the Scarlet Letters

Good life work, Sven--but--shouldn't the daily project action also be more directly related to the art of the project? I see the studio renovation, while related, to be more of a parallel activity to the art. Your photo storyboard was more than a single day's work and not every day need be that huge. I guess for me, the thon work you did today was to download/explore the audio software. Fair enough.

I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses, but the thought that what I consider stopmo progress might get disqualified depresses me... It's not a voice of doubt that I want to let into my head.

(Questioning whether the renovation should count toward superNOVember -- I know you meant it kindly! So forgive me for needing to get this spiral out.)

My stopmo goals for this month are holistic... The studio renovation is being done almost entirely to help further stopmo -- and it's going to be standing in the way of other work while it's happening... While not as exciting as puppet fab, it directly contributes to my capacities as an animator.

(Plus it's a big and daunting task... Using the daily check-in to help keep nudging me forward seems like a good use.)

It usually takes me 45 min to an hour to write a blog post -- even if there aren't photos. Keeping up with comments and the other 'thon-ers can easily take an hour. My benchmark for non-internet-related stopmo work is at least two hours a day... It all adds up!

So, please, be forgiving about how I choose to interpret "stopmo progress." :-)

I understand. I didn't mean to at all negate the great PROGRESS you are indeed making on important things. And if the renovation was an area of stuckness for you, then it absolutely QUALIFYS for the thon.

I was stuck on my fabbin/art, Mike was stuck in his art, so I wasn't thinking you could be stuck in studio/support things. Especially since you seem like THE most organized person on earth.

So forgive me for not knowing what your goals were. I thought it was the Q&D project alone. That's why I asked what you wanted to work on when you said you were in.

Anyway, onward! Good show!

Huh??!! I was stuck? I had no idea! I thought I was just trying to learn painting technique.

Yeah, I'm gonna have some boring seemingly non-stopmo stuff pretty soon too, but that's absolutely essential to my stopmo. Namely I'm gonna have to build myself an animatin' table, so's I don't have to always shoot everything on this little plank clamped to my table. Sometimes it takes the dull chores like this to enable us to get to the good stuff.

I didn't mean to put words in your mouth either, Mike. I thought you said you were slackin' in your 1st thon post. I thought slackin' implied being stuck. Sorry to both of you. I'll just speak for myself in future. I was slacking. I was stuck on that basis. It helps me to work everyday on my project and post about it. I consider cleaning and other support activity to be important but ancillary to my project.

Oh, slackin' I was! And still am, on the movie! But not stuck.

What do you call being stuck?

Stuck would be if I wanted to make progress but couldn't, like if I couldn't figure out what to do or tried but couldn't make it work. Slackin' is just when I'm not even trying.