A List of Words Suggested NOT to use...

I write a lot. Consequently, I read a lot too - though I'm often intimidated by the amount of material and the fact that I often feel that I'll never be able to read enough - ever. Books, magazine articles, online stuff from various sources, and even stuff on an electronic reading device. There's always more to read than I seem to have time for.

One cup in, this morning , I saw an article that  which caught my eye - figuratively speaking, of course, in a writer's circle group on the blue & white:  "Very and Other Useless Words to Erase Forever" - Forever? That's  Seems like a long time. A really, really long time. I dated a woman who used to say that she wanted to be with me forever - but that was forever ago, and I have no idea if she's even in the same state that I live in. Forever is a long time. I'd better get moving on these words that  because they need to be erased:

Very or Really - Both of these? Really? Very well then, I mean...well, how much would I use either, y'know, if they were erased forever? I really wanted to use the words really and very, but they've been erased forever. Fine - I guess I won't real....oops, EVEN miss them. Next:

Suddenly - Cue the scary music. Suddenly, another word appeared on the Erase Forever List, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the word would be gone forever. Shit. Fuck. Damn. There goes my suspense writing. How will I startle someone with words? How can I illustrate the sudden appearance of something or someone unexpected? Suddenly the word was gone - forever.

Amazing or Awesome - Like, wow. Over it. Really, I'm very tired of both - and not so suddenly. It might be amazing just how many times I've used either of these words. It would be awesome if auto-correct would take care of all this for me, instead of getting all up in my business all the other times it does.

That - Ummm...really? Good one. Should make one think quite a bit. While the previous two words are rather easy to spot, this one is a bit tricky. Gonna have to watch for it.

Started - I began to give much more thought to what I was writing - and to how. See what I did there? I did not start, I began. 

So, what we have here, is a little game I played while I drank my coffee and found a very interesting article. Really made me think. Suddenly, it was amazing how many times I used the word that. And then, suddenly, I got an awesome idea for a blog post that started out as a good idea...

I'm pretty sure the legislation to erase said words forever hasn't passed yet - but just to be safe, all the words that are struck through, well...y'know, those are forbidden. K? Peace out, good people.

No Critics Allowed

More like creativity is the road. It's all around me, I just need to pay attention. It's all around everyone , at least that's what I believe, but not everyone pays attention to it. I can only control what I pay attention to. Balls. It takes a bit of cajones to be here, on this blog. Not trying to pat myself on the back too much here, but it does take some stones to put shit up here. Yes, I said it. Shit - or not shit, to put anything at all up here/out there is a good thing - because it's keeping me on the road that I want to be on.

That road is creativity. Every word I could ever use here - or anywhere else, has already been used before, many times over. Everything I will ever say, has been said before - many times over. But here's a thought:  Maybe, just maybe, I'll find a way to say it in a way that grabs people differently and makes them notice something that they haven't noticed before. Maybe I'll say it in a way that suddenly makes the value and/or beauty of it stand out in a way that they didn't see before.

I'm in the midst of reading two things by an author named Austin Kleon (www.austinkleon.com) and I can highly recommend both of these books: Steal Like An Artist, and Show Your Work. Both of these books have led me to look for other sources of inspiration and pay more attention to my own creative processes. I'll be the first to scratch my head over the number of readers this blog has, and do even more scratching when I see the stats for posts on any given day, and the location of my readers/visitors.

Not all of the work I do is stuff I can show - for the moment, and Lord knows much of it may be of no interest at all, but one of the things Austin Kleon talks about is showing work. Then there's crediting work from others and opening up new avenues for others by doing so. The two books by Mr. Kleon that I mentioned above are excellent reads for anyone who may be struggling with any part of the creative process - including me. They've also pointed me towards other books and different ways to look at, and for creativity.

I've said it many times right here on this blog, and I'll say it again: The reason this blog was created was for two reasons:  To get me writing and to keep me writing. Fuck the critics who want me, or anyone else to feel bad about falling, failing or fucking up in general on the road to nurturing my creative side. If an F bomb seems harsh, so be it - because when someone says something that completely disregards the very reason this blog exists and wants me to feel bad about even taking a chance, well...fuck 'em. If I don't write, how am I supposed to find my voice? If I don't read - and I'm a dude who basically feels as though I will never be able to read enough, then how will I know what I want to write about? The short answer is easy - I won't.

