#100daysofstories

Zainab Zaheer in NYC is creating #100daysofstories...

DAY SIXTEEN: "Go ahead," he said, "it's a prayer wheel. Spin it and watch your dreams fly through the universe." "What do I pray for?" "You pray for happiness, girl." Tentative, she stepped up to it. What would she wish for, if this actually worked? That she could stay in this city for the rest of her life. That she could breathe in the skyscrapers and weird art, the trench coats and jazz nights. That she found peace - she didn't even really know what meant yet, but it had to be something like a warm summer morning, with soft pillows and pancakes and sandals. Or maybe it was like watching Sex and the City with her best friend, mixed with a cold winter evening, or sitting by a window looking out at the cityscape, with warm tea and fuzzy pajamas. The definition of happiness eluded her, a light she couldn't quite catch in her palm. Her fingers brushed against the rough edge of the wheel, the pieces of mirror cool to the touch. Light danced across face. The room was a kaleidoscope of her thoughts and dreams and she was here in it, trying to catch a feeling. Why couldn't she think of what her one wish would be? Maybe, she thought, it was because she already was happier than she'd ever been, and contentment was the greatest happiness of all. She gripped the wheel firmly with the pads of her fingers and pushed, sending the room into a tizzy of fluttering lights. "Alhumdolilah." #100daysofstories This photo was taken at an art show in the old #VanityFair @vanityfair offices at #timessquarenyc @timessquarenyc

A post shared by Zainab (@zmeetsworld) on Mar 3, 2017 at 12:47am PST

Why did you decide to do this project? 
#100daysofstories is a way for me to challenge myself and my audience to talk about things that matter - hate crime, discrimination, mean girls, the troubles couples face, the beauty of love - real issues, in a bite-sized, interesting way. So that’s what I do - write a new short story every day, for 100 days.

I decided to do the project because I wanted a short-form way to reach out and engage with my readers about the feelings that make up each of our lives. I wanted to grow as a writer, and push myself to create new situations, new characters, and make people feel, in short form.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? It’s made me think in a different way for sure. I find myself looking at the most mundane things and finding stories that could come out of them. I’ll see an object and wonder about the last person that used it, see a place and imagine the last person to be there. It’s invigorating.

Read all of Zainab's stories HERE. 

DAY TEN: Twenty nine minutes to show time. Twenty nine minutes until she would be standing on a red velvet stage, staring out at a crowd of minds and bodies that would form an opinion. An opinion on whether or not she was worth their time, whether or not the stories she told spoke to them, whether or not it mattered that she was singing her life to them, at them, into their hearts. "Have you rehearsed?" She had. Until every chord rang in her mind. Asleep, awake - it didn't matter. The words were laced between her thoughts, burned into the backs of her eyes, pumping through her bloodstream, printed on her skin. They were her words. They told her story. Twenty two minutes to show time. Twenty two minutes to three cameras pointing at her, their red blink-blink making her permanent, making that moment last, making it re-playable, re-judgeable, re-maybe-loveable. Her dress was on. All the right bits were tucked and trussed and trimmed and shaped. Fifteen minutes to when the band played the first chord. Fifteen minutes to the first strum of a guitar. Fifteen minutes and she still couldn't get this freaking eyeliner on. Ten minutes. Everyone was rushing around. She held hands and prayed. She laughed and posed and did some last minute smiling. Two minutes left until she walked through that velvet curtain. Two minutes left until she told these strangers about every haunting she'd turned into song. Every scary night and angry day, every bottle and breath that she had poured into words and notes and chords and love. The lights went on. Showtime. #100daysofstories #showtime Last night I had the pleasure of seeing my dear friend @raeganagram perform her first full length show in #nyc🗽 Make sure you take a look at her work. Photo taken on an iPhone 7, at 15 Central Park West.

A post shared by Zainab (@zmeetsworld) on Feb 25, 2017 at 9:43am PST

DAY EIGHTEEN: He looked at the face on the floor. Visible only from a few angles, the pile of raggedy hand-me-downs looked a little like his mother. Maybe he was just hallucinating. He'd almost walked by the installation, thinking it was one of those weird modern art abstract things his thick head wouldn't understand anyway, but the artist had caught his eye. He had ushered him to the right spot, told him to stand right there and take a photo. And then there is was. Saved in his phone. A face made out of tattered jeans and washed-too-many-times whites that were now yellow. "All from the donation bin," the artist said. "Just whatever was left behind." What was left behind was exactly what he's grown up wearing. The foster home never had enough money for them to have new clothes, and he'd spent years nicking the cool shirts from Hot Topic, stuffing them under his jacket. Now shirts just like those were tied up and twisted into this. The fabric that made her mouth looked like the patchwork bedspread they'd made for their DIY bedroom redesign that one Christmas. "A family activity" his mum had said, trying to get everyone excited. Her hair was his mothers hair - bad dye jobs and not enough money to go to the salon. She'd always smell strongly of bleach and chemical when she'd try to give herself a new look. Her eyes were his mothers eyes, beautiful but dead inside. Weather-worn and beautiful. He wiped a tear from his cheek quickly. Grown men didn't cry in public. Grown men didn't miss their mum. #100daysofstories #springbreakartfair @springbreakartfair Note: This artwork, titled "Sight Specific" is by artist Noah Scalin #noahscalin @noahscalin and was a piece I really enjoyed seeing at Spring / Break Art Fair in NYC, 2017. Today's story is my own work and does not reflect Noah Scalin's perspective. Thanks to @raegansealy for inviting me. :)

