DreamWard Bound series

Good-Bye To The Dreamward Bound Series

Dreamward Bound was one of the first series started on here and it is the longest series. I have 90 posts in this series that range from 2014 to last month. Over the years it has morphed and grown along side me. The series has been filled with life updates, struggles, and insights to my creative life.

Dreamward Bound will always have a place in my heart. It is part of my life’s journey, but it has reached its end.

I am on Instagram and Twitter more often now. You can follow me those social media platforms and stay informed about my life there. I am also starting a monthly newsletter, which will be most like the early days of Dreamward Bound. The newsletter will have life updates and creative work updates, also.

In the coming months you will also see a few different blog series on this site. Each of the new series will have their own specific topic. They will be shorter series with the average being about a year long. The blog series will also be aimed towards helping the audience I am attempting to grow.

With this more focused and structured approach to my writing and art life I should gain more traction in my journey towards my dreams.

DreamWard Bound series

Different Jobs (Dreamward Bound)

Through out my life I have worked for 10 very different companies and had 11 different jobs. In college I also had a bunch of different career oriented experiences, primarily in the theater.

Notice that each of the companies had jobs, not careers. I could have turned any of those jobs into careers if I wanted to. However, besides working in my college scene shop and at a theater after college I knew they would be just jobs. I would not build a career around cleaning kennels or canvasing for a non-profit campaign.

Each of the very different jobs helped my journey. I learned lessons in each role I performed. The lessons ranged from learning what a toxic environment looks like to how I could truly motivate and support people.

Each job and role brought me down my life’s path and gave me experiences I can use in my art.

For years I thought I was starting my journey too late. I was behind in life and failing at being on my path. I was looking at my life and saying it wasn’t enough. In my mind I was stationary and stuck.

I now see I was always on my path; moving along in my life. I’m not behind in anything, because there are no markers for my life. I cannot compare my journey to anyone else’s or even my imaginary milestones, because that has nothing to do with my life or journey.

If I had different life experience my art would be different; my life would be different. I would be different.

If we all were on the same path expressing your heart and soul through art would be pointless. It would all be the same and devalue art itself. Even if only artist had the same path and learned the same things at the same time art would then loose something important.

It is because we are all on our own individual journeys that sharing our stories is important. We are telling people they are not alone in creative ways. Artists also show their audiences that it is okay to be different. You can still connect with people even if you’re odd.

All that to say, I now know the value of my struggle to claim my art and life. I now know the pleasure of readying myself to be a full time professional artist, because I’ve known all the other types of jobs I could fall into.

I’m ready for my creative career and that is a leap dreamward bound.

Where Am I? – DreamWard Bound

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I started this DreamWard Bound series almost 5 years ago. A lot has changed with the series and in my life, since then. My creative life has bounced from the foreground of my focus to the back burner and back up front.

What I focus on in my creative life has bounced around, also. Even my artistic purpose has morphed into something new.

My creative focus has changed, because the close I get to my ideal life the more I learn about myself and my true passions. I’m still not living my ideal life, but I am learning more about it.

In learning about my true passions I have added and changed my artistic theme and purpose. My theme now is ‘joyfully fun creations.’ I’m trying to keep most of my art joyful and/or fun. Sometimes I will still step away from my theme. This is mostly seen with poetry and other writings.

Having a theme to focus on has helped with my art and creating a solid body of work that has the same light, joyful feeling and style to it.

This theme/ style has carried into my memoir that I almost have completed. The book has been taking up a lot of my creative energy for the past few years, which is why this blog has been so sporadic. I have high hopes for it in both publishing success and keeping my new artist theme. I worked long and hard on it, so hopefully it is good. It’ll be very me at least.

I have also started to do more digital art work and post them for sale on Redbubble. I’m having fun creating lettering art and silly characters to share. I will be giving Redbubble at least 1 post of its own, if not more, in the near future.

I am also planning on writing more blogs and making sure this site is up to date on all my creative happenings, so stay tuned.

Chapters of Life – DreamWard Bound

Every few years my life changes. Each change is the start of a new chapter and a new part of my epic story. Most of the time it also comes with a change in location, but not always.

