Why We Do What We Do (Or Should)

I used to get upset by people not understanding me, but I’ve made a career out of it now.

Ozzy Osbourne

Obsessions R Us

Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

                                                                                  Franz Kafka

Guts to the Door

I fought for all those words. [Life] made me dig deep... I think at least a part of what drives us is trying to know the unknown. To get to that door, so it can be opened. You find that, more often than not, you really weren't all that interested in what was behind the door––getting there was what it was all about.

                                                                                                                    Henry Rollins

Lighting into the darkness of wo/men's hearts ain't easy

Those who have achieved all their aims probably set them too low.

Herbert Von Karajan

To achieve great things, two things are needed; A plan, and not quite enough time.

Leonard Bernstein

Jack White Says Think Smaller

If you can't do it with a thrift shop guitar, buzzing amp, and your dilettante girlfriend on drums, don't bother. Unless you do it because you can't NOT do it, surrender now. If you're not creating because you can't find the time or energy or space, your equipment or resources aren't up to the task of your grand vision, then give up. You're a fraud.

But, if your writing/art/music/dance/acting teacher thinks you can't but think you must, you may just be onto something: Maybe not yet, but eventually. 

Full article here.

Soul Talking

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.

Jim Jarmusch

Honestly

Truth is fire, and to tell the truth means to burn and glow.

Gustave Klimt 

On the Righteousness of Wrongness

If you're not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original.

Sir Kenneth Robinson

Nothing risqué nothing gained!

If you're going to do something wrong, do it big, because the punishment is the same either way.

Jayne Mansfield

Laurie Anderson on Why She Is Creative

In an interview for German television in 2001, Laurie Anderson answers the question Why are you creative? like this:

☛ It's really simple: it makes me laugh.

☛ It makes me feel like I can change things.

☛  It means something different everyday.

☛ What it actually means? I don't really know.

☛ I probably trust laughter more than anything that goes on in my mind.

☛ If I really am laughing, I'm thinking there's something here that is physical as well as mental.

See and hear Laurie here.

The Greatest Risk Is Not Taking One

An argument could be made that Picasso was the swaggeringest, sword swinging art pirate in history. I'd make it. The little man painted his own alternate reality with himself as its solar center. As an artist his fearlessness seemed to operate as if there were not a self-doubt cell in his brain. Everywhere he struck his creative pick axe he discovered gold nuggets. And because of this, at any step of his career he could've stopped and simply stood in the glory and made a fortune doing endless variations from his pedestal. You could easily imagine assembly line Blue Period by Picasso™, or Surrealist Period™, or Cubist Period™, or a hundred other styles he invented that didn't have -ist names. He was possessed to paint by some devil inside and didn't stop until he died at the age of 91. In fact, some of the later years of his life were some of his most prolific (at least in terms of quantity). He painted exactly what he wanted and he made the world come with him. In other words, as an artist he was not only utterly risk averse, he was risk addicted. 

We are not like Picasso. If you're like me, sometimes when you do something well you're afraid to take the next step because you're sure it won't meet your expectation. Of you're too discouraged to take the next step because you're terrorized of failure, so instead of failing by admission you choose to fail by omission, by not working at all.



So I've devised the Artist's Prayer: Choose a god, be it within or without, and promise to Him/Her to: I promise to take a small risk everyday. Draw the thing you don't want to draw. Play the solo you feel like you have no business playing. Write the scene/the character's voice you fear most. Etc, etc, etc. Whatever the feelings associated with it, accept them, feel them churning in your stomach or shrinking in your chest or drying your mouth or wherever and however you internalize it and understand it is not a bad feeling so much as an alive one. It is the cost of doing business. Feeling and sit in the feeling. Imagine that Picasso probably got turned on by such a feeling. Let the feelings rain down on you as you walk without an umbrella. Be the winner of you're own version of the wet t-shirt contest. 

Burn, baby, burn. And be proud that you did it all. Then, do it again tomorrow. We'll do it together. Hey, I love Picasso, but f**k him. In our own little universes, he's got nothing on us.

