Big Magic the Gathering
My mind is racing with all the thoughts, so we'll see if I can make any sense out of some of them.
Man, has this been an intense couple of months. My body rebelled earlier this week and said, "NO! STOP DOING THINGS!" so I gave in. Not much creativity going on.
Or so I thought. . . .
It turns out my creative energy was diverted from the usual writing, mixed media-ing, knitting, to something I haven't done in a very long time: making Magic (the Gathering) decks and playing Magic and being excited about Magic. I made six decks in two days! That is ridiculous! And then I was frustrated and bored with making them on the third day and had no ideas and mad about that. Why couldn't I do it any more? Well, because I made six decks in two days, that's why. Duh. At most, two in a day is normal for me and then no more for weeks, months, or years, which is what it's been since I made that plant zombie deck.
Making decks this time around was different than when I made them in my twenties. I wasn't concerned with making the most powerful deck or even the most functional. I was easier on myself and grabbed stuff that would work fine, combine it with this other kind of card that was a different color because I get bored quickly with a single-color deck. We have so many cards that if I took the time to find the perfect cards, I would have made one deck and stopped and never wanted to look at the cards again. I used new cards I don't remember ever buying but for some reason we had four copies of them, old cards, and cards that are just happy. How can you not love a Bottle Gnome?
My husband and I stayed up late, well past being able to hold cards without dropping them for all the world to see or make well-thought-out decisions, just playing game after game, most of which I was mana-screwed or those couple times he had no land or all the land and nothing else. For those of you who don't know and don't play, you need land cards in order to cast your spells. If you have no land, you spend the game discarding all those cool spells you wish you could play because you need spells to participate in the Magic battle instead of just sitting there wide open for your opponent to trounce all over you with a Spiteful Bully which is very embarrassing. Trust me. Some of you will understand. (Maybe?)
So, here's my point: there are many ways you can be and are creative even if you aren't doing a traditional craft. Building Magic decks is cool because everyone has their own style of playing. They have cards and card combinations they prefer, you can choose to go heavy on creature cards or artifact cards, one color decks, all the colors decks, and use old cards or new cards, whatever you want and then play a fun game with a friend or friends or not because your hand is full of land and you've played lots already and just aren't drawing anything else that would be useful and by the time you are destroyed, having only gone through maybe a quarter of your deck, you've drawn thirteen of the twenty land cards in your deck. Augh!
Magic is fun. You should play it too. =)
Although, honestly, it's not for everyone. I can see that. But if you're curious, you should give it a shot. It's good to try new things.
And now that I've blabbed on about Magic for a while, here's a picture of my current in-progress Angel of Community for the Spirit Wings course by Kelly Rae Roberts.
I'll finish her maybe today or tomorrow. Soon.
I had a moment of Big Magic as described in Elizabeth Gilbert's book that I recently read. Remember? The night before was filled with dreams, the kind that happen when I'm way over-stimulated and my brain is doing its best to sort everything out. Without going into all the details, (mostly because I don't remember them all and you know how dreams are) at one point I was at a small conference where awards were being given out to people to pursue some sort of endeavor, funding for a project that was awesome. Three people were receiving these awards. The third did not go to the intended recipient. Instead it was given to me, $1500 for pursuing writing. And then I was like, "What the? I don't write much, not for showing other people anyway . . . um . . . okay . . ." and took the check which was handed out by a friend I don't see often these days.
In the morning, as I did my morning writing--although it was afternoon because I slept past noon--anyway, as I wrote about this dream and wanting to work on my D&D adventure but wanted to finish the Angel of Community and having been watching and deeply hooked on Critical Role, I realized that my angel should have little creatures as friends. Not birds or butterflies. My Angel of Community would represent my journey into becoming a Dungeon Master again, creating story settings for friends to play in, to create that sense of community with friends I already have. And that's where the writing comes in. I do a lot of writing out so I can be prepared to run a game because I know once I sit down and the pressure's on to orchestrate the group, I'll freeze and stumble. I need it all there in front of me to guide me in those moments, keep things sorted as much as possible, because chaos will ensue. I can still improvise as needed, take notes in margins if it's something to remember for later. I want my Angel of Community to guide me thorough the process of creating a world that will create stories for others, whoever plays in my world. To help me write this all out because my hand will fall off if I hand write everything and my computer has internet access, I'll do it my NaNoWriMo-style and use a typewriter.
Unfortunately, mine became unusable. But for Christmas my in-laws took it to a shop in Portland for servicing and cleaning, and, in the meantime, I will use this guy, gifted from the in-laws, to see me through pages of mad typing as scenarios squirrel around in my head, wanting hapless adventurers to see it through.
My thoughts are still flying about, but I'm going to stop it there because my hand is cramping because I'm silly and hand write out these blog posts beforehand. That's just how I roll.
Thank you for reading.