I try to prepare for each change in my life the best I can. I look at it like almost like a new story. What will the plot be? What new characters may I encounter? What will the theme or message be for this chapter of my life? Each time my life changes I think I answer these questions, but God or life always has at least one different answer. The changes are never fully what I expected.

This chapter in my life is like the others. It is not what I expected.

My goal for this chapter is to pursue my ideal life, my passions, and God’s will for my life.

At the moment I am being torn down in negative areas of my personality, struggling with my motivation, and I’m learning to be more flexible in multiple areas of my life. It is a trying point in my life. I do not want to face the areas of myself that I don’t like and should change. It is not easy to let things go that annoy me or frustrate me.

I do know that the reward for going through all this will be worth it. I will hopefully rid myself of the parts of me I do not like and become more flexible with things that don’t actually matter in the long run of things. I’ll be a better version of myself and living a better version of my life.

Also, although it is tough I am still less stressed and not emotionally drained each night. It is a better life for myself already.

Plus, I can actually have a full day to rest, which is a new thing and one I’m still relearning how to do. It is strange that stopping and relaxing is hard for someone. It seems like it should be easy to do, but I’ve spent years only really stopping on vacations. If I was not on vacation I had something to do; I had something to create or a to-do list item to check off. Now I have a day for that stuff and a day to stop and take care of myself. I still want to keep going and going, but I know we all have to take a break now and again, so that is what I’m doing. I will learn how to do it well eventually.

 

Leap Towards My Dreams – DreamWard Bound

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It is April; only the fourth month of this year, and already it has been a life changing year for me.

At the end of 2017 I decided that I would make a major change to my life. I needed to share up my life in order to truly pursue my dreams.

The decision I made was to leave my full time job in order to work towards my ideal life. I never meant to stay there as long as I had, but it was safe and seemed comfortable. However,  my unneeded stress was growing and the enjoyment of the actual work was shrinking. I realized it had become just a paycheck and if I was to work for just a paycheck there are less stressful jobs closer to where I live.

In fact, before I even left the full-time job I started a new part-time job with my church. I am now my church’s admin. That job started in January of this year and I left my full-time job at the end of February.

At the end of February, the Tuesday after my last day, I went on a 2-week mission trip to South Africa. I got back mid-March and had to adjust to this new amazing chapter in my life.

I am excited to see what new adventure lay in front of me and what opportunities await me. Whatever my future holds it will be worth the leap because for the first time in a very long time I feel like I’ve taken a significant step towards my ideal life.

I am truly dreamward bound.

Want More?

In 2019 I retired my DreamWard Bound Series. As of 2020, I have a few other series and a Youtube channel. I also have published my book To Love, which is for sale on Amazon.

DreamWard Bound- Flying

Note: There was a delay in publishing this blog.

As I write I’m 34,005 ft high. I’m flying back to California and anxiety is rising. I feel uncomfortable energy pulsing through my body into my mind. It touches my heart. There is a need to get up, to move, to do something besides sitting still.

My life is returning to me after being on vacation and cementing the process of leaping off a metaphoric cliff that I’ve been staring at for years.

I’m leaving my well paying job with good benefits to pursue my dreams. This is a big step on the path towards my dreams and it feels very real and giant.

This leap of faith I’m facing does not seem logical to me at this moment, but I know it is right. I know I need to leave the office job and start living the life I actually am suppose to live.

The unknown still frightens  me.

It is an excited time in my life and I am happy that I am dreamward bound, even if there is fearful energy trying to take control. I won’t let it though, too many great opportunities lay ahead of me. I just have to remember to breathe and remind myself that I’m worth following my dreams.

DreamWard Bound- Tracking Goals

Last DreamWard Bound I talked about how I organized and separated my goals and dreams. This helped me easily see my priorities and make a plan to reach my ideal life.

I know being organized does not fit every personality. Some people thrive in doing work as it comes along or as they are inspired. Some people do not like making lists or tracking their goals in detail.