A post shared by Zainab (@zmeetsworld) on Mar 4, 2017 at 10:15pm PST

Want to see the benefits of your own daily practice? Get the new book Creative Sprint: Six 30-Day Challenges To Jumpstart Your Creativity.

 

The Motorhome Chronicles

Richard Radstone, who created the fantastic Project 365 and the new Operation 365 has another great project in the works and he needs your help to make it a reality: The Motorhome Chronicles...

After 2 years of interviewing 100s of absolute strangers, Richard Radstone’s Operation-365 sets sight on video interviewing the people of America for 100 consecutive days: “The Motorhome Chronicles,” a daily blogumentary dedicated to knowing our neighbors.

“I’ve spoken with 1000s of absolute strangers, interviewed and photographed 100s more... a great consensus is forming, one that can awaken the many to a desire to unite on common ground. Our path is open and our course is undefined, yet one thing is certain... we are all not that different at the core.

“Rich, poor, healthy, ill, old, young, man, woman, Jew, Gentile, white, yellow or black it matters not; we are all of the same blood and have something magnificent to share–”

A premise Radstone has proven through the countless words and intimate photographs he has published through Operation-365.org. It is through these loosely written and heartfelt blog entries that the beginnings of a united community is forming. Writings (grammatically flawed at times) that manage to communicate an awareness of one another.

“It’s time for us to lengthen our stride,” Radstone quotes, “and in a way we are all friends with so many common needs. The more we know of each other the more we can accomplish together,” a statement that directly relates to the reasoning behind Operation-365 and its proposed “The Motorhome Chronicles”. “I’ve funded this outreach on my own thus far, but it has grown to be greater than myself... and with only weeks to raise funds for The Motorhome Chronicles, I guess it’s time to humble up a bit. Time to reach beyond my own resources by asking for Kickstarter and community support.” Richard concludes with his signature sign off, “We were once “Strangers...” now we are “Friends.”

About Operation-365 24/7 – 365 days a year, Operation-365 is an interactive, growing and forward thinking community… a living, breathing society of people of all beliefs, circumstances and mindsets. Our culture is optimistic and inclusive, and our doors are open to all who embrace the embodiment of our mission: “To champion the individual voice, while building bridges towards a greater understanding of our neighbors.”

Want to help make The Motorhome Chronicles a reality? Get the details HERE. 

100 Milkteeth Follow-Up

Heidi Sabertooth finished her 100 day multi-media performance art challenge to create 100 songs in 100 days, 100milkteeth, on June 8, 2012...

What are the biggest lessons/skills you learned from doing your project?  I think the biggest lesson I learned was to create ways to fail regularly!  What is that saying I've heard before?  Creativity is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.  Haha - well, prior to the song-a-day-project, on those days when I would enter my music studio and not really progress with any great ideas for the first hour or two, I would say 'oh, gee, I'm having an off day.'  And then turn everything off and walk away.  I would end up feeling kinda bad about myself...sometimes I would really dwell on that failure and would be gone from the studio for weeks, reinforcing that deep fear that I think many artists have – that perhaps I am just not that inspired or talented enough..'who am I kidding?  am I really an artist!??'

So setting up a goal where I had to FINISH something every day and I had to release it into the world for others to hear, meant I had to push through that urge to walk away.  It allowed me to build a whole collection of methods and experiences of breaking through that barrier and get more comfortable with the fact that there are degrees of failure in every creation,  because nothing can be perfect -- but that should not mean that I stop creating!!   During the making of each and EVERY one of my 100 songs, I experienced a dark sobering moment, something of impending doom -- and here is pretty much the exact dialog that went along with it -- "OMG.  I'm gonna fail. This song is crazy terrible, just complete crap....wait a second, girl...hold on now...you went through this just yesterday...you started down the course just fine, were excited about an initial song idea...things were going well....but then something went wrong and the lens went out of focus and you started losing your way.  And then came the panic and the sweat.  And you let that fear start talking -- saying you are an awful musician and have no good ideas.  But, you shook that voice off!! Remember?  You forgot about it and just kept coming up with ideas and tightened things up and focused back in...and hey, pretty soon you were having fun again, in the zone, and a pretty cool little idea came through in the end!! -- so, don't give up!!  try something new -- it will come to you!"  Ha!  :)  Sometimes I even found myself saying these things out loud -- it was a pretty intense project to create a song a day :)   So, even though perhaps some of these songs might be a little rough around the edges, are any of them failures?  no...and YES!  all of them are a beautiful mix of both failure and inspiration that taught me how to move through my fears and as they say, CALM DOWN and CARRY ON...and do so regularly!!

