So many artists and writers gripe and moan about how hard it is to make art. They bitch about the market, they whine about ‘block’, and they suffer under the lash of Impostor Syndrome. Don’t get me wrong, being an artist is not an easy road and should never be trod lightly. I just think that too many artists get the problem on backwards. The big, bad world is not out to get you. In fact, until you become at least somewhat famous, it won’t even know you exist. The problems we have, we make for ourselves. Conversely, the successes we have, we also make for ourselves. Things to avoid:

            Avoid ‘goal setting’. Most people set unreasonable goals, or set their goals too far out, or create hazy or non-specific goals. There is no way to reach these kinds of goals, all they do is make you feel like a failure. Instead, create simple, repeatable, incremental habits. Simple habits are easy to remember and easy to complete – you come away a winner. When you get good at one level of the habit, scale it up. Keep doing it. At the end of a year, you’ve accomplished your original goal without even noticing. Just make sure this is the path you want to take to become who you want to be.

            Stop beating yourself up. We all write crap. We all make lousy drawings. Every one of us screws up our projects at first. I’ve got news for you – that’s the only way you learn how to be great. Don’t worry about it. If there’s no salvaging the drek, store it away where no one will see it and start on the next one. When you do get good and start drawing attention to your work, there will be plenty of jealous morons who’ll tell you you’re a lousy artist. Don’t listen to them, and don’t be one of them.

            Quit comparing yourself to others. You don’t draw, write or sing like anyone else, and you never will. No one else can do what you do. Besides, you don’t know what they’ve been through to get where they are. Don’t compare your first halting steps to anyone else’s finish. As the saying goes – the only person you should compare yourself to is who you were yesterday.

            Never ‘create for the market’. There is no market. If you’re trying to emulate what’s popular today in any field, you’re already way behind. If you try to do what others have done, you’ll never find your voice. Write what you want to read, paint what you want to see, design the things you feel need to exist. Not everyone will like what you do. So what? Some will, and they will find you if you’re persistent. Those people are your tribe, your market. Create for them.

            While many artists get all wrapped up in negative thinking and Impostor Syndrome, which is very damaging – others get high on forced positivity and excessive optimism. That can be just as damaging if left unchecked by logic and realism. We fool ourselves and set ourselves up for failure if we refuse to accept certain truths. Things to accept:

            Everyone has ‘dry spells’. Call it what you will: writer’s block, resistance, getting stuck – we all go through it. Every great artist has suffered the same pain you do. The difference is, they didn’t give up. You shouldn’t either. Get your butt back in the chair, take a deep breath and start again. Usually, the way to conquer the dreaded blockage is to put your head down and keep working. If you let it sit more than a day or two, you start to become afraid of your own work. It starts to look insurmountable. That’s just wrong. If the work isn’t going where you thought it should, correct it, start over or just push through to the end and see if you can salvage something. You can always edit a bad page – you can’t edit a blank page.

            ‘Overnight success’ is a lie. Everyone goes through a learning period – some take months, most take years. You need to allow yourself time to try things out, make mistakes, recover from false starts. The more you labor away in obscurity, the better you get at your art. Picasso did it, Hemingway did it, you can do it.

            Try and try again. Yoda was wrong. Okay, it’s true that you need to stop analyzing everything at some point, and ‘just do it’ as Nike says. But doing everything off the cuff almost guarantees doing a half-assed job. You need to try new things, keep improving and keep exploring in order to keep your art fresh. And especially when the work is fighting you, as it will sometimes, you need to try new approaches and new ideas, always looking for the breakthrough.

            This is your job. If you’re serious about your art, it’s no longer a hobby and you have to stop thinking of it as a gift you give to people. Your art is something society wants and needs, and you need to take that idea seriously. You need to be paid for your work. I’m not talking about ‘selling out’, I’m talking about marketing. You want your work to reach a wide audience? No one’s going to do that for you. The moment you start charging for your work, you become a business. Your art is your product. Learn how to be a good businessperson.

            It’s not my intention in this blog to drive anyone away from doing their art – quite the opposite. I want you to take off the rose-colored glasses and see the truth of what it means to be an artist. Stop being victimized by all the bone-headed assumptions that ‘normal’ people have about art and artists. Don’t let anyone tell you how to do the work you love – even me. This artistic life is not simple, it’s not easy, it’s not for the easily discouraged. But it is more fulfilling and more thrilling than almost anything else you can do. Go forth and create boldly. The world needs you and it needs what you carry.

