I am, as I have for the last… you know, I’m not sure how many years in a row this is? Huh. I’m not even sure if I can figure that out without serious digging, either, into my personal archive.¹ Which I assure you is, um, at least somewhat organized for the last five years. Prior to that, well. I’d say there be dragons, but that’s quite literal given I was drawing the Inktail series back then.

I’m talking about the October phenomenon among visual artists known mostly as Inktober, although I’ve left that prompters following as the name was copyrighted and I dislike the idea of someone laying claim to my work simply because I drew from a one-word prompt*. Instead, I ask friends, fans, and family to gift me a word. I then take all of those words, put them in two columns, randomize them a few times, clean it up and voila! No-ink October!

So I have an hour a day set aside to draw, digitally using the Procreate app, this month. I do cheat a bit with the time management, and find references outside of the drawing hour, so I can dive right in to it when I start my timer in the evening. Will I make it all the way through the month? We shall see. I may have days where I’m going with a much simpler composition, although I do love being able to take the time to complete some of what I’ve managed this month already. This isn’t for a project, this year there’s no collaboration that will end up in a book like last year’s One October Night. I’m doing this for me. Because I want to, that’s why.

While I realize that most of the readers of this blog are not visual artists, but writers, I think the same thing applies. Like NaNoWriMo, this is a focused creative event. It plays out over a month, with both of them, and require some planning and discipline to complete. The lesson here is that it can be worth your time to make the most of your time. Taking a month to solidify habits will, for most people**, help them maintain those habits for a much longer period than a month.

I do think that if you choose to set yourself up for a month-long challenge, and you want to use it as a springboard into longer term productivity, you need to consider things that, for example, NaNoWriMo does not take into account. That challenge was designed for and by students anticipating a long winter’s break. Mothers look at that season and laugh wildly and long, knowing that they could do it, but it might break them. The options then are to choose a more moderate daily wordcount – and what that is will depend on you, your lifestyle, and many other variables I cannot possibly predict. Personally, I’m doing a challenge for the final quarter of 2024 to write 90K words. My daily wordcount is 1000 words as a goal, but I have enough leeway built in to flex a day here and there where I need to. Much more realistic.

I will say that if you’re going on a journey of a month through your imagination, having prompts is helpful. They give you a spark to kindle the flame. Even if you come up with a list of thirty one-word prompts (perhaps related to a congruent project you want to do?) you don’t have to adhere to them if you wake up with a burning idea to go on with. There are lists of prompts out there (there’s a weekly prompt challenge at More Odds Than Ends), heck, you can even buy journals with a prompt in the corner of a blank page. So many options.

1. Best I can tell, somewhere between 7-10 years, because I started doing art every day in 2014.

*I realize the copyright only applies to ‘Inktober’ and not my artwork. However, when artists are reporting takedown notices on published sketchbooks, I grow concerned about my website where it’s been used.

**I am not one of those people who can set a habit in 27 days or whatever the rule of thumb is. I have to persistently exercise discipline with daily reminder notifications in order to do something without any interruption of a day or two eradicating my routines.