The deeper I get into creativity, the less I want anything to do with critics. I see no value in critics for the most part, particularly when it comes to art - and pick any art form you like. Who cares why someone doesn't like something you like? Do I want readers? Absolutely - but regardless of how many or how few I have, I have to keep going. I've had critics who don't get me say some really harsh things - and I've had even more harsh things from people who should get me by now. Both cases bothered me at first - until I started to see clarity through a fog of insults. Why give energy and attention to anyone talking about what they don't like about something? There are too many things I like that deserve my attention. The only original thing I'm capable of doing, is being me. That also happens to be my only option really - no matter how much I may want to emulate what anyone else is doing. I can only be me.

I may have a long ways to go - but one never really arrives, it's all about the journey. So I keep looking, I keep trying...trying to do, and learn...and banish the kinds of people that it's not healthy for me to be around. I give more thought to the kind of person I am, to be around. Am I a good friend? A good coworker? Employee? Brother? Son? Uncle? Am I cool enough? I mean, I wanna be...but that's not really for me to say, whether I am or not. We're all in this together, so it might be nice to start a movement - a movement of encouragers. This world has more than enough critics, and with the advent of all the online stuff, anyone and everyone can be a critic these days. My question remains, and I'll put it bluntly: who the fuck needs critics? Encouragers? We all need those from time to time.

So here's to the encouragers on the road to creativity - I say let's start a movement, a club - whatever you wanna call it, but let's put up a sign:  No Critics Allowed.

Showing my work

Been doing a lot of reading lately. Lots of different things in an effort to hunt down both creativity and inspiration. Personally, I believe that both of those things are always around and in far greater abundance than I think about most of the time. It's up to me to look for it and notice it. Sometimes it's right under my nose, other times I need to look further out for it.

The reading came at the suggestion of a friend and also from my former writing instructor. One of the things I've been reading is a book that talks about the virtues of showing your work. I guess I've always thought that would be contrary to the artistic process - my father always said I shouldn't show something until I finished it. In the Talking Heads song, Artists Only, David Byrne sang a line: You can't see it - until it's finished.

In school, there were always questions on tests that instructed us to show our work. I get it - they wanted to see how I arrived at my answers. But if I put the showing my work theory alongside my writing, the whole notion of not seeing it until it's finished makes perfect sense. Who wants to see a "shitty first draft"? (Thank you Anne Lamott)

Some of the other things I'm reading echo my own intentions for why this blog was even created in the first place. I'll say it again, to get me writing and keep me writing. I've had a few very critical questions thrown my way for this blog even existing - and that's fine, my skin is thick enough now that I don't give a flying f*** if anyone likes it or thinks I should be doing anything other than what I am doing with it. Readers? I've got readers. I'll be the first to scratch my head about my audience - and the places my blog is read from. But dig it, they're out there.

In a sense, this blog shows my work - shitty drafts? They're here - and some of 'em are even posted. Some of 'em I take down, and for every post that appears here, there are a dozen or more that have yet to be posted, finished or scrapped entirely. I'll admit that sometimes I click the publish button right after I hit the spell check. It's very rare that I get to either of those buttons without reading things out loud. It's also rare that I share things with my friends who write - but that's due to this hang up I have about hearing people talk more about their art/work than actually doing it. I once witnessed two people sitting at the bar in front of me, laptops right beside their drinks, launch into this huge discussion of what they were working on and why they liked it - and I wish I'd had the entire thing recorded, video and audio, because it really was like a real life Portlandia sketch. It was hilarious and kind of hard to believe this was real life.

My point is that writing is the kind of art where the finished product holds more appeal than the process. There aren't any new words here - and I suppose one of the reasons I've always loved to write, is the notion of arranging words to say something in a different way. I have a friend who calls it "dances with words."  I can watch a painter or a sculptor work, watch musicians practice...but writing isn't something where the process is terribly interesting - at least not in my opinion. To go back to the whole idea of showing my work, well, there are things I'm working on - characters, story lines....for what, I'm not exactly sure. Some of the characters are very loosely based on people I've come across - very loosely based mind you.

