January 2024 – 2030 Nia's Novel

For this blog post I was assigned to make a comic page about a wisdom tale of my choice. But to understand the whole thing I need to explain a few things. Like what are Wisdom Tales?

Well I’m very glad you asked. Wisdom Tales are mostly (or at least the ones we read) fables and parables. Fables are a short story that usually involves animals and teaches a moral lesson. A parable is a brief story about humans with a moral and/or teaches a religious lesson. With that out of the, next question!

What Wisdom Tale did I choose? I chose a Wisdom Tale from Otomi, Mexico. The story is about an Old Dog and a Coyote.

Once, an old dog fell asleep while watching over the farmer’s chickens one day. The farmer had to chase a wolf that was stalking the chickens, away. The farmer then proceeded to call the old dog lazy and tell the old dog that the old dog would have to find their own food that night. So, later that night, the old dog was looking for food when they saw a coyote jumping up and down in front of a cactus. The old dog went up to the coyote and asked him why he was jumping. The coyote said that he was going to jump over the big cactus. The old dog called him crazy and said that that was impossible. The coyote brushed off the old dog’s comment and turned to jump over the cactus. He jumped and soared through the air. Until he rammed right into the cactus’s thorns. He fell down with a shriek. The old dog took pity on the coyote and spent hours taking out all the thorns from his body. Once the old dog was finished the coyote thanked the old dog and complimented him. The old dog opposed this praise and said that he was useless and that he couldn’t even scare a coyote away. He said that the farmer found him useless and he wouldn’t feed him. The coyote decided that he would return the old dog’s kindness. He devised a plan to help the old dog. The next day the coyote came and stalked the chickens. The old dog then chased him away as the coyote pretended to be scared. The old dog was then well fed for the rest of his days. Next question!

Why did I choose my Wisdom Tale?

I chose my wisdom tale because… because I… you know I really don’t know. I wanted to do one from Greece. But two other people did those. I think I just wanted a different one than my really close classmates. But it was fun to draw as well.

What did I learn from Brittain Peck?

Okay, so there’s some explaining that goes into this. So Brittain Peck is an illustrator that came to our school to talk to us about visual storytelling. He taught us about how you want to have different shapes for different characters so that you could tell them apart. I didn’t really do that but it was helpful to think about when I did the first sketches for the character designs. He said if you only had the silhouette of the character, would you be able to tell that character apart from the others. I did that. He also said that the background and the characters didn’t have to be the most detailed characters in the world. He said you could just use rectangles for trees and make some skinnier than others to show how far away they were. I didn’t do trees but I did do that with the hills of sand.

Helpful Sketchbook tips:

For the comic I used an app called sketchbook. One strategy that I like to use is making a rough sketch (by rough I mean very rough) with the pencil tool on one layer and turn down the opacity then do a sketch on another layer. I keep doing this until I have about five layers in total and as they go up they’re progressively more detailed. After layer five I take the pen tool on another layer and carefully trace over everything, making the line art. Then I delete all the other five below the line art. Then I make a layer underneath the line art and add color. I do this so I don’t have to be as cautious with going over the lines.

This was really fun once I got in the I-can-actually-do-this -and-not-think- of-it-like-a-homework-assignment mindset. I honestly think this would be a fun project to do with a bit from a novel. Wait, I could do that. Okay bye, I’m going think this over. Bye!

“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”

– James Clear

A habit is an action that the human mind is accustomed to doing regularly. This action is something that people do often, like washing your hands after using the toilet, brushing your teeth, reading for a curtain amount of time, and thinking of things that you’re grateful for.

For the past seven weeks, my peers and I have been doing planks for 15 seconds and adding an additional 15 seconds every week. We kept a habit tracker and filled it out after every time we did the habit. We started on the 24th of October and ended on the 15th of December. This was a really good thing for my brain and physical strength but didn’t come across like that at first.

Planking for 15 seconds a day for a week seemed like torture. People’s arms were shaking and we kept asking for the time. We had to do this in class as well as outside of class, which added to our lack of enthusiasm. But we found ways to make it better. When I did it outside of class I would have one of my classmates do it with me or eventually I had my family doing it at home too. When I’d do it at school, I’d have friends ask me if I wanted to do it with them. This made us more inclined to continue this habit.

In the first week I had trouble remembering or having a will to do a physically taxing activity outside of class. It was the type of thing you sometimes forget to do on the weekends. Like not changing out of your PJs the whole day. But the longer this challenge went on the better my brain remembered to tell me, “Hey, you have to do a plank for 30 seconds today.” And after a while of that, it was something I did before bed. Sometimes I forgot and then I would make sure to do it the day after.

There’s a benefit to doing a daily habit as well. Getting your body in a rhythm and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. This can boost your mind to feel proud of finishing a task, even if it’s a small one. Although this depends on the person. Personally, I think doing a habit every day got me into a rhythm.

After doing this habit I assigned myself a new one that I get to start. Doodling and writing a bit each day. I love to draw and I feel like it’s something I’m not doing as often anymore, so it’s a must for my creative visualization juices. And writing everyday. I have stories that I’ve been putting off continuing for months (one of them even about a year) so I really just want to find out where I take my characters, what adventures they’ll have, and what problems they’ll face.

Making a habit is a regular task in everyday human life. Maybe try to make a new habit. Like saying what you’re grateful for before you go to bed, or finding something to be happy about and smiling. Tell me what your habit is in the comments section. Good bye!

2030 Nia's Novel

Month: January 2024

Wisdom Tales Comic

Habits