            Be well.

            bcd

            We all know at least one person who continually tries to convince everyone around them that they’re a genius. Some people have the misfortune of living in the midst of an entire family of ‘geniuses’. I qualify under both headings. I wasted a huge amount of time trying to convince people that I was really smart. And pretty much every member of my immediate family is brilliant or creative – usually both. I am neither the smartest nor the most creative member of my family. Not by a long shot. But I tried to convince myself that I was – by trying to convince others. Huge waste of time, and very dangerous to my sanity. For example:

            The quickest way to spot a fake genius is by how much bragging they do. They are always trying to convince people that they came up with an original idea first, or that they ‘thought of it’ before they knew of anyone else’s solution. The worst part of this scenario is that the faker actually starts to believe their own lies. As often as not, their audience quickly figures out that the faker is full of hot air and just walks away. The truly gullible ones will stick around and become the faker’s disciples.

            Another way to spot a fake is that they’re always talking about the wonderful things they’re going to do – but they never seem to get around to. It’s a bit more subtle kind of fakery, but often indicates that the fake, while perhaps having the ability to do what they talk about, is either scared to do the thing, or is completely delusional. The real hazard of this type is that they’re not actually lying about their abilities – they honestly believe what they’re telling you. It’s much harder to shake yourself loose from someone like this.

            Living amongst a group of highly intelligent and creative people can induce a third kind of fakery – they feel a need to keep up with friends/siblings, because they suspect or believe that they’re not actually good enough or smart enough. This often manifests as an attempt to promote their own projects or ideas over their close relations’ – a desperate attempt to fit in. The cognitive dissonance set up in the faker’s mind can’t be maintained for too long before the faker has to ‘get out on their own’ – get far away from the close scrutiny of the people they want to emulate.

            All of these paths lead to dust and disappointment. I know, because I’ve done all of them. I was a fake genius. The healing journey I’ve been on for the last decade and more has given me the perspective I needed to walk away from these dead ends. I hope that my cautionary tale will help you on your journey or help you to spot others who need help. But how do you know if someone is actually a genius? Well, there are a few hints.

            The Work. As I pointed out in a previous blog (Mad Genius Revisited), the most important thing to any genius or highly creative person is The Work. (Yes, Capitalized.) If they can no longer work, they waste away and die. But as long as they still have work to do, it literally takes death to stop them. The Work is their life and reason – the only one they have. Absolutely nothing else is as important – not fame, not wealth, not even love.

            The title of Genius. There are some historical exceptions, but most of those who have been recognized as geniuses refuse to self-identify as such. They don’t have time for that nonsense – they’re too busy. Most find, as I have, that if you are a genius or not, you will probably never know. Genius is a title that other people give you (usually posthumously), you can’t decide that for yourself.

            Solitude. There is some scientific evidence to indicate that people at the rarified levels of high intelligence (IQ higher than 140, I believe), have a difficult time making friends or finding love. The reason for this is simple: the ability to understand and be understood by another person is much more difficult the farther apart they are on the scale. As a genius, you have nothing in common with most people. This is not a question of superiority, but simple compatibility.

            Anti-specialization. While most super-creative types will be known for their work in one specialized field, they don’t usually see themselves as specialists. Genius/creative people will usually have one or more serious ‘hobbies’. These are additional fields of work that they become very adept at, and often make substantial contributions to. The problem comes when they start to believe that being a genius in one field makes them a genius in all fields. Doesn’t happen.

            Geniuses tend to know from a very young age that they are different from others. Most of them are not happy with this knowledge. Like most people, they want to be accepted by others, but this is often not possible – they are too different. So, they either keep their heads down and just do their work, or they become outrageous as a form of self-defense. The trouble is, much of their work won’t be understood or accepted during their lifetime. You don’t really want your kid to be a genius – it’s a difficult life. If you want a good idea of how a genius child thinks, read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. He gets it exactly right.

            Whether or not I am a genius is entirely moot – it’s not important. The title of ‘genius’ does an artist more harm than good, I think. My main focus now is just to get better at my craft – I have a lot of stories left to tell, and not that much time left to tell them. I have stopped trying to convince people that I am smart or talented – if I am, that will be shown in my Work. If not, I will simply fade away like the rest. Only time can tell.

            Be well.

            bcd

            In keeping with the last couple of posts, I’m going to give you my take on the most persistent problems in the writing life. This gets monotonous, I know. I swear, I’ll get on a different topic next time. Anyway, I’ve been doing this – writing – thing for about six or seven years now. That’s writing seriously, mind you – I’ve done writing as a hobby for closer to 50 years. In all that time, certain problems show up, at least for me, on a regular basis.