One such example is a vegan extremist - a tragic woman with two things constantly working against her:  a strong opinion and a narrow mind. Very strong and very narrow. So much so that the actions of this individual are often hilarious - though not intentionally. Finding this character came from two real life individuals, and one cartoon character. Toss in a lot of common human traits that point to no one person in particular more than any other person, and voila, a character is born. Born out of taking little real life things and exaggerating them to extremes - which sometimes aren't too far off actual statements and events. What will come of things like this? Damned if I know, but for those of you either encouraging the showing of work, and reading this, here you go - this, to me, is showing my work, at least as much as I'm cool with doing.

My skin is thick enough, but I gotta admit that I don't suffer critics well at all. Screw critics, what we need more of in this world, are encouragers. My mantra has become one of not putting anyone or anything down - and my reasoning is simple: Why would I want to spend any time talking about what I don't like, when there is so much that I do like - and that is what I feel is worthy of attention. Stay tuned, good people, I'll show more work. Peace

Un.Believable. (a rant)

Watching I Trust You To Kill Me, it's hard not to be struck by something that producer Jude Cole says about his record label not being interested in any artist over the age of 25. While some of the hype of youth is understandable for acts that target a younger audience, writing off any artist because they're over a certain age is impossible to understand for those who like to listen and appreciate the art of music.

It's not as if the music industry is doing terribly well in this day and age - depending on which school of thought one chooses to buy into. Great music can often take on an aura of timelessness and the art itself feeds from a fountain of eternal youth - for those who love to listen. Our society, for all the pomp and circumstance of technological advances, seems to want to produce more trash all the time.

It's hard to imagine some of the music being made today having the same impact and longevity that music from other eras has had. That seems perfectly natural that there only be more things made that see very short shelf lives. Why not throw art on the massive pile up of waste? Toss albums, compact discs and tapes into the waste/recycle bins at the entrance to Best Buy - we're done with it all.

The sad thing is, for all of these technological advances, we're throwing ourselves away. We're creating more things that get used for shorter periods of time and then we have to have the next big thing. We've already thrown away practicality, because even that has a short shelf life. It's not practical anymore, we're done with it.

There will always be stragglers, those of us who are among the last to get the latest, greatest thing. Some of us are perfectly fine to keep things when they're in perfectly good working order. We don't want to replace it if it's working just fine. We're not opposed to getting something fixed as opposed to getting something new. Can art, specifically, music, be something that is just as easily tossed aside?

Clearly for some people, it can be. Perhaps it just doesn't play a role that's all that important to them. All well and good, but there is serious joy in the arts - and there are forms of it that are too accessible to not have them close at hand, and treasure them as the valuable enhancements to our lives.

With so much music out there that's so enjoyable, the reality of Mr. Cole's remark is hard to swallow for those who take serious enjoyment from listening to music. The marketing strategy behind the notion of a record label not being interested in any artist over the age of 25 may not be tough to see, but it seems a bit sad to write any artist with the kind of depth that Rocco DeLuca & The Burden show in this film.

Is there some dude in a suit sitting behind a desk making this kind of call? What if book publishers had the same shallow notions that authors had to be youthful to be relevant? That could easily be where our pop culture, heavy with electronic gadgets that become obsolete far too quickly, is heading. Owner's manuals are closer than ever to having an opening statement that reads in the following way:

Congratulations on your purchase of your Hipster-for-a-Minute thingy. Please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with your new device, which will give you weeks of enjoyment if used properly.

Never mind that the device itself could work for an indefinite amount of years - the device itself will be rendered useless once they develop an OS that won't work on first generation devices. All of this kind of thing will put us closer to music being encoded with a chip that will render the file unable to play for no other reason than there is too much newer music out there and the industry will decide that you can't possibly still enjoy a Beatles record when there are so many newer artists out there.

Of course by that time - and again, such a day may be closer than you think, there may not be a single soul on the planet who actually pays for recorded music.