Wow, This Is My 500th Post!!!

Wow, This Is My 500th Post!!!

I can’t believe this is my 500th post. It started in 2012 and has morphed as my life changed. At some points, I was writing up storms. In 2014 I wrote 107 posts, and in 2015 I wrote188 posts. However, most years ranged from 6 to 75 posts in a year. It all depended on what was going on in my life.

My first Series

My first post was “The Start With The Best Project.” I was going to use my blog to review the 328 best movies. I had the list and was going to watch each one, then write reviews. That was going to be my blog. I should say that was the first plan for the first 6 years. Yes, I would post different things, but for 6 years I would review movies.

I wrote 2 reviews in “The Start With The Best Project” before I added “Story Time With Pink-Sunshine.” This was going to be a short story series that fictionalized my adventures of moving to California with my friends. It would be a fun way to dive into a big important project but still have small shareable writings regularly.

The Start With The Best Project” lasted about a month before I got distracted with other writings. “Story Time With Pink-Sunshine,” only had 2 posts. I then posted poetry, which I still do post regularly. Life updates, random ramblings, and visual art pieces soon followed.

DreamWard Bound

In 2014, I started my blog series “DreamWard Bound,” which ran until 2019. It first focused on my desire to work in the entertainment industry as an actor or producer. It morphed into how I was becoming an artist and writer. No matter what “DreamWard Bound” was about me reaching for my dreams and working to become a full time creative.

Over the years and Now-a-days

Over the years I wrote short stories, more poetry, reviews, life updates, visual art write-ups, and a few other non-fiction blog series. One thing remained consistent throughout the years and with each post. This site is a place where I share my creativity with the world. In reviewing my older posts, I am seeing just how diverse my writing has been.

One thing that has been pretty constant is my poetry. Poetry is something that I typically need to write to express something or sort through some feelings. It is something that just comes out of me, and I haven’t realized it until recently. However, it has always been true. At least it has been true for as long as I have written this blog.

Thank you for reading my 500th post and stay tuned for the next 500.

Oh and if you want to see what I’ve done outside of this site check out my YouTube channel or Instagram account.

Let’s Look At My Artistic Background

First don’t I look all put together and professional in this picture.

Lets Look At My Artistic Background

Now, as we start the new year, here is a reminder of where I’ve been and the background to my creativity. If I was all put together, this would have been the first week of 2021. At least in the first month.

My Artistic Background.

I am super grateful for my mom and her support of my creativity. Growing up, she really nurtured my creative side. She enrolled me in dance when I was 5 and it seems like my creativity snowballed from there. I started musical theater when I was 10 and wrote endless narratives around that time too.

After high school, I went to college for Theater. I graduated from college in 2009 with a degree in Theater and Dance with a concentration in Acting and Directing. All throughout that time I wrote, drew, and painted. However, after college, I explored different career options. I stayed creative in my free time, while I had my survival jobs. Those jobs include job coaching for developmentally-delayed adults, 3 roles in web security, and a lead salad bar prepper. I love how random my jobs have been, but nothing seemed to fit, because nothing was creative enough.

Writing and art have always been my first passion and in 2018 I left my salary job to pursue my art business more. After a year and a few months in a kitchen job, I devoted most of my time to my art business. I became full time with my art in 2020. I do still love my part-time job as a church admin, but my art business takes up most of my time.

It is true this art business of mine has morphed and changed over the years. My energy with being creative has ebbed and flowed over the years, but I am delighted that I can spend more time creating. This past year really taught me who I was and what art means to me. I believe writing, painting, drawing, and helping others is what I am made to do.

Want More?

If you would like to keep more up to date with what I am doing I am on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can also read about my life in my series God Shows Up or in the category “Life.”

My 2019 In Review

There has been a lot of changes to my art business in 2019 and more to come in 2020. To make sure you are up to date with what those changes are here is my 2019 year in review.

I first retired my blog series Dreamward Bound. Although I am still heading towards my dreams the focus of my writing time has changed. I started the series God Shows Up and have been posting more poems. Plus I have been working hard on my book To Love.

