then I got some advice about finishing touches on it to complete it. Woo!!!!!!!!!!!
Skills: using my hands, having great finger dexterity, imagining, inventing, creating, or designing new ideas, appraising, evaluating, following through, getting things done, producing

- Making that card for my friend’s birthday.
This one was also a lot of fun. First, I got out materials to use. I chose magazine material and brought out scissors, tape, paper and some pencil crayons. I spent a bit of time figuring out what images I would use. I selected colours and designs, pencil crayoning in what I wanted to. Then I taped stuff on, added an inside card, with written content and rather random magazine cut-out content. I added finishing touches, made a card and took a picture of it for memory’s sake. Woo!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skills: planning, laying out a step-by-step process for achieving a goal, visualizing, drawing, creating a work of art

Both entries excite me so much! God, it would be so interesting to do graphic design work, wouldn’t it? It’s so complicated. It’s so much more work to figure out graphic design. I am lacking in a lot of respects but it’s just soo good. So much better than writing, I am sorry to say. Writing is awesome and I love it too but… but of course, I cannot choose one or the other. It seems I am stuck, oh, forever stuck! It’s beautiful in a way. If I could just work forward from here that would be amazing.

What is going to be different about tonight? Well, tonight I will do a collage of myself. I am going to try to have as fun a time as possible with graphic design as much as possible! I just have to keep on reminding myself! That is my challenge!

I also plan on meditating in order to eventually wean myself off of my medications for Bipolar as they are potentially causing some mischief with my heart and kidney.

I am really excited about writing being my focus.

Oh who am I kidding? I am worried that it will be boring, that I will lose focus and start lazing off.

Well, I have no real solution to that problem, knowing that I am safe to some extent because no matter how bad my experiences are with writing I always come back.

For tonight my goal will be to complete a rough draft, a first toe in the water draft of what I will present in a month’s time at my writer’s group.

I am feeling rather restless right now.

I do feel like writing but just barely.

I wish I could focus on just one thing.

Q: What is preventing you from choosing just one thing?
A: I can’t forget graphic design and how the visual work makes me feel.

So don’t forget it. Do it. Spend your time obsessively trying to get better at it!

I know, I know. I just feel so pulled apart sometimes. I just don’t have enough time to do either one alone. Writing I am getting to do. That is the only thing. 2,000 words a day. But reading I am not getting to do. Graphic design work I am not getting to do. It is horrible. It is not turning out as I would like at all. Should I just give up on graphic design or what?

I have to turn this into a Q&A format in order to get it right.

Shoe – So you feel you are stretched too thin to do graphic design at all?

Suze – Absolutely. I socialize on the weekends. I want to watch youtube videos when I have free time. I have music I want to discover – I just don’t have enough time to do graphic design. Every time I do it, I love it though. I love it to pieces.

Shoe – Combine it!

Suze – You’re right. Combine it. This is so painful! I really do wish I could do just writing and not have to worry about graphic design anymore!

Shoe – Why not just choose that?

Suze – Because I know that the next time I am assigned something graphic design-ish, I will want to do graphic design all over again.

Shoe – Well, why not leave it open then? Just focus on doing the work rather than sitting here agonizing over whether to do it or not do it or what?

Shoe – Maybe you like being in the middle of all this. Maybe you get some kind of kick out of being conflicted that you are not aware of. Maybe you like that even more than the activities of graphic design and writing itself.

Suze – You do have a point there, Shoe. I remember once resolving it for myself, at least temporarily, and I thought that I would miss the conflict the next day, that there would be something boring about just doing graphic design work. Plus there are so many people who are so talented and who have drive. Who have big drive.

Shoe – What would you like to do now?

Suze – Write. Get involved and write about things that are complicated and interesting. Be interested in things that others are interested in. Write about things that are fascinating and wonderful and new. To always be passionately involved in something. Graphic design is great and I love the activity but the reality of it is that I rarely really get around to doing anything really that spectacular. I am not that kind of thinker I don’t think. The fact that I was able to spit out a little bit doesn’t mean that much, I don’t think. It’d be a really cool job but I don’t know. I have this dream to work out of this red doored shop where all these other cool designers work but I don’t think that this is going to be a reality. Reality.

Shoe – Could you, do you think go for both writing and design?

Suze – I think I have been trying for the last 4 years and where has it gotten me? It has gotten me a blog full of writing about graphic design and writing and not even at a really strong analytical level for the most part. I’d like to give up on graphic design, finally and just pursue writing, alas.

Shoe – Alas!

Now it seems I have no time to pursue really either and as of today I feel my will is a little weakened. I didn’t feel like writing today. I will write later on but I just feel so frustrated! I don’t know what to focus on! I don’t have time enough to do both but I still want both so what am I to do? Perhaps I should just be realistic and realize that I do not have time enough to do both things.

The reason why I don’t have enough time to do both is that I want to spend time with my boyfriend and socialize a little.

Oh, that’s stupid. People are cool but graphic design is much cooler.

And you know what? I didn’t have very much of a conclusion at all after reading them.

