Little World

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?
(Author: Gretchen Rubin)

Actually, this qualifies as a second answer to question 5! This year (and last year), I was the photographer for Little Worlds...which is also something I gave up. I'm not sure if that's really what the question means by "made"...but I engaged in a creative activity - what more do you want?

Little Worlds was very good for me in some ways. It gave me a reason to wander around Halifax with friends while practicing photography. I don't take nearly enough pictures when left to my own devices, which really is a shame. I enjoyed being part of a creative enterprise: it makes a better answer than "not much" when someone asks you what you do, at the very least. I liked finding (what could pass for) a parallel world of pure urban decay and foreboding in familiar Halifax.

Some things about Little Worlds weren't as positive. It was billed as a collaborative endeavor, but it didn't turn out that way. No one besides the creator/writer seemed to feel invested or authorized to take much control (that includes me). I think it might have been better to explicitly acknowledge that one person was going to be putting in most of the work, and taking most of the control from the beginning, if only for the sake of clarity and honesty. We didn't advertise much, and we didn't buy advertisements that cost any real amount of money. We didn't get an entirely separate forum from the creator's other comic, which had a rather different demographic appeal...

I don't have any ill-will about this, or not very much anyway. I would still work with the same people again if I had the chance. I think I would know what to do differently this time around. But there you have it, in the end: something I made AND something I gave up.

-LOUD!