There are no gifts, only payments

I was childish for so, so long: I walked around all the time wanting this and wanting that. 'I want to be happy.' 'I want to work better.' 'I want to improve my health.' 'I want to make a difference.' This, I believe, is the stance of childhood. The adult walks around, upright, deserving things. Because they do the right things and show up and make a difference, they deserve to be happy and work better. They deserve to make a difference. So wanting is useless. It's a hunger, and it's selfish. Don't want for peace; work toward it. Don't want for pain to be eased; work at easing it. Then you will be a deserving person, and the gifts of life appear. 

Elizabeth Taylor, interview with James Grissom (1991)

The first key to writing is to write…not to think.

No thinking. That comes later. You write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head.

From the Gus Van Sandt film Finding Forrester.

Seamus Heany, 1939 - 2013

☛  The main thing is to write for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust that imagines its haven like your hands at night, dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast. You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous. Take off from here. And don’t be so earnest.

☛  And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

The Way of Art Is War

I haven't read The War of Art yet but have had it highly recommended. (Amazon says The War of Art is nothing less that Sun-Tzu for the soul.) 

I have read The Artist's Way and even went to see Julia Cameron speak. My spiritual view of the world is a bit more pragmatic that Cameron's, and some of her "spirituality" isn't quite my cup of tea, but I'll say this for her book: When I began reading it, I wasn't drawing. By the time I was half way into it, I was. So, as one reader offering a purely anecdotal response – the s**t works.

One thing is clear: You don't have to suffer alone. If you're facing resistance, realize that many others, great and otherwise, have faced the same. Its poison has even been known to stop a corporation. Just whatever you do, do something.


‣ Art is born in attention.

‣ The reward for attention is always healing. 

‣ Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out.

Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity



‣ If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?" chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death. 

‣ Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.

Do it or don't do it.

It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, you destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

‣ Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. 

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. 

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

All quotes found at Goodreads.

The Artist's Credo, don't leave home without it

Life Is Short, Art Is Long

I don't remember where I heard it, but someone once said, "No one ever says on their deathbed, 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office.'" Ever notice how in movies or television shows having to do with a particular job or industry it never shows the characters actually working. Because it's boring. Life generally doesn't happen at work. More often, it's happening somewhere else while you're at work. Unless its your life's work, your avocation, then that would be different.

In the end, that's the thing we are living for––the thing that gives our lives meaning. Whether we are writers, artists, musicians, or actors et al, we are thinkers and conceptualizers first and foremost. You are only truly working when you're thinking about YOUR work. Your work is your experience and your gift to the world. Even if no one gets to experience your art, you thought it and it infuses your life and how you think. 

So get to work already.

Seizing SelfControl

There was a cartoon I saw once that had one's a drawing representing one's dreams and aspirations on one side and on the other us. Inbetween was the yawning pit of hell that represented the internet. Around the corner from my house there's a counseling center that offers help with cyberaddictions. 

Few of us can say they don't get distracted by the internet. For many of us it has our nemesis when it comes to a productive creative life. 

What can we do about it? Well, here's one idea:

If you need help, there are programs for that. Here's one––it's called SelfControl (logo at left), it's free, and it turns off your internet access to certain sites of your choice for a chosen period of time. SelfControl only limits access to certain sites but if that's not enough, if you need total black out, then there are other apps for that too.

Distracted? I only with there was a SelfControl app for everything else in my life. Whatever, let's do something about it and get back to the important work. 

How to Survive a Critique

The Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it's more like a cha-cha.

Strength That Comes from Letting Go

It happens, sometimes,
that things are too much.

Stacks overflow.
Trusses break.

I get that.

What I don’t get is:
how one barrels through.
Where does that strength come from?
How is it fed?

And if it doesn’t appear on command,
how does one hold on, waiting?

Everything is collapsing.
By definition, that means:
nothing remains to be held.


I just discovered this guy. He's a law professor of all things. The above was taken from http://lessig.tumblr.com

The Sylvia comic is from here.

What do I really want to do today?

I found that every single successful person I've ever spoken to had a turning point and the turning point was where they made a clear, specific, unequivocal decision that they were not going to live like this anymore. Some people make that decision at 15 and some people make it at 50 and most never make it at all.