Well, there are a few things I can see now that I couldn’t see then. First, inspiration can be a tricky thing. I didn’t need to push so hard when there was genuinely nothing to say. Go for a walk, read some books, do something different if writing is not working for you. That would be my advice to myself of past. The fact that I wasn’t inspired 100% of the time did not mean that writing was not for me. I always come back to it. I always do.

Second, I hadn’t delved as deeply into writing as at least I have started delving more recently. Writing 2,000 words a day and having a time of day carved out for writing has helped in this regard. I haven’t done a whole lot just yet. One story down and one story started. What I have tasted though so far has been wonderful. Very rich and very cool.

Here is some Q&A on this writing vs. graphic design thing:

Q: Why is it so crucial that you figure out whether you want to do one thing or another?
A: I want to do well at whatever I put my mind to. I don’t want to waffle. I have been waffling forever. I am glad that at least I have been writing some and reading some. I just want to take whatever it is I am doing to the next level. But yeah, the reason why it is so important to figure out what my career trajectory is is that I want so much to be competent at something in the end.

Q: Why is being competent so important?
A: It just is.

Q: Why?
A: I don’t want to be like my mother, who goes from thing to thing, not being really good at any one thing, always having potential but never manifesting that potential to great effect. I have been told at a number of points in my life that I have a lot of potential. I want to take my potential to the next level. I want to be in a community. I want to take part in life by being competent and passionate about what I do.

Q: Tell me about community.
A: I think it is the most important thing. I have been seeking it for a long time. And one way of meeting people and “gelling” with people is to be good at what you do. This is the geek in me who doesn’t have many social cards to play but knows that a meeting of like minds will lead to great interactions.

Q: Why do you find it so difficult to choose between graphic design and writing?
A: That’s a good question. They’re like two both excellent lovers. They love in different ways. From graphic design, I get a deep high from doing the work. I love thinking about how something should go where. I love the process of problem-solving during design. I love selecting the images. I love choosing the colours. I love the thinking that goes into it. It’s a real high.

From writing I get freedom. I get to do what every person craves in social interaction – to tell their story, their way to a listener that is absolutely fascinated (the blank page). I love thinking. But moreso with writing what I love so much about it is… well, the idea of getting somewhere with it. Writing is something that comes easily to me. I don’t mean in terms of talent or skill but it’s something I can do copious amounts of for one reason or another. And I don’t love it all the time but I love it most of the time and then sometimes it’s addictive. It’s intellectual…

Q: What are your thoughts now?
A: I feel absolutely conflicted. I feel absolutely conflicted. On the one hand I feel unilaterally, unambiguously in love with the process of graphic design. On the other, I love writing and find myself doing it all the time but somehow my weakness in my description of how I like it doesn’t seem to be up to scratch, in comparison to my description of graphic design.

Q: Last, you were pursuing both, is that right?
A: Yes. Yes, it seems I have no choice in the matter. I can’t just do one or the other.

Q: It seems like you have fallen back on having to choose.
A: Yes, it seems I have. It’s just that every time I fall in love with writing again, I feel like I need to spend all my time to focus on that activity and nothing else.

Q: Do you think this is necessary that you choose one and one only?
A: I just feel like I would get further if I just chose one.

Q: Has it worked in the past?
A: No. Writing is a given, regardless. I am never going to give up writing. And the only way I am ever going to stop wanting to pursue graphic design is if I cut off all possible graphic design-y activities. Cause I am telling you, EVERY TIME I do something remotely visual in a collage like setting, in a project setting, the feeling is so overwhelming that I feel I MUST pursue graphic design as a career. It is unambiguous. It is VERY clear.

Q: Would it be fair to say, then, that you feel you have no choice in the matter?
A: Yes, absolutely. I either give up writing or I forget and ignore a feeling that can’t be ignored. There’s no choice in this matter. Choicelessness. How beautiful.

Q: So what is your plan from here on forward?
A: Take more action. I have already started with writing by writing 2,000 words a day and starting in again on reading, which I think I needed the break from for awhile after having forced myself in 2009 (It seems writing I can force with no trouble but forced reading can lead to serious repulsion). I need to do more work in the domain of the visual stuff. Maybe I can set it up like projects. Just start. Just start setting aside an hour a day where I can just focus on increasing my visual design skills. Work on my projects. Like a recent entry said:
- 1 piece a week writing
- 1 book a week
- 1 piece a week visual
- Discover 1 artist/graphic designer a week

Q: So your journey seems clear. Any last thoughts?
A: It seems very clear that I have no choice in this matter. The part that sticks with me is that writing is a given and graphic design I can’t forget. I am very excited about my journey ahead. I can’t wait to start mastering photoshop and illustrator and getting visual work out there and writing up stories and expressing myself and getting over my phobias. I am really excited!

I wrote because it was so interesting getting into telling stories. I am no good at it. I know this. Description feels awkward, I have no idea what I am doing. But it is really, really rewarding. I get to have images and scenes and emotions come alive! It’s really excellent!

I am no good with intuition but I do have a feeling nonetheless that there is a lot to be gotten from writing.

And, of course, I have a feeling too that graphic design will just be pushed to the corners. Had to throw that in there. But I will still attempt to pursue them both.