I am not one of those people. More and more I love organizing my goals and tracking them. I have spreadsheets with formulas and charts. I have index cards and notebooks.

These things help me track my goals, so when I feel discouraged and forget my past achievements I can look back. I can see where I started and how far I’ve come.

Having my time and goals tracked also helps me plan for my future. I can see that I only consistently write for about 4 hours a week and draw for about 3. I can see that I can increase my prayer and Bible study time by 0.1 hours a week, because I know how much I’ve spent on godly things in the previous week.

By seeing my patterns with time I can see where I can improve. I can also see how long it takes to complete a project, book, or activity.

I do want to clarify that although I have 5 sheets with a lot of charts for visual tracking I did not start with that many.

I started with a notebook and only tracked time I spent reading the Bible and my television watching. After a few weeks I added other goals and then I moved it to one sheet on my computer. Little by little I added things I tracked and organized the sheets more. I can now see the following:

  • How many hours I put into a certain category each week (writing, blog posts, church, Bible reading, prayer, painting/ drawing, reading, etc).
  • On average how much time I put into creative work, writing, or spending time with God.
  • What percentage I spend in my different categories.
  • How long it takes me to read a book.
  • If my physical endurance is increasing.
  • How many hours I’m spending on promotion and revenue for my creative life.

The take away from all of this is to start small with your goals and tracking, but let both grow. This will help you to continually be improving and moving towards your goals and dreams.

DreamWard Bound- Separating Goals

For a while I looked at my ideal life and dreams as part of a whole. When I created goals they were not organized and did not have clear categories. They were all lumped together in the ideal life I would write out.

About five months ago I needed to re-energize my goals and become dreamward bound again. I needed a change, so I tried something new.

Instead of simply writing my ideal life out as one whole thing then separate it out into steps or goals I could take, I separated my ideal life into areas first and then made a plan.

I wrote how I wanted my spiritual life, writing life, visual arts life, physical health, mental life, and relationships to look. I took that information and asked myself how close I thought I could get in 5 years. I may have lofty goals, but my ideal life write-ups are also my 5 year goals.

I took my 5 year goals and asked how close could I see myself being in 1 year, then 6 months, then 3 months. It was easy to break the 3 months into 1 month and finally weekly goals.

Since I like bullet points and lists here is what I did in step form.

  1. Section out your life (Spiritual, relationship, hobby, career, mental, physical, emotion, etc)
  2. Write an ideal life for each of the sections.
  3. Write out how close you want to be in 5 years for the first section.
  4. Narrow your goals down to the top 3 for the section you are working on.
  5. Organize the 3 goals to Level A, Level B, and Level C goals (Level A being the highest/ most important)
  6. Create 1 year goals, 6 month goals, 3 months goals, 1 month goals, and finally 1 week goals.
  7. Repeat until all sections are completed.

As I reach each milestone I make adjustment notes and assess if the goals and organization still makes sense. So far it has made sense and helped me stay on track.

I can keep track of my plan. I know that I should focus on Level A goals before Level B goals. I also know that my spiritual life is more important than my writing. which is more important than my visual art.

If you are interested in creating goals I would highly recommend sectioning your life into different areas and creating you ideal areas of life. You can then make a plan easier to get to you ideal life.

DreamWard Bound Again- September 2017 Recap

If you follow my instagram you’ll notice that I have been focusing this account on my artwork. I have been posting more frequently and honestly being more creative in general recently. This is because I’m back on the goals and dream wagon.

I fell off the dreams and goals wagon for a little while. It at least fells like a short period of time, but it appears to be about a year. I have been writing a book and I have painted during that time. I was mostly focus on the book and my visual art creations found themselves on a back burner for most of that year.

I have found a balance and I am focused on all my goals again. I woke up from a haze of partial laziness. I’m watching less television, and drawing and writing more.

I posted 10 different visual art pieces onto instagram in September. Although most are fast doodles I am proud of them. I am also happy that I was able to add that many to my account that hardly saw any use before September. The consistent practice of this past month is important and I am glad that I am continuing with it.

All art forms are like muscles, you have to use your talents in order to strengthen and improve them.