Brian Tracy

Write Aurally, Write Hormonally, Write Frettingly

Words are there to try and make people prick up their ears, and agitate their hormones, and get them fretting or get a bit of electricity going. That’s not just the sound of the words, it comes from the meaning of course, the sea of meaning - or meanings.

Howard Devoto 

Well, that explains a lot...

OK. So, why can't I allow myself to draw?

When you have an emotional reaction to what you see, you are judging. That is your signal that you have an issue inside of yourself - with yourself - not with the other person. If you react to evil, look inside yourself for the very thing that so agitates you, and you will find it. If it were not there, you will simply discern, act appropriately, and move on. 

Gary Zukav, page 157 from his book Soul to Soul

The photo is one of Jill Greenberg's manipulations. She apparently gives her subjects a lolli and then takes it away before shooting.

On Writing

The scariest moment is always just before you start.

You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will. 


Your job isn't to find these ideas, but to recognize them when they show up.


Stephen King, On Writing

Many people consider this to be the best book on writing ever written. I haven't read it yet. But I will.

Artful Angst

… a universal human quirk: Sadness is more interesting than happiness, and thus more creatively productive. 

I always appreciate it when art violates my principles and still works. 

A theory I've incubating for many years concerning emotional states on artmaking is that the best art comes from darker places: sadness, anger, regret, etc, are the most high octane of fuel. Obviously, a person who constantly holes themselves up in darkness may discover it has consequences for a happy life. In the big picture art could be for immortality, but happiness is for the mortal now, which is compelling. One should only undertake such things carefully. Still, taking control of our pain and using it to produce art can often be very empowering. 

I was talking to a well a known artist and writer of children's books and she told me about an adult novel she was writing, a novel that was based on her own difficult childhood. Before she was going to begin her rewrites she traveled to India to stay at an ashram. When she returned to Los Angeles after a month, she no longer had the desire to finish the novel. The hunger and the angst were gone. 

When angels drive out the snakes and there's nothing to talk about? It's worth pondering.

Burroughs on Writing: If Society Hates You, You May Be On to Something

An interviewer had once asked French author Jean Genet when did he begin writing. His answer: At birth.

There is no such concept as "should" with regard to art... one very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and don't know that they know... this applies to all creative thinking... once the breakthrough is made [in art, such as Cezanne's paintings or Joyce's stream of consciousness writing] there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But...there's always a reaction of a rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough...  the artist expands awareness, once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness. [It's not just about seeing things in a new way, it's about...] seeing things that are already there.

Writers are very poor judges of their own work.*

* All quotes from the video.

What other endeavor in the world allows one to make such good use of their dustbin of experience as the artist and writer? And as far as experience goes, the worse the experience the richer the material, and, quite often for the author, the sharper the material. (I may be repeating myself here from other posts but this is something I believe in religiously.) I have friends who sit on great stories for fear that they will expose themselves or the people in their lives they're writing about. Art, it can be said, requires some courage. Exposure and the burning of (some) bridges is part of the game. Otherwise, why not choose to be an acountant?

In his interview below, Burroughs describes writers/artists as collectors of experience and the act of writing itself as a process of curation. He suggests writing down dreams if you can. He finds them to be a great source of material. He also says, rather chillingly, something that aspiring writers had better get used to: "Publication is, I think, very important to the writer." Without publishing, he says, he would've likely given up writing altogether. (I suspect he would've come back to it. ) As a trust fund kid, he also had the great luxury of never having to devote his time to supporting himself. His travels also featured famously in his books.

The interviewer and Burroughs spend time bouncing from a number of topics beyond writing so you may want to skip through some spots. (The discussion on his views of death and the afterlife are interesting.)



Go. Create. Be brave.

Writers, famous ones especially, are cads. Alert the media.

Above, the eyes of sensitive poet and insensitive world-class cad, Rainer Maria Rilke.

“One unexpected development of becoming a writer is meeting literary heroes,” Justin Torres, author of “We the Animals,” told me. “Unfortunately, sometimes they turn out to be asses, or they hit on you.”