            No time to write. This has always been a huge problem for me. I work a 9 to 5 to pay the bills, plus I go to the gym 3 nights a week and have other duties around the house. Not to mention feeding my fat ass. Scraping two or three hours together on anything like a daily basis is really tough. I find that I just have to tighten my schedule, put my head down and plow forward most days. Thankfully, my wife is really supportive of my efforts. That, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve (shh!).

            Dry spells. I won’t call this ‘writer’s block’, because I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced that. A blank piece of paper or a blank screen does not cause panic in me or cause me to question my decision to be a writer. I almost never have an issue deciding what to write, just which of the dozen or so ideas I want to focus on. However, in nearly every project, I’ve had a break – a period when the words just won’t come. Sometimes it only lasts a day, sometimes a month or more. Usually this happens because the narrative has stopped making sense to me, and I need to rethink it. Once I’ve found a way through, I’m usually good. Pounding at it doesn’t help.

            Perfectionism. This is part of the ‘screaming monkey brain’ that tries to tell me that what I just wrote is crap. If I listen to it, it starts telling me that everything I write is crap, and I should just give up. The only way through this (that I’ve found) is to remind the screecher that ‘The first draft of anything is shit’ (Hemingway, again), and that I’ll fix it in the edit. The monkey just wants you to stop writing, it doesn’t really care about the content. So, I keep writing crap – because you can always edit a crappy page, you can’t edit a blank page.

            Distractions. Another way for my meddling brain to get me to stop writing, or never start. I don’t spend much time on social media, and I despise television in most of its forms, so that’s not at issue. But I admit to being addicted to YouTube, and I can waste an entire day in Google, jumping down rabbit holes. You see, what I’m really addicted to is information – I love to learn new stuff. Packaged and sanitized ‘entertainment’ disgusts me. But I have to be very careful to only allow myself to go on YouTube once my work for the day is done.

            The screeching halt. This is an extreme version of the ‘dry spell’, where no amount of thinking or plotting seems to be able to get me around the impasse. It happened most recently with a science-fiction story I’ve had in mind for over 30 years. I restarted the damn thing twice, first to fix a plot/character issue, and then to fix a massive time hole in the middle of the story. When the story balked this last time, I realized that I’d lost the story and the characters entirely. I’ll get back to it and make it work, but not this year. I refuse to quit.

            Criticism and Imposter Syndrome. These are problems I’ve only recently started to notice. Most criticism washes right off me – I don’t generally care what other people think. There are, however, a few people whose opinion I very greatly prize. A harsh word from one of them can put me in a nasty tailspin. I recall it happening many moons ago concerning a story I wrote and the opinions of a trusted sibling. Yeah, it hurt. Pissed my wife off, something fierce. As far as Imposter Syndrome is concerned, I’ve only recently started to feel this (see my blog ‘I’m a Fake’), and my only real defense so far is just to live through it.

            Deadlines. I don’t currently do freelance copywriting, and have no plans to do so, so that kind of deadline – a deadline set for me by others – is not what I mean. What I mean is the setting of deadlines for myself in order to push the writing along. Many people will insist that deadlines are an artificial and unnecessary constraint on your freedom as an artist. I felt this way for a long time, but now I see this as an attitude I had to grow out of. As long as I am careful with my deadlines, I can usually get close enough to meeting them. And anything that pushes my output along is a good thing. When I do miss a deadline, it’s usually because I hit a dry spell. I have learned to be gentle with myself when this happens.

            Many of the other issues that people have with writing – whether it’s where to get new ideas, or how to write like a famous author without sounding like that author, or feelings of inadequacy – I just don’t get. As I’ve said many times, my ego is way overblown, so I manage to avoid a lot of these problems. And I get new ideas all the time – more than I can ever get to, probably. My biggest issue, as I said before, is finding enough time to write. I have too much left to write, and not enough time to do it in. Good luck in your own journey – I don’t recommend following in my footsteps.

            Be well.

            bcd

            Everybody wants to tell you how to write a book. It’s always been that way, of course. From high school English teachers who never published more than a couple of sappy poems, to helpful family members, to co-workers who only read Danielle Steel or Stephen King. Everyone has an opinion, and the moment you announce you want to write, they all come out of the woodwork with ‘helpful’ advice. Some of it’s good, much of it is bad, some is just downright confusing. What follows is just some of it.

            “Only write what you know” – unless you’re a polymath, equally adept at politics, business, science and art – this is a poor idea. If you only write what you know, you may have some success in a very niche non-fiction market, but you’ll never write fiction.