I also started to do poetry readings on YouTube and working on some other promotional videos.

Poetry readings and promotional videos were not the videos I published in 2019. Earlier in the year I did some vlogs and in September I recorded 2 videos about how I am going to focus on my art business more.

In addition to writings and posting on youtube I started my Patreon page and got my first two patrons on there.

My RedBubble and Society6 stores are also growing with more digital art.

My two favorite digital art pieces from 2019 are “I’m Possible,” and “Nerdy Unicorn.”

I'm Possible Digital Art 2019
Unique Nerdy Unicorn Digital Art 2019

Finally I started to look for writing work through Fiverr. I currently have 4 writing gigs available. They are script writing, a custom poem, short story writing, and writing an article.

I hope you enjoyed my 2019 in review. If you have any comments, questions, or feedback please let me know.

2018 Visual Art Pieces

In 2018 I started to experiment with digital art and lettering.

Some digital art was abstract and simply me experimenting with this new media.

Multi brush and multi color 2018 Visual Art Pieces
abstract flower for 2018 Visual Art Pieces

Other art pieces were fun cartoon characters that I created in order to sell prints on Redbubble.

I'll be guac for 2018 Visual Art Pieces

Most of the lettering art work I’ve done this pass year was also for Redbubble prints.

Thespian image 2018 Visual Art Pieces
word nerd for 2018 Visual Art Pieces

Early in 2018 I also started working on the visual art for my upcoming book To Love.

Although I did not finish a single acrylic painting in 2018 I did work on a few and in general, it was a good year in my visual art life. This coming year is looking good for my creative life, also.

Stay tuned for more art pieces. They are coming.

2014 in review

I know I’m a little late for last year’s review, but I just found it. I liked looking at what this blog did last year and I hope you do too.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 42 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Another DreamWard Bound. (10/11/14)

success

I woke up today with a nice surprise. I had heard my phone go off before I got out of bed. I figured it was a friend messaging me for some reason. When I looked however it was actually a list of emails. There was six emails this morning telling me people liked my Who I am poem. Every like means a lot to me, but the fact that I got six likes over night was surprising and started my day off right.

Starting my Saturday right  was important to me, because I have been sick for most of the week. It was not a debilitating sickness, just a cold that drained me of energy and made motivation hard. By Thursday I had enough of the annoying cold and decided to take the day off of work, which meant that I at least felt like I needed to make up my work. I was planning on doing that last night, but instead I took it easy and only wrote one poem. I did not touch anything resembling acting or editing my novel that I hoped to have enough energy to do.

This morning, however, I woke with energy and a friendly boost from those likes and went to the gym. Now, I have energy and motivation to work on a monologue, write this DreamWard Bound post, and most likely a few other things. We will see what the day brings though.

As far as my goals go I did not read any of the Bible, which is listed as my first goal. I did listen to the audio version a bit. It is always more relaxing and easier to listen to an audio book and not actually reading it. It also tricks me into thinking I don’t have to read it for myself. I am trying to break myself of that thought process though. I want to read the Bible for myself.

My second goal it the one about my family. I have gotten better at communicating with some,  but I still do not feel as close as I want to. There are still those who I do not text or talk to weekly. I am talking to a few more though, so that is progress at least to me.

Next is my weight loss, which I am happy to say I did a lot better this week with, even though I had no energy. I also did not have the biggest appetite. As of today I lost 5 pounds of the 30 I want to lose.

My fourth goal is my Goal Getters videos, which I did post this week. It was Step #3  in the steps I use to achieve my goals. I am thinking that I will start to do a step and a tip, every week. I have a bunch of tips and I keep finding more. I keep discovering other tips and I am thinking that I might as well share all the ones I have now. I still have to think about pacing myself though and not running out of energy or ideas.

Now, my poetry goal was not meant this week. I almost wrote five poems or posts, but taking Thursday off as a sick day made me miss one.  Also, having a cold made it hard. I did write four posts and one of them was my 200th post. I also wrote a celebration post for the fact that I wrote 200 post, well now it is over 200 posts.