"The experience of a book is so much better than the experience of a person.” 

Read many a recounting of appalling meetings of literary heros by women who're asked to sit on laps or lick tattoos. (I wonder how many times these writers used the same lines on other star-blinded nubile greenhorns and succeeded? I'm guessing enough to keep trying.) 

Get the juice from the NY Times article here.

"Even the best of us are at least part-time bastards.”
Amen

The Power of Limitation

Inspiration and work ethic the ride right next to each other.


Jack White says nothing, not even inspiration, comes without working. White argues that constricting your choices, the so-called Power of Limitation, forces the artist into a creative place that you wouldn't have found with more choices. Too many choices make for indecision and is the killer of ideas.

Hear what else Jack has to say:

 


See the entire post at Jelly Roll for the Earhole.

Show, Don't Tell Explained

A great piece from the blog We all die. The Goal isn't to live forever. The author offers the most concrete advice on writing to show and not telling you're ever likely to see. E.g:

No “thought” verbs: 

These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.

The list should also include: Loves and Hates.

And it should include: Is and Has, but we’ll get to those later.

Also:

Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.

It's brilliant. Read it.

That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes.

Albert Einstein, from a letter to his son 

You Know Something About Yourself Nobody Else Does

Destiny is a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does. The picture you have in your own mind of what you're about will come true. It's a kind of a thing you kind of have to keep to your own self, because it's a fragile feeling, and you put it out there, then someone will kill it. It's best to keep that all inside.

Bob Dylan, The Bob Dylan Scrapbook: 1956-1966

Excuses Are Bull&%$#!

The website The Weeklings ("Rogue commentary for now people") offers 12 reasons why your excuses for not writing are bullshit. Or, as I would call it, my typical daily demotivations.

Here's a couple of them:

1. No one will want to read it.
Yeah, that’s probably true. It’ll get better, probably, eventually. First, you’ll show your mama, and she’ll tell you it’s good. This does not actually mean it’s good, quite yet. Then, your friends will tell you the next one is good. They might be wrong or right, depending on how honest they are. Finally, strangers will tell you it’s good. And last, people will actually pay to read your writing, because they want to read it. This process can take anywhere between a few months to several decades. Good luck!

 2. I don’t have time.
I may be wrong, but I suspect your problem is that you have a life. Do away with that. Like, adios to yoga and the gym, plus stop jogging, and Pinteresting, sky-diving, stamp-collecting and so on. Facebook and other social media are cool in moderation, I think, but just keep the writing document open and it’ll glare at you angrily the whole time. Or write longhand. It sounds weird to youngsters, but it’s actually really good; most of the best stuff I’ve written started longhand. I guess a lot of the bad stuff I’ve written was done longhand, too.
Most relationships are overrated, or they don’t have to be so time consuming at least, so do the bare minimum (or less), to maintain civil relations with the people who you value the most. TV’s out, of course, unless it’s late and you’re really comatose after a lot of work, in which case you’re not good for much anyway....

Read the whole thing here. 

Are You an Artist?

Here's how you'll know:


You’re an artist. You do it because you love it. That’s not enough. You fail. Go home.

You’re an artist. You do it because you don’t know how to do anything else nearly as well. You fail. Go home.

You’re an artist because you can’t not do it. You take shit jobs at shit pay so you can keep doing it. The hours you do the art are momentous and backbreaking. Most of your time is spent paying rent....

Read the complete article Footlights.

Mo' Eno & the Way to Mo' Work

Perfection to me is characterless. Brian Eno

In an interview during his Flaming Pie period, Paul McCartney spoke about some of his writing process. If he only had two hours to work, he said his mission would be to complete a chunk of work during that time. Whatever was started was finished in that time frame, be it writing, recording, etc, whatever the results. Later, he could decide whether anything good came from it but during those two hours he was going to be industrious. He wouldn't stop to question, doubt or edit. In other words, allow perfection to slow the production. He also wouldn't start anything he couldn't finish.