            “Write when you’re inspired” – good as far as it goes, but you’ll never finish anything. Professional writers write on a schedule, aiming for a daily word count. They keep their butt in the chair. Pros write when they’re inspired, when they’re not inspired, when they want to write, when they don’t want to write. They just write.

            “Never start writing without an outline” – nonsense. There are legions of writers out there who call themselves ‘pantsers’, meaning they write by the seat of their pants. Many of them turn out very good books.

            “Never use an outline” – equally bad advice. ‘Plotters’ (guess what they do) often feel that they can’t start a story until they know exactly how it ends. This also works well. Just don’t limit yourself on how you write, and don’t let anyone else limit you, either.

            “Don’t use any adverbs/adjectives” – we covered this in my last blog on writing like Hemingway. If the word fits, and enhances the story, use it! Don’t overuse descriptive words, of course. Purple Prose is still bad.

            “Write only for yourself” – sure, as long as you never intend to publish it. Writing without ever thinking of your audience is basically just stroking your own … ego. It may feel good, but it’s pointless. Writing snobs – those who want to be a writer as opposed to those who want to write – do this.

            “Never change a word – you ruin the truth of the narrative” – yet another way to be a writing snob. Remember Hemingway’s edict: “The first draft of anything is shit.” Once you’ve finished the first draft, the real work begins – that of turning a rough manuscript into a solid, readable story. Again, think of your audience – someone else has to read the thing.

            Some people will tell you to ignore grammar, some will insist that your grammar must be perfect. Some will tell you that a ‘perfect’ manuscript has to look a certain way, sound a certain way, use the ‘right’ words, follow a certain trend – all hogwash. There is no perfect script, no ‘best’ story format. You have to do what works for you, then edit the crap out of it. Literally.

            YouTube has become especially bad about this kind of thing. Because the videos that get the most views and the most ‘likes’ are the ones that the algorithm rewards, the garbage piles up. Self-appointed ‘gurus’ put out mountains of trash, just to keep their numbers up. I understand, they’re just trying to earn a living. But the damage being done to young artists is painful, unconscionable and difficult to fix.

            “13 Steps to Write Your First Novel” – uh huh. I think Somerset Maugham said it best: “There are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

            “My 12 Tips for Better Writing” – who are you? Why should I listen?

            “Great Writing Advice from Famous Authors” – look, I collect quotes from various authors as well, but just because they’re famous or made lots of money with their books, doesn’t make them smarter than you. Look the stuff up yourself and copy off what sounds right.

            “Writing Motivation…” – usually some kind of video made up of smash cuts from different movies about famous artists. Some of them are interesting, some are confusing, none of them contain any new or useful information. Watch when bored, or you need a little lift.

            Avoid taking most of what you read or watch on this subject to heart. A lot of it is written and formatted by people who don’t know any more than you do about writing. As Ernest Hemingway put it: “All of us are apprentices in a trade where no one becomes a master.” The cold fact is, I don’t know any more about writing than you do, and neither did he. The only real, proven way to learn how to write is just to write. Write every day. Write as much as you can.

            Don’t ever let anyone tell you what you can or shouldn’t write. Don’t let them tell you how to write, or when, or which type of writing is best. Never let anyone change what you’ve written, unless you can see that the writing will be better that way. Grammar is just a suggestion, sentence structure is just the most common way of doing it. Be careful, though – if you make your manuscript intentionally difficult to understand, very few people will bother to read it. And a very large part of the point of being a writer is to communicate ideas to other people. Don’t go out of your way to offend your audience. Shock them? Sure. Start them talking? Absolutely. Shake up their staid little worlds and get them to think? Isn’t that why you’re doing this? But don’t set out to be offensive. Be truthful – most people are instantly offended by the truth.

            Go boldly forth into the darkness and light your way with your flaming pen. Then come back and tell us what you found.

            Be well.

            bcd

            Young writers in this country, and many others, are told they should learn to write like Ernest Hemingway. Why? Was there something special about his work? Okay, fine, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but so have a lot of other writers. I’m not usually terribly excited by that – I don’t generally like the stuff these people write. Hell, I’ve never heard of even half of them. Maybe highbrows like this stuff, but who else would?