In what ways did the project change your life? Well, the above life lesson has certainly changed me... and I find its pretty indescribable how life changing it was to release all of those ideas into the world.  I think I am still getting a handle on it.  Im not really sure if there are words - its more a feeling.  I am sure most creatives can understand that feeling.  It's why we create.

Now what? Well, I am currently playing the milkteeth LIVE show -- a solo show featuring songs and video from the project - it's a fun process to develop a live show because I have had to figure out new ways of playing these songs – I can't bring my whole studio out, so I had to reconfigure songs – I also like to perform a seamless set, meaning no break between songs – so I added some good beats and ambient sounds and samples to the mix.  So basically I think I have a leg up on the remix album!!  But no kidding, there will be some remixes coming up down the road - and of course, I do plan to release a milkteeth EP in the near future, which will likely feature milkteeth mixed with some of these new ideas.  I have also been commissioned to do some video work for a record label – which I am super excited about.  I am blessed, I have a good life and good people around me - so I just plan to keep on enjoying it and do the best I can. 

Read Heidi's original 365 interview HERE.

See & hear all of Heidi's milkteeth HERE.

100 milkteeth

Heidi Sabertooth in Brooklyn, New York is making a song a day for 100 days and she calls it 100 milkteeth...

Why did you decide to do this project? The idea for creating a track a day actually came from something I was in the habit of doing for many years – every time I would get into the studio with my band for rehearsal or just by myself, it was a rule of thumb to ALWAYS press the record button right away because in the course of getting warmed up, often a new song would be born – certainly some of the most magical moments would happen and we would be so glad we recorded because it was super fun to listen back and reflect on that shared experience – we were capturing a creative moment in time!  And some of the charm about it was that they weren't perfect songs yet – they had the roughness of a pure creative idea coming out – I always found myself leaning into those recordings, even more than the official songs we made.  There was a sincerity to them.  So, I thought, wouldn't it be amazing to formalize this process for myself - of capturing creativity on the spot – and share it with others!!  Its a form of communication -- like, "hey - this is what is really going on with me today and what I am thinking about... how does it hit you?  what are you thinking about when you hear it?"  Thats why the project is called 'milkteeth' because these are all baby songs, not fully formed – sketches – like baby teeth – the first thing that pushes through the gum. 

Another reason for doing the project was to build up my music skills. After spending the past 5 or so years playing in bands, I had been involved in production and mixing to some extent, but had not yet made a meaningful step towards owning that side of things for the solo music I was creating.  And I never went to audio engineering school or anything -- always a big believer in learning by doing.  This was a chance to kick it in gear! I also wanted to build my song catalog, expand my range of styles, and really start getting a feel for what my signature heidisabertooth sound seems to be across the board.

Even though 100milkteeth is certainly a very personal project, I really didn't want this project to be completely ALL about me, drawing this distinct line between me as the performer and everyone else as the audience.  boring!!!  I want variety, new influence, feedback, communication!  I love the community aspect of making art and I have deep respect for so many of the different music scenes that are going on right now, especially the emerging things that are all around me in Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and beyond Brooklyn too, lots of folks with good hearts building true community around art, doing it for the love.  So I have been making some milkteeth (and plan to make more) with fellow musicians and video artists that I respect – from a really wide range of styles, everything from jazz to dubstep, techno to indie-pop.  It's fun to see how my sound meshes with a lot of different types of music and art – I have to say, I have a genuine appreciation for all types of music -- as long as it is made with sincerity and honesty – you can tell when it isn't.

Finally, I felt that 100milkteeth would be a good way to learn how to deal with the emotions that come from releasing your creative product into the world.  It can be a roller coaster ride!  I wanted to get a thicker skin, and not take it so hard if somebody doesn't like something or I don't get immediate feedback.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? Well, this project has certainly helped me get a handle on my systems of organization!  I have become so much more efficient in the music studio – how to file everything, write things down, etc.  This maybe sounds kind of silly, but it has forced me to be super efficient in other areas too – for example: because I like to eat healthy and I am living on a part-time non-profit salary, I really avoid any take-out and try to cook for myself as much as possible. I realized quite quickly that I would not be able to cook every night during these 100 days like I was used to.  So, I have a cooking afternoon once every 2 weeks!  I put on a bunch of music and cook up a storm of different types of salads and noodle dishes – that will last in the fridge for the next couple of weeks.  So when I come home from work and it's time to get to making that song for the day, I just have to reheat and eat – 5 minutes later I am in the studio! – that has saved me!! 

