icarusancalion

Title: Only The Bold
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Summary:

Hatake Kakashi gazed around the teachers' break room with a mix of humor and bittersweet fondness. Asuma flopped back on the futon in the corner with a grunt and lay like a sack of potatoes. His neck was covered in bee stings from when he'd pulled Chouji out of a poorly selected hiding place. Guy had a fringe of singed hair and only half an eyebrow from The Notorious Paper Bomb Incident. Kakashi would mock, but he himself had a bandage across the bridge of his nose where Naruto had stomped his face running from a carnivorous rabbit.

They all looked considerably worse than the kids, in fact.


https://archiveofourown.org/works/51393631


I noticed the girls all seemed to fall behind once the kids were doing real missions as Genin. Turns out Kakashi did, too.

Folks, don't forget to sign up for SGA Santa!

Yes, it's already that time of year.

Sigh. I miss writing fic.

Here's Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche on writing, painting, art, and creativity.

Choice quote (paraphrased from memory because it's 4am and I work in a few hours):

"I hear many people before they become Buddhist practitioners they were ballet dancers, artists, painters ... and then they think that this is frivolous and they give it up, but that they still miss it. I think that is the wrong attitude. Of course, there is a change in priorities, but that is an incorrect idea."

He talks about art being the soul of humanity, the best of humanity, and how artistic expression arises out of the natural state, how when he's painting, the colors and everything, it is a surprise what comes up.

Other than Jetsunma, I think there is no teacher who has been more helpful to me than Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. He can say five words and unknot an entire knotty problem.

Mom and I were talking about being "busy" with Dharma, that people who think one has to be always doing for the temple or else are "plinking," being shallow in their perspective of Dharma. I explained that I can't do what some people do, workworkworkbusybusybusybusy. My mind gets rock-like and mean, resentful, and just tough, like beaten dried up leather. I tried it last spring and it just didn't work for me. Doing more Buddhist stuff made me less Buddhist in outlook, oddly enough. It sucked the joy out of life. So I've backed off from doing all that, and have tried slowly recovering my practice.

Still, I'd been slightly sheepish about what I've been doing: refinishing furniture for my little apartment, crocheting a lace tablecloth (and scarf, as lace is the crack of the knitting world), latchhooking a massive fluffy rug. I've written a brief fic about pudding cups here, sneaking it under the table with the excuse that it's for sarka. Ha.

I went to S.'s dance competition tonight, and something about it made me feel human again.

Finally, I can breathe.

(Or not, since I'm at the tung oil phase of the furniture refinishing.)

And now Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche's timely advice, explaining why this is so. I need writing and creativity like air. (Or like my bathroom needs air -- tung oil fumes, though I've had the fan on.)

I'm writing whatever fic I darn well please. But I'm avoiding those final coats of tung oil till Sunday. Did you know you can get a hangover from tung oil fumes?

*signs up*

If I were to draw John Sheppard, I wouldn't use photo refs. Not at first. To make my life easier, I'd copy other drawings.

If I were to draw John Sheppard.

Did a hunt, and found that not all John Sheppard art is created equal. A couple I'd copy:

Crysothemis' work

Or WolfenM's (yes, I know that's Rodney)


The colored pencils are out and there's an outline of Sheppard in blue and green because I'm in an odd place with writing at the moment. I have fleeting fics that flicker across my mind, too quick to capture.

Then when I start to write, I get partway through and shut down.

It's not just that I run out of energy (though often I am writing late at night). The story just ... clicks off. Like a candle that's snuffed.

Never had this problem before. It could be reflection of how scattered my energies have been. And still are.

Not sure what to do about it. I have a Cho story (Mentalist fandom) that wants to be written, and the occasional SGA ficlet niggles at me. It's getting a little frustrating.