            That’s not really the point, is it? Hemingway’s writing style is usually described as ‘masculine’ or ‘muscular’. I am inclined to call it terse. Because of his early experiences as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, he learned how to be spare and direct in everything he wrote. He preferred to write in short sentences, using as few adverbs and adjectives as he could get away with. And his works were full of manly men doing manly things in a manly way. While that sort of thing is less in vogue than it used to be, here are the things that writing teachers tend to stress:

• Write what you know – Hemingway based a lot of his stories on events and people he had seen and known first-hand.
• Use short, powerful sentences – he used strong verbs and unequivocal nouns, so that he didn’t need so many modifiers for his words.
• Be positive, not negative in your writing – say what something is, not what it isn’t.
• Keep your paragraphs short – Hemingway believed that long paragraphs were harder to read and put his readers to sleep.
• Stories should be like an iceberg: 80% unseen – he only described the actions of the characters and enough scene description to keep the reader informed – no meanings, no literary effects, no ‘purple prose’.
• Use dialog tags as little as possible – the character’s voices should be clear enough to avoid reader confusion.

And two points that teachers seem to overlook:

• If you get stuck, just “write one true sentence” – if you simply write one sentence, with total honesty, you’ll often restart your writing ‘motor’. And –
• Stop writing when it’s going well – don’t wear yourself out or drain the well. Stop writing when you know what happens next – this will give your imagination a chance to work on the script.

Okay then. That does seem like a recipe for clear, precise writing with as few literary backwaters as possible. It’s easy to see why writing teachers would like it. It’s also massively misleading.

            Hemingway, like most professional writers, wrote more than was strictly necessary and then edited the rough draft down to the bone. Where does that show up? He didn’t stick to short paragraphs for everything, mainly the run-up to where the action started. He not only took out every descriptor he could find, he also removed every comma he could manage, and inserted the word ‘and’ instead. Some critics have claimed it was his favorite word. And he didn’t just write short sentences. He varied the length of his sentences to create reader interest. Also, while Hemingway was a great believer that the written page should use the shortest, simplest words possible – so that anyone could read it – his descriptions of things ended up a little flat. Finally, because he put people he knew into his stories, he had to be very careful to rearrange personality quirks and modes of speech, so he didn’t offend anyone. That’s a lot of work.

            For myself, I really like Hemingway’s short stories. His sparse, one-two-punch writing style works extremely well in that format. However, I’m not as fond of his novels. His bare bones structure doesn’t work as well, I think, in longer format works. His characters lack warmth, and his descriptions need more color. That’s just me – obviously I don’t have a Nobel Prize. But I don’t think the lessons he teaches are a complete waste.

            I also distrust and dislike purple prose. And I have known for some time that the best way to avoid it is to use simple sentences with as few modifiers as possible. The whole ‘show don’t tell’ rule is kinda overdone, though. Sure, there are times when it’s best to reveal character through dialog or intention through action. But there are other times when you just gotta describe a scene or indulge in a little flashback. Too direct a narrative can be just as boring as a flowery one. I also agree that you don’t need to write ‘he said’, ‘she said’ for every line of dialog. And please don’t put adjectives in dialog tags unless you just can’t avoid it. You can avoid it.

            The whole ‘iceberg’ principle is a good one, I think. Don’t tell your readers everything – make them figure it out for themselves. If you do it well enough, they’ll come back for more. Just remember, everybody’s childhood was fucked up, everybody hates something about their job. It’s part of the human condition. You don’t have to beat it into your readers to remind them of the fact.

            He’s right, by the way – short paragraphs are better than long. Long paragraphs are daunting. And as far as simple words being better than complicated ones? Even Stephen King said, “Any word you have to go to a thesaurus to find is the wrong word.” Don’t try to impress people with your vocabulary, just write the damn thing. If an author tries to impress me with their literary devices or fancy language, I already know the story is going to bore me.

            In the end, don’t write like anyone but yourself – be truthful. Don’t try to copy Hemingway any more than you would try to copy your mother’s writing style. There’s a lot of very bad lessons to be learned from Hemingway – he was a hard drinker and a misogynist – but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take some of his writing ideas to heart. Especially this one: “There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.” ― Ernest Hemingway

            Be well.

            bcd

            Last night I went to a writer’s group meeting. One of the things we do is read a few pages of whatever we’re working on, and the others critique it – as gently as possible. I read chapter 1 of ‘Journey’ for the group last night. The response was unconditionally positive – there was very little by way of critique, mostly just glowing appreciation. Very nice. I was quite embarrassed. So why do I feel like crap and a total sham today? Imposter Syndrome.

            Logically, objectively, I know I’ve come a long way in my writing abilities. I’ve put a lot of words down, I’ve done several very successful edits on my works, I’ve even sold a number of copies of my previous works. But I still feel like someone is going to knock on the door any minute now and tell me that the jig is up, they know I’m a fake, please hand over the pen and the laptop. I’m a wreck – it even triggered a depression episode.