I also recorded another monologue, which I did last Saturday. I was able to edit it and post it last Saturday. I also recorded a few question and answers about acting. I found the questions a while ago and have wanted to answer them. I did forget about them for a bit, but now that I found them again, I really wanted to answer them. I will be posting them once I edit them down and make sure they make sense.

I did not touch my novel and am taking away the painting as a goal. I will still paint, but it will be when I have something to paint and not painting because it’s on the schedule. Painting now needs to stay my hobby, not a goal.

That is all my goals for this week. I will hopefully be able to get be more productive at least with my first two goals this week.

Here is the list of things I did this week.

Step #3 (video)

I’ll wait (poetry reading video)

Storm’s Monologue (video)

Who I am (poem)

Myself (poem)

200th post celebration.

Poetry of Words.

 

I actually did not realize I posted/ published 7 things this week. I think this list is becoming more and more helpful to me. I do hope that the list is helpful for you or at least these posts are enjoyable.

 

 

200th post… celebration

encouragement

That quote seems to fit this moment. I just published my 200th blog post. It seems fitting to talk about the journey and how much I have changed in the 200 posts. I will try to make it interesting and not lame.  I am going to be going through the old posts that I made. Hopefully  I find a good sampling.

This blog started as an outlet for my reviews. I had an idea that I would watch and review over 300 movies. I mean I had reviewed a few movies for a class I had taken in college, so I should be able to right 300 hundred of them. I did give myself 6 years to complete it and I still have a few years before that is up. I still have the list, but my life will have to dramatically change to find time to write reviews.

I also started this blog, because I did not think I would have any other outlet for my love of movies and entertainment. I did not think a ‘real career’ in the entertainment industry was an attainable dream. Now, it may still be far off, but I don’t believe it is unattainable. It will take hard work, struggle, time and sacrifice, but I can do it. That is why I started to write the DreamWard Bound series. I honestly believe my creativity will one day be my only job.

Next, I added Story Time With Pink Sunshine. It was supposed to be short stories that could be transformed into chapters in a book. I did not get very far with that, though. It was a big story with lots of details to write. I still plan to tell this story. It will always be in my heart yearning to get out, but I will a solid amount of time to actually write it out.

It seems with the starting of Story Time I started to branch out with my creativity on this blog. I started to write poems,  updates, thoughts, and even a few short stories. It seems like once I gave myself freedom to do anything on this blog I did do anything. I have grown with this blog in my creativity and have changed my life, because a few people read my writings and my thoughts.

It may still be a small blog, but hey I wrote 200 posts and I am pretty sure each one was read by some one. I think that is enough minds touched to celebrate and change your life a bit for. So, thank you for taking this journey with me and if you want to compare my journey through my creativity I will leave you a few links that you can compare.

 

First poetry.

First Poem Post (Dream of plans)

Last Poem I posted (Poetry Of Words)

Short Stories

First One (My Testimony)

Last Short Story I Posted (Free Lobster)

Funny both are true stories

Review:

First (Amelie)

Last (Lost Colony)

Updates / talking about what was going on in my life

First (All My Projects)

Last (This Past week’s DreamWard Bound)

Okay I am done boring you with lists. Let me know what you think though. Can you see the change?

 

 

The Lost Colony (Play Review)

During my vacation I went to a play with my family put on by the Roanoke Island Historical Association, which was called The Lost Colony. Now what I knew about the Lost Colony of the Roanoke Island before was basically that it was a lost colony and that Supernatural used it in an episode. My brother-in-law did fill me in a little bit, but I still did not know a lot about the actual history the play was based on.

The scenery with created with great skill and craftsmanship, that really brought the audience into the play. On the same note the special effects and pyrotechnics also brought the audience into the world that the play set up. I was caught up in all the wonderful technical aspects of the play.

The acting was also technically sound and a pleasure to watch. The actors were clear in speaking and they were effectively believable. I particularly enjoyed Thomas Bell’s portrayal of Old Tom and Payne Hopton-Jone’s portrayal of John Borden. It was an ensemble play with no weak links.

As far as the individual scenes my favorite was the 1st native american scene. The dancers danced perfectly while 2 men hung almost sideways from a tall totem pole.

