In this vlog entry, Mary Schiller (with Speaker B) reflects on day four of her 30‑day "Following My Dreams" challenge. She begins by describing how watching a WNBA game featuring Caitlin Clark sparked a realization about the artistry inherent in sports and how that inspired her to view her own creative outputs— YouTube videos, a novel rewrite, and French language practice—as artistic expressions. She muses on infusing an artistic sensibility into everyday tasks and projects, questioning how that would look. Later, she shares her day's progress: enjoying a chocolate‑filled beignet from a boulangerie, making narrative strides in her novel by deepening the main character’s appeal, and having a brief French conversation and reading session. She concludes with a reflective thought that simply noticing the world around her can turn life itself into art, and signs off to continue the challenge tomorrow.
Time to get up for day 4.
Let's go. It is day 4, July 11th, 2024. I am just getting going and and I guess I could have combed my hair before coming on here, but c'est la vie. There is some construction going on next door, so if you can hear that, I apologize. As I'm starting this day though, I'm in a very different emotional space than I was yesterday, and I think a lot of it has to do with something that occurred last night, which was I watched the Indiana Fever WNBA game, and I also watched a few of my own videos here on YouTube. So let me explain what I mean. When I was watching the Indiana Fever game— and I'm not going to tell you the results in case you watch the replays like we do a lot of the time— I was struck by the artistry of the game, and particularly of Caitlin Clark. I have loved basketball for my whole life, and I've always appreciated great artistry like Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant. I have lots of people that I have admired over the years, and I just thought, you know, that is an example of someone, Caitlin Clark, who is not only doing what she does well, but she is doing it with artistry that it takes it to a whole new level. And so after the game and after I did a couple of other things, I decided to watch a couple of my own videos here on YouTube because the truth is that when I post these videos, when I'm in the process of making them and when I publish them, I'm really thinking of them as artistic expressions of myself. Myself with a capital S. They're not just videos that I put together willy-nilly. I really think about them, and I try to convey something through the imagery and the music and the things that I just put together in these short little videos. And I thought to myself, you know, that is something that we can do more of. We can live more from the place of artistry. Within ourselves. We all have that. We all have some area of life, maybe multiple areas of life, where we can bring that natural artistry to the fore. And I thought, you know, how would it look if I infused the act of working on my novel or working on my French or doing anything like that or related to my business— how would that look if I infused a more artistic sensibility into it? I'm not exactly sure what that looks like. I'm just asking the question. And so that's what I would like you to ponder today. Now I'm gonna go get started. So in a little bit, you'll hear about any progress that I made today on my projects. I may go get a little something from the boulangerie today because I haven't done that in a while. So let's find out what Mary does and how she does.
It is 5 PM and I am calling it a day. I just enjoyed a beignet avec chocolat. I meant to save it until after dinner, but I just couldn't help myself. I love beignets, and it just looked too delicious, so I had to have it. On the plus side, today I did make some progress with my novel rewrite in terms of my main character. What I realized is that I want to make her into someone who I really want to get to know, someone I really want to spend time with. She already has some of that, but I want even more. You know, when I was thinking about books that I've loved It's because I want to spend time with the character or the characters. That's why I go back to them over and over and over again. That kind of simplified everything for me. On the French front, I had a short conversation with someone today in French. I also did some reading in French, so at least I got a few minutes in of practice. And then reflecting on this whole idea of art and making my life more like art and making the things that I produce more artistic. When I was out for a walk just now, going to the store, into the boulangerie, I had this strange thought of— I think I can make my life more like art just by noticing, just by noticing what's around me. And then I had this thought of, you know, when I'm gone one day I want to remember this. So I will see you tomorrow for another installment of 30 Days of Following My Dreams. Talk to you then.
