While my amazing and dear best friend Megan Anderson, of the blog [sic]burn, was considering whether or not to attempt NaNoWriMo this year, she came up with something new. LoCreShiMo, or Local Create Shit Month.

The idea behind NaNo is to blurt out 50,000 words over the course of the month, not worrying about editing or polish, in order to just accomplish the feat. In contrast, CreShi is all about pushing oneself to create, the creative process and intent, and striving for the finished product. For some, this will be easy, and for some – those who have let their creativity wither or fade – it will be more challenging. Some people just don’t have the time to pound out 1,667 words a day, but everyone can make time to create something, even if it only takes 10 minutes.

The “rules” are simple:

• Create at least one thing each day. Creativity is how you define it, but this should be creativity with intent, and not something you do incidentally every day. It’s about stepping outside your box, and trying something different, or something you haven’t done in a while.
• It can be a photograph. No, this does not mean a selfie that you take 10 times a day. It does not mean another pic of your pet that you show off all of the time. Those are great, but this should be done with critical thought, keeping content and composition in mind.
• It can be writing. This does not mean your daily blog entry. If you’re blogging daily, then you already have a step-up on the idea behind CreShi, but push yourself further than that. This is about new ideas and conveyance.
• It can be a drawing, painting, or sketch. If you’re a professional artist like my friend Adam Black of Locus Comics, then this medium isn’t suited for your daily entry. Instead try one of the others. Work can’t be considered part of CreShi.
• It can be a sculpture, audio recording, or any other number of things. Your only limitation is yourself.

Everyone is going to define “create” differently, and that’s fine. The idea isn’t to build a construct to adhere to, it’s to free yourself. The “rules” are more guidelines, and you can choose to interpret them how you will, but by cutting corners, getting by with a bare minimum, or sticking to a routine you know, you’re only cheating yourself. You decide if you win.

Happy creating!

LoCreShiMo 2017