Practice Practice Practice *Headdesk*

I like to consider myself a writer. I also like to consider myself an artist. I'm entirely amateur in both of these aspects, but I like to think that over time I'll be able to work myself up to a respectable level with both.
Whenever I see a great writer or artist asked for advice about how to improve, no matter what they respond with, it always ends or begins with "practice."
Practice is answer to the questions of "life, the universe, and everything." It's always what people need, whether they are willing to admit it or not. I've tried to avoid this thesis for many years of my life, but whether I like it or not, that's what the answer is.
I have never been able to look back on something I wrote and say "that was a good work." I love the concepts of what I write, but rarely can I reread what I wrote. It grates my ears; it's neither eloquent not graceful, and rarely do I feel as though I can portray the right emotion. When writing commentum (fiction), I used to put too much detail into describing my characters, and none of the surroundings. Now I put too much detail into my surroundings, and none into my characters. When I write dialogue, it gets choppy at best and my use of pronouns is never where it should be, as I just forget to use them altogether when I'm writing because it takes so long that I forget who is saying what, and have to write the name to remind myself. My chapters are only a page or two long, which I cannot explain except to say that my writing is so bare-bones that I leave 80% of the details that I should be putting in. To be succinct, I hate it. I'll write for the experience of writing, and because I feel as though I have all these ideas in my head that I don't want to forget, but I don't have the skill to really record them the way they should be recorded, and for that I feel slightly shameful.
It was for this very reason, that I can see every flaw in my writing, that for long stretches of time I don't write. I'll create a dialogue or narrative in my head of everything I can think of, because I so desperately want to consider myself a writer, but I don't have the guts to put anything down on paper (virtual or otherwise). Thus, improvement has not so much been an option. Lately, I've taken on a different stance. I know that for a long time yet I'll probably still hate my writing, but if I don't write, I will never surpass my current state and God knows that would be depressing. So I'm ignoring my writing and I'm just going to keep barreling through it whether I like it or not.
On the other hand, there's my drawings. As opposed to my writing, I've always been especially proud of my drawings and paintings when I think I've done a good one. When I finish something, I'm proud of it and I like to show it off. I know in the back of my mind that I need plenty of improvement on that front too, though, for two main reasons. One is, of course, that the artists that I follow on various sites have been better than me since I discovered them, and I have been able to watch their abilities grow and explode overtime, much more than mine have, leaving me farther behind. The other is that I keep record of my drawings, and when I look back at something that I previously considered my best and most inspiring piece of work, I can now point out so many flaws and problems and it looks unbalanced and askew and I'm sure that if I flipped the image it would look as sideways as if I had taken opposite corners and stretched it out, if you know what I'm saying. My main problem with improvement on my artwork is that I have found that I really have to work to find something to make into a full-scale drawing. I don't know for certain, but I feel as though if I were to just doodle whatever came to mind for hours, I would get the same basic headshot and positioning with a bajillion slightly different faces and hair styles. Whenever I draw, I feel as though I can come out with one very good drawing, and then everything else is bland and forgettable and not even worth coloring. It's depressing really, as I'm afraid that I'm losing my imagination, day by day.
Really though, deep down I'm pretty sure that's not true. I get the feeling that it's really that I simply cant draw as well as I would like to, I want to be able to draw so many dozens of different poses that I know right now I wouldn't be able to accomplish. I want to be able to lay out my drawings in such a way that there's not just one person standing in a normal face-forward arms-at-her-sides persons standing slightly left of center. I have been neglecting drawing anything for month, though, because I've feared that everything would come out the exact same way. Practice cant make that much of a difference when every picture is the exact same, right?
Well I've decided that I need to change that. It's harder than with writing because I want to make an instant digital archive (see: blog) of everything that I draw, so I need to actually hook up my scanner (no idea how that works) or use my tablet (which I only want to use with photoshop, which then limits me to a cold lonely study unless I want to drag my desktop down a flight of stairs). I'll get it working somehow. Maybe.