Another surprising thing is that my body has adjusted to living on pretty little sleep – and there is an adrenaline rush that I get from making a new song each night – so much so, that I have to force myself to go to bed sometimes.  I learned that the hard way – after 6 days in a row with just a few hours a night, I go full shut-down – that that is not good for anybody! 

One final thought about this project's affect on my life – the experience of having a REAL deadline is powerful, it makes you push through the part when you might have given up because you hit that wall and you think you can't – because it turns out that you CAN, and you HAVE TO!  People are counting on you!  It's like when somebody quits smoking or says they are going to lose weight and then tells everyone they know, so they can't cheat.  Accountability forces you to push through the darkness when your mind tries to convince you that you can't do it...because once you get to the other side – it is a beautiful thing indeed – and you can do it even easier next time!!

You can hear all of Heidi's songs on her blog HERE or on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter.

100 Days Later

Aubrey Hale in Round Rock, Texas created 100 days of drawings in 100 Days Later and is already working on a second set of 100!

Why did you decide to do this project? I was inspired to take on a 100 day challenge after reading Michael Bierut's article about his '100 Day Project' Workshop at the Yale School of Art. I was drawn to the idea that I could pick any design challenge in any medium and repeat the process every day. The project could be less about making perfect art and more about working through the creative process.

How has doing a daily project affected your life? I hadn't drawn much since grade school and I never really drew consistently so my drawing skills improved over the course of the project. Initially I was very nervous about showing my work but friends were extremely supportive and appreciated that I had taken their words and reflected them back in unexpected ways. I also found that each day was a new puzzle. I had to find something that might work as a drawing and then figure out how best to communicate the idea with a limited toolset. The puzzle solving process became completely addictive and deeply fulfilling. Most importantly, this project led to a new passion that united disparate skills in a way I've never experienced. I've also learned to love the happy accidents, the things I don't notice I did until hours or days later.

See all of Aubrey's original 100 drawings HERE.

100 Earrings in 100 Days

Jodie Vieira of JoMarie Jewelry in Nashville, Tennessee is making 100 Earrings in 100 Days.

She explains, "I create a new pair of earrings everyday for 100 days straight.  Come rain or come shine, I must create a new pair of earrings everyday, no excuses.  I started on Wednesday, February 9th, so I'm on my 44th day, at first I found it to be very difficult.  Actually the first day I was so freaked out about my first pair that I couldn't even get started.  But that's part of the whole challenge, being able to get over the need to be perfect, because let's face it not all 100 pairs will be perfect.  There are days when inspiration is wanning or time is running out.  But there is no rule that every pair must be a masterpiece, the only rule is that I must post a picture of the new earrings to my facebook fan page by midnight (central time) every day.  I can use any materials, any style, and any techniques that I want.  And I can draw inspiration from anything and everything.  Which brings me to the main point of this project, and that is to expand my arsenal of skills.  Through this project I am able to try new techniques, use different materials and increase my creative capacity."

Why did you decide to do this project? I was inspired to start my own daily project after listening to  Noah's talk about the skull project at the Etsy Symposium. I had just started up my own jewelry shop on Etsy and was searching for ways to make it better (I'm continuously looking for ways to improve), and this just seemed like a perfect fit.  I needed to expand my line, as well as get over my perfectionism and learn new skills.  I'm not quite half way done, but I can already see the benefits.  I now have over 70 items in my shop, I took silversmithing classes which has opened up a whole new world to me,  and while I still struggle with perfectionism it's getting better!

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? So far it has been a wonderful experience, I have a goal to work towards and push myself everyday.  I have several new designs that I have added to my etsy shop that I would never have come up with had it not been for this project.  And through the giveaway I have become much more involved with my customers, they comment on my new designs and post pictures of the earrings they have won.  It's become a little community, and their enthusiasm helps me to find the creative energy needed to make a new design everyday.

Check out Jodie's work on her blog, Facebook page, and Etsy shop.

Daily Monster

Not every daily project has to go for an entire year. Stefan G. Boucher chose to make a Daily Monster for only 100 days and still had a ton of great things come out of it (including have a book published of his work!)...

Stefan still makes monsters on occasion and you see them on his blog HERE.

Look for an exclusive interview with Stefan in my new book 365: A Daily Creativity Journal which is in stores now and can be ordered from your favorite local independent bookstore  and at all major online book retailers.