            But why now? I mean, I’ve never had this problem before. Any show I’ve ever been in, any picture I’ve ever produced, song I’ve sung or design I’ve created – whether I had a good reception or a bad one, it made very little difference to me. It never made me doubt myself or wonder why anyone could praise the work. My ego is roughly the size of Texas, so acclaim – no matter how great or small, whether deserved or not – has never shaken me. One important exception – I received a standing ovation for only one performance I was ever in (Scrooge in A Christmas Carol) – and that shook me to my core. So, what’s the difference?

            It has to be the writing. I have always been terribly nervous to hand anything I’ve written to anyone to read. I have to very carefully remove myself from the area while they read it – to keep from hovering over them while they read. Nobody likes that. Historically, I would be elated by a good review, and angry or depressed over a bad review of my writing. But the game has changed. I actually wanted the group to snip and snipe at my writing – the fact that they thought it was wonderful confused me. And I think I may know why I felt that way.

            Writing, for me at least, is a very personal – even intimate – artform. Theatre is performance, pure and simple. I’m one stage removed from the audience. (Pun not actually intended.) The same goes for the visual arts. But in writing, I let people into my head, I let them see what I think, what I feel, to grasp what’s important to me. And now that I have committed myself to becoming the best writer I can be, it becomes even more intense – because I have to be totally honest in my writing. When people reject my work, it hurts – of course it does. I’ve prepared myself for that. But when they praise it, when they praise me for it – I don’t know what to think. I know how rough the thing is, how much it needs to be edited and changed before it’s ready for publication. They don’t seem to see this. Am I wrong? Are my ideas off base? Not clear enough? Too clear? It’s perplexing.

            Maybe this is why I feel like a fake – an impostor – when I’m praised for my writing. Don’t get me wrong – it feels good to have my work recognized. I’m happy when people like it, just confused. I sometimes feel like they are just being overly nice, or they don’t know good work from bad, or sometimes that they’ve confused me with the actual author of the work. In any event, it feels like they can’t be talking about my book, or it couldn’t be me they’re referring to. The farther I travel down the road marked ‘author’, the more I realize I don’t really know what I’m doing. I mean, I used to know – I knew how to write, the same way I knew how to draw or sing. But the more I work at this art, the more I realize I know nothing. I’m guessing my way from point to point, like a neophyte navigator. I remember that feeling very well – grim determination coupled with stark terror that I’ll get it wrong. That I’ll get lost.

            Is all art this way? Is my entire life going to be this way? Never any certainty, never any final mastery? If so, then I guess I can expect to feel this same way about every form of art I focus on. That’s a bit frightening. But it’s the same kind of frightening I feel when walking into a new classroom or walking toward a strange group of people with that questioning look on their faces. Not the kind of frightening like walking through a dark wood at night. This is a terror of the new and strange, not the fear of bodily harm. The same kind of fluttering panic I get just before the lights come up on stage. I know this fear, and I welcome it. It sharpens my focus and lends me energy to do my best work. Yes, let’s think of it that way.

            There’s a TED talk about impostor syndrome by Mike Cannon-Brookes that I think everyone should watch. He makes the point that anyone who’s doing something important will eventually, and maybe consistently, feel that they’re in over their heads. That they’re just faking it, and someone’s going to find out and blow the whistle. The best you can do, he says, is not to run away – just keep the conversation going. Just keep pushing. None of us really know what we’re doing – but that’s okay. Keep going, you’ll find the way.

            Be well.

            bcd

            I just passed my 65^th birthday. Most people my age (those that are still around) are planning their last day at work, where they’ll go and what they’ll do for their ‘Golden Years’. I don’t have that option. I was so clueless and directionless in my 30s, 40s and into my 50s, that I have next to nothing saved up and I can’t really afford to retire. However, I don’t really want to, either, and that’s a good thing. I’m a writer, and writers don’t retire. They have to be carried out, as a rule. Stephen King has ‘retired’ at least three times that I’m aware of, and he just keeps coming back. Hint: it’s not the money – he has plenty. I’m actually waltzing through my mid-60s with a positive attitude and a smile on my face. Reason? Habits.