The only issue I had was the ending, which ruined the entire play. All the hard work everyone did went down the trash to me. Instead of feeling completed and that I could leave with a conclusion I was left waiting in my chair. There was no “the end” moment. The historian that narrated the entire play seemed to disappear for the ending. The comedic relief, Old Tom, walked off in the crowd not saying anything. There was not even a bow to close it. The actors simply walked off the stage to end the scene. I even told my nieces to  sit back down, then the ushers came and stood in front of the audience. They just stood there, they did not say anything. It was not until I leaned over and asked one of the ushers if there was bows that I learned that the play was fully over. The cherry on the top of the bad ending was that hardly any of the cast members were out in the lobby, even though there was an announcement that the entire cast would be available for greeting.

Perhaps this is just my pet peeve, but I believe that an actor should show gratitude towards their audience and fans. I know I was made a fan of Payne Hopton-Jone’s that night and would have at least wanted to show that in my applause. Actors bow to thank the audience for supporting them and the audience applause the actors because they enjoyed the play. That is how it is supposed to be.

I really wish they would have done something to close the book, because it was such a good play otherwise.

DreamWard Bound (week 6/22-6/28)

success

Let’s just jump right into my weekly review of my week. On Monday I wrote, “It’s only Monday and already I have done extra. Sunday I had some free time, since I got everything I needed to get down during the weekend done on Saturday. That being the case I painted and recorded it. You can find it at Heart On Fire.

I also wrote my Palindrome poem on Monday, which was sort of fast. I thought a lot about it and finally came up with something that fit the rules. It’s not my favorite, but 6 people liked it in 2 hours, so what do I know. I also wrote For Now, which is a Katauta Poem. That poem posted on Tuesday, because I do the whole pacing my posts out thing.

My productivity was not as great the following days. I thought I would be getting a lot more done and a bunch of extra stuff posted. Yet, I do have 7 links for you to click in the “List of Stuff I did this week” list. I guess it was a pretty good week.

Now, unbeknownst to me one of my goals have changed. Well my creative goal has changed.  I’ve been thinking about “officially” changing my creative goal for a while now. I’ve been trying to figure out what I could change it to. Well on Wednesday I figured out exactly what it has turned into. It is now one post, whether poem or otherwise, a day. Every 2 months that I post a poem or other post daily I will buy something to further my artistic career. Since this is such a catch-all I can also use it to create a one of a kind super computer. I’m thinking something with a separate storage drive that is about one terabyte big and as much ram that I can possibly have. Oh and the latest video card and a bunch of editing software. Before you ask, yes I realize how much of a nerd I’m turning into. I guess nerding out comes with my job (my day job that it).

Before you click on all the exciting links, please know that I will be going on vacation this coming up week and will not be posting as much. I hope to get a few days in before I fly out, but I won’t be taking my computer. Lack of computer means lack of posting abilities. Hopefully when I come back I will have a bunch of new material to share.

List of stuff I did this week

Stated Song: Storybook

Naani

Ode to Bed

No Structure Poem

For Now

Interesting Thoughts

Palindrome Poem

Heart on Fire

Heart on Fire 003

Happy Camera

Redwood

I recently moved back to California and took a walk in the redwood forest. I was such an amazing walk and I loved it. Being out in nature with my friends was a great way to spend my first few days in California.  The beauty that surrounded us was breath taking and awe-inspiring.

The most surprising thing to me on the walk was my camera. The lighting was perfect for picture taking and the subject, the trees, were beautiful. I did not want to carry my big professional camera so decided to bring my tiny cannon point and shoot camera. That is why I was surprised with what came out. It was a relatively cheap camera that  gave me amazing pictures.

Here are some more of the pictures taken that day.

redwood and bowling 043 redwood and bowling 046 redwood and bowling 047

It is a Cannon PowerShot A4000 is and here is a link to it so if your interested in taking awesome pictures you can.

Canon PowerShot A4000IS 16.0 MP Digital Camera with 8x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom 28mm Wide-Angle Lens with 720p HD Video Recording and 3.0-Inch LCD (Blue)
Thank you for reading.