Zero attracts Zero

I was talking to someone today and they said something that for some reason struck a cord. "If you're looking up, you can get up." It was words of encouragement and help, letting me know that things aren't as bad as you think they are, and for some reason those words hit me.

Now, I know taken literally, that might not be true due to circumstances beyond our control physically, but emotionally and metaphorically, they hit me. I heard those words and I thought to myself, "That's true. If I'm looking up, that means I'm alive. That means I'm breathing air another day and I'm here." I can't quite explain why those words affected me so much, but they did.

Something else that was said is that "zero attracts zero". Again, those words touched me. If I block everyone out, regardless of what I'm going through, then I'm cutting out not only the negative and bad things I want to get rid of, but I'm cutting and blocking out the positive things that will help. The people and places and experiences that will help me get through the troubling times that everyone faces. We all are fighting our own battles and wars and we all have scars of whatever nightmares we face. But in battles and wars, the winning side usually has allies. Someone there to draw support from. We need that support. It's something that can help and build us up, even if some days all we want to do is stay inside, pull the covers over our head and block out the world.

The world is still gonna be there tomorrow. The sun is going to rise tomorrow. If you're looking up you can get up. So please, get up, get out into the world and let the sun hit you on your face. Enjoy the sounds of the world and the beauties that are out there. Give yourself a chance, instead of keeping it from yourself. And find those you trust. It doesn't have to be hundreds or dozens. One or two will suffice. Find those who will be there for you.

Sometimes we think we are alone, but we aren't. We're only alone when we let ourselves think that and keep to ourselves. Zero attracts zero.

Picture Book Idea Month!

For many writers out there, November has become known as NaNoWriMo, or, National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a rough draft of entire novel in the month of November. A quick glance at Wikipedia say the event began in 1999 with just a couple dozen people, but it's grown to over thousands of people attempting it every year.

Well, something else has sparked from this creative madness, and that's called PiBoIdMo. Picture Book Idea Month. Started by Tara Lazar (@taralazar), the concept behind this event is to create an idea for a picture book, every day, for the month of November.

I failed at it miserably last year, whereby I think I only did two days. Well, this is the end of the first week of PiBoIdMo, and so far I've held to it. Here's a small look at days 1-5:

A couple of the ideas I really like and a couple ideas I think are just space fillers, but that's okay. The point isn't to have 30 brilliant ideas at the end of the month, but to have this bank of 30 ideas you can draw from and work with. Who knows, maybe one day one of these 30 will be a great picture book.

In my case, I'm not only using these ideas for Picture Books, but since I make comics for all-ages, I decided that some of them could possibly make some great graphic novel ideas. Either way, it's November 7th, and I've got a few more ideas in my head I can't wait to put down.

Over on Tara's blog, she's posting a blog a day from some great kid-lit creators and today's was awesome. A couple days ago I came up with a simple little idea about a little red cardinal. I had and still have no idea what his story is yet, but just that little idea was a struggle. I couldn't really think of anything. Well, today on Tara's blog is a post by Jennifer Arena (@hallojen), and there's a chart that lists a number of different objects and people and things. You just hook up two of those little boxes and WHAM!, there's an idea! I love it.

If you haven't followed the blog do so and if you want to register for PiBoIdMo, today is that last day! Come on, join the fun!

Be Awesome