            Like most people, I wasted every New Year’s Eve trying to come up with a set of resolutions that I could stick to – goals I could achieve – so I could win for bloody once. Never worked out. I never lost those 20 pounds, never wrote that massive bestseller, never met my financial goals … you get the picture. Then, a few years ago, I had a little moment of clarity. I managed to run a marathon in 2006 because I trained for it. By running a little farther, training a little harder every week, and running shorter races – I ended up running two half marathons and a full marathon. I thought, what if I could do that kind of thing again, but instead, just make a couple of simple habits and keep up on them? So, I started going to the gym (at least once a week), started reading more, and started a daily writing practice. The changes have taken a while, but what a difference!

            I’m feeling stronger and more creative than ever. I’ve written not one, but three books (one’s a novella), I’m losing weight, gaining strength and regaining my balance and flexibility. Because I started reading a random manga called Blue Period, I’m starting back into my artwork. This is crazy! All the things I agonized over for years are happening, almost without conscious effort. I have to wonder how long this upward swing can continue – but then I remember something I just read.

I’m reading Atomic Habits by James Clear – in it, he says that there is a watershed moment that takes place weeks, months or sometimes years after you set up a positive habit. Before that point, your returns are disappointing – after that, they go exponential. I’ve been writing for seven years, working out for four years and changed my eating habits four months ago. There was no change happening before now, but now everything seems to be changing at once. It’s a little frightening and a lot exciting.

            Of course, there are also several bad habits that I have to get rid of, and those can be tough. The problem is due to the fact that habits are designed to be automatic, even invisible. There was a reason you wanted to do the thing (the cue), a motivating need or hunger (craving), an action toward the thing (response), and the result (reward). All parentheses incorporate the terms James Clear uses. If you don’t tackle the bad habits at the cue level, it’s tough to cancel or reverse them. This requires mindfulness and effort – most people don’t wanna. I have to cut way back on (or quit altogether) cigars and alcohol, YouTube videos and eromanga (those of you who know what that is, shame on you!) Since these habits were born out of a response to boredom or frustration, I have to create new habits to take their place. I haven’t decided what, yet. But then, that’s half the fun.

            James Clear wrote his book at about the same time that I was discovering these principles, so I’m not really jealous that he’s getting the credit (and money) for it. I highly recommend that you read his book. It can be a bit technical in places, but it’s well written. However, he would agree with me that goal setting does very few people any good – only those people who respond strongly to challenges. On the other hand, conscious habit-forming is one of the best ways to accomplish anything you may wish. And anyone can do it. Simply work backwards.

            Start off with an idea of what you want to be (forget individual goals), then what kind of person you would have to become to do that. What would that person do on a regular basis? How would they exercise, how would they eat, what would they do to relax? Once you have set up that image in your head, start building habits that would make you more like that person. Start small. Don’t try to run a marathon next month, instead start training to run one six months from now. Suddenly, you’re a runner. How did that happen? Small changes applied daily. And do yourself a favor – make it fun. If you try to make a habit out of something you really don’t like, the habit won’t last long.

            James Clear says that if you can manage to improve anything you do by 1% per day, at the end of a year, you’ll become 37 times better at it than you are now. However, by letting a bad habit persist without changing it, you will drop into the gutter in no time. That’s pretty clear. I have become stronger, healthier, happier and more accomplished because I built a couple of small habits and kept after them. That same power, those same results, can be yours. Just change a habit or two.

            Be well.

            bcd

            The other night I woke up with powerful and dolorous images running through my head, accompanied by words to match. Words that rhymed. It kept me awake for some time, the images changing along with the words. And then there was this tiny impulse in my brain that said, ‘get out of bed and write this stuff down’. But it was after 2 am and I didn’t want to get up. So I ignored the impulse and rode out the words and images until they quieted down again. And I went back to sleep.

            The next morning, I woke up with the certain knowledge that I had missed something important. I couldn’t force the words to return, and only the vaguest forms of the images remained in my head. A poem had been held out to me and I had pushed it away. This is fairly common, I imagine, for people who are not writers. They feel ‘oh, that’s beautiful, but I couldn’t possibly do that…’ – they feel inadequate to the task of writing poetry, so they let these impulses go. Don’t get me wrong – poetry is hellishly difficult to create. It’s not an art form I would wish on anyone. And I am not naturally poetic, though I can occasionally create a bit of doggerel. But the Muse doesn’t usually hold something like this out to me. I may have offended it.

            I should say right here that I don’t generally hear voices or go tripping out on mushrooms or other drugs. I don’t believe that I write better while drunk (I’m not sure that’s exactly what Hemingway meant, anyway), and I am not prone to hallucinations. I am firmly grounded in experimental science and logic. However. I am also solidly aware that there is a side to Creation which we cannot normally see and does not impinge on our awareness often. This is only partly related to the theory of Dark Matter, and actually has more in common with religion than science. One of the things that I have come to understand (partly) is the existence of the Muse.