With the practice I have done of this past month I have learned a few lessons.

1.) Drawing with a blue or red pencil is fine for some people but not for me. If I start with color I will use all the colors that are appropriate for the picture.

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2.)When digitally drawing be aware of how much you zoom in. In the picture below there is suppose to be scales. I zoomed in too much and you hardly can see the scales.

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3.) If I plan out the words and take my time, I can make pretty cool lettering art work. –As a side note the picture below will be made into a t-shirt at some point. 

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4.)Color schemes are important and limiting yourself to a specific color scheme can be create an interesting picture, even if it doesn’t look like anything specific.

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5.)Experimenting with a new technique can be fun, but should be done in the correct medium or at least a medium you are familiar with. I do not typically paint landscapes in watercolors.

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6.)Practice a certain subject and playing with its shape can teach you about the subject. It will also help you hone in your skills.

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7.)Finding inspiration in other artists’ work and recreating one of their pieces can teach you about your style and skills.

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8.) Taking chances in painting can be rewarding and create paintings that you are proud of, even if they are not done yet.

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9.) Even doodles can teach you things. For example, they can show you that you like drawing simple characters or heads.

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10.) Simple characters do not mean similar characters or simple personalities.

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That is all the visual art pieces I created and the lessons they taught me for this past month. I am going to attempt to continue sharing my journey towards my dreams with you.

If you have any feedback or suggestions on anything relating to art work, please let me know. Feedback, questions and suggestions are welcomed and very much appreciated.

Now please, have a wonderful day.

Back From South Africa and I’m DreamWard Bound

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My trip to South Africa was amazing and eye opening. The speed of life was different, the entire way of life was different. The only technology I used personally was a ipod shuffle and a camera. The shuffle was only on the plane ride over there and maybe a car ride when we were leaving the Church’s compound/ area. Inside the Church that we stayed at was a electric kettle, but besides that, lights, and the electronics other people brought  there was not any other high tech things there. This alone created a great time of focus on God, the community, and each other.

The people there were also something different. They had so little, but were happy. True they would try to get as much as they could, but when you have nothing even a lollipop is a wonderful treasure. The community we were in was filled with such pain. Family members would either die, most of the time from AIDS, or leave to find work. This left grandmothers caring for grandchildren and the older kids helping to raise the younger ones.

I loved loving on them and helping them. We gave some huts food parcels and dried soup. We also gave out quilts, since in the winter it actually gets cold. Each day that we taught the kids they went home with something special. One day we even were able to give them each a new outfit. They were so happy about that. The girls showed off their new dresses and the boys were super happy to have new shorts and a new shirt. We also prayed with the people who came to our eye glass clinic, where they also got new reading glasses. One day we prayed with the kids during their lesson. It was great fun to see how much we helped, even though they need more help.

Again, I need to say how awesome this trip was. We went on a few adventures, but I already went into more detail than I was planning on going into. I am sure I will be writing short stories about each fun adventure or story that was created during the trip.

This post was going to be telling you all about my new goals and only referencing Africa as the catalyst to my new goals and views on them. First big change is I went through and took out the goals that were just stressing me out. They were like the stale bread on my plate that I thought I needed to eat.

The first goal that I slid off my plate was my website. Once I have time I will come back and redo everything. For now it is up and running. It needs improving and if I have free time I may play around with it, but it is not a goal. Plus, it wasn’t really a working goal any ways. I was just poking at it and thinking I needed to work harder on it. It became a littler stress note.

The major thing I am taking off my plate is acting. It’s hard to do so and I love it, but my life right now can’t actually fit it on my plate. I am hoping that once I figure out how to free up my time I will reinstate this dream. At this moment I can’t try to act and write and work a full time job with at least 45 minutes of commute time. I mean I was trying to find monologues still and watch little lessons or tips when I could, but hadn’t been practicing, since right now my heart is focused on my writing projects.

I also tweaked my other goals and made them more do-able. My main focus will be on Godly studies and writing. I may write about my new goals, but for now the big changes to my life has been covered. Plus this is getting long and I do like keeping my updates on the shorter side.