As creators, there are times for input and times for output. Too many of my friends spend far too much time inputting and not enough time outputting. Outputting being the actual doing part of the process, the making of the thing—or at least taking a few steps along the way. Outputting need not be the thing, just a thing. I'm also guilty of this. As I was thinking about this I imagined counting myself as one of my friends. Artists do need friends, support groups, communities, etc. When I'm writing, though, I'm not my friend. Not at all: Not even a frenemy. Instead I'm the Brain Police, a stick-wielding squad of abusers ready beat down the work until I finally stop altogether. Perfectionism is death.

To the artist there is only one true god: Blockage. And when Blockage comes there is only one prayer: Not today.*

*An old expression reused in Season 2 of Game of Thrones.

Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Tips

How to Write a Great Short Story:

1) Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2) Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3) Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4) Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.

5) Start as close to the end as possible.

6) Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to 
them in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7) Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8) Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. 

9) Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

From brainpickings.org

Neil Gaiman on writing, etc

There's a nice video interview with Neil Gaiman in which he talks about his New York Times bestselling novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane (it went to number one), writing, the process, circumstances, etc, that I wanted to post. When I tried to embed it the bastards at Vimeo wouldn't allow it. In order to see it, then, you'll have to go here.

Writers on Writing

Fiction is a great good in the world./When you're writing you let go of your negative capability. Zadie Smith



From Dangerous Minds.

Is writing torture, or more like pleasure bondage, without the pleasure?

This story has been getting around: Philip Roth advises young published writer to get out while he's ahead:

I would quit while you’re ahead. Really, it’s an awful field. Just torture. Awful. You write and write, and you have to throw almost all of it away because it’s not any good. I would say just stop now. You don’t want to do this to yourself. That’s my advice to you.

Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) responds:

... maybe it's just vanity that makes authors gripe so much about their ordeal. Maybe writers have simply come to believe themselves to be so very special, and their work so very important, that they can't imagine anybody else capable of doing it: You, little one, could never possibly create what I have created, or withstand all that I have withstood, so you'd best not try at all.

Writer Lauren B. Davis sums it all up nicely in her blog. Best to start here. The proper response, she says, is to dig in and say: You had me at torture.

You've got to work

Don't let your yesterday 
pave the way to more future dramatic play! 
Remember this Scientific Fact... 
by the time it reaches your senses 
it's already an artifact... 
Plug Your Input back into the Source 
and Affect Change In Your Life From That Space... 

Kurt Johnson

Sure, the rhyming is corny. The scansion and meter are atrocious. You could also make a case that artmaking is often better after dramatic play. This was taken from a quick Facebook post so its shortcomings can be forgiven. (I don't know the author. He was a Friend of a Friend.) 

But the concept is sound: Don't let blockage or bad critiques or poor responses—or fear—chill your motivation. Go back to why you do it in the first place—the source—sally forth and do what you do that only you can do. That voodoo that you do so well. 

If for no other reason because for today—or any day, really—the greatest success we have is for us to just keep working.

Yes, it's hard

A while back I wrote about how writing is like Michelangelo creating David from a block of marble. The act of creation in turning a hulk of rock into a glorious sculpture. I was reminded of this... when one... [someone] mentioned that writing a first draft is actually creating the marble itself, creating something out of nothing first. Then the subsequent rewrites and edits turn it from a block of stone into a beautiful sculpture.

Once you've quarried the marble, carve. And carve and carve. And carve. That's where the real fun begins.

More from this great post on How It Feels to Finish the First Draft of Your Novel.

If you don't, who will?

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. Anne Lamott

This and other bon mots from her Twitter: @ANNLAMOTT

Naked is sexy

True freedom is liberating somebody else by telling your story, and even though it exposes you, it will set somebody else free. Oprah Winfrey

Dare to be uncomfortable

To the degree we're not living our dreams, our comfort zone has more control of us than we have over ourselves. Peter McWilliams

To the misunderstood geniuses

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive.

Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes

Perseverance, my fellow geniuses, can often mean having to stand against being understood by friends, lovers, etc, as a stubborn eccentric. To find power in truth, personal truth, is the essence of the good life. And, if truth destroys something––as has been said––then it may truly be something that needs to be destroyed. What can be more noble than destroying fraud with truth? That is capital T truth.