            Many creatives throughout history have expressed the belief that they are not solely responsible for their work, especially the masterworks. They feel as if they have been given outside help – help which feels, quite frankly, supernatural or otherworldly. Elizabeth Gilbert did a wonderful TED talk on this very subject: Your Elusive Creative Genius – go watch it. In similar fashion, in The War of Art, Steven Pressfield goes into great detail about the Muses and insists that no truly creative impulse comes from any other source. I’m not sure how much I agree with either of these people, but I do know that I can, at times, have rushes of inspiration that come at me from some source that feels external to me. And I don’t feel that these sources, whatever they are, are embodied as shy, easily offended, virginal girls. My Muse, if she has a body at all, would probably show up as a snarky, vivacious redhead in nothing but socks and a smile. Not easily offended – but that does not mean it’s not possible to do so.

            I have returned to my creative endeavors late in the day, and need to relearn some very basic things about the life of art. One of the (many) things I’m relearning is the need to keep a journal space or two open for sudden flights of inspiration. When ideas come flitting through my brain, I know I have to write them down quickly or risk losing them forever. (This does not mean the idea itself is gone, just that I won’t have access to it. More on this later.) But one of the other things I need to learn is to be available to the impulse whenever or (possibly) wherever it hits. I just installed a voice recorder app on my phone for this very reason. Let’s see if it works.

            But, presuming they exist, how does one take care of a Muse? Leaving out cookies and milk, as one does for Santa Claus on December 24^th, does not seem appropriate. And somehow, I don’t think leaving the window open at night is necessary to permit the entrance of a non-corporeal creature. It seems to me that paying attention and writing down the impulses, images and words as they arrive is the most appropriate response. More difficult to do with visual art, I would imagine, but a similar process. And while I agree with Mr. Pressfield (and others) that the best way to attract the Muse is to have it find you already hard at work, I don’t remotely believe that is the only way. As I noted before, I had a poem show up in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. Agatha Christie preferred to be in the kitchen washing dishes to encourage the ideas to come. Several writers and painters insisted they did their best work while (or just after being) intoxicated. You don’t have to be doing your art to have the Muse show up.

            Finally, if (as I suspect) the Muse exists in order to bring more art and beauty into the world, and the way that it does this is to inspire artists, then it behooves us as artists to pay attention. Even if we do not eventually use every inspiration that comes our way, I think we need to listen to all of them and write them all down. We need to act on as many of them as we can. One of the few things we can do as human beings, which has any impact on the world at all, is to create. We can make all the money we want, be as popular as any movie star, sculpt our bodies and faces to any fashion – none of it is permanent. Only the things we touch, and change by touching, outlive us. The more beautiful we can make them, the more meaningful, the more that others after us will cherish them, the longer they survive. This, I think, is how to honor the Muse.

            Be well.

            bcd

            In The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker, the author insists that all literature can be broken down to seven plots (with an additional two that the author doesn’t like). The plots are as follows:

• Overcoming the Monster – the MC journeys to kill a beast (Hero’s journey)
• Rags to Riches (with two variations) poor MC becomes rich/powerful (variation 1: failure, variation 2: hollow victory – both involve character flaws)
• Quest – the MC goes on a journey to recover a prize
• Voyage and Return – the MC travels to a wonderful place that turns bad, and must fight to get home again
• Comedy (Shakespearean definition) – the MC wins the prize
• Tragedy (as above) – the MC loses the prize, possibly dies
• Rebirth – the MC is trapped in a living death, until rescued by another character

And two more that Booker doesn’t like – Mystery, and Rebellion Against the One. For Mystery, think Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and the like. Booker doesn’t like it because the MC is not directly involved in the plot. In Rebellion against the One, the MC fights against an all-powerful entity until forced to submit. Booker doesn’t like this one because the MC is essentially helpless.

            Jessica Brody of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel also insists that there are generally only 10 basic plots. Most of those plots are re-hashes of Booker’s seven, with romance and rom-com added in. Granted, there are some cute variations like: Superhero, Dude with a Problem, and Fool Triumphant, but these are taken largely from movie scripts. No surprise, really – Ms. Brody started her career writing screenplays. And don’t get me wrong, her systems work – so do Mr. Booker’s. And it’s true, a huge amount of literature does fall into broad general categories – but I seriously doubt that all of it does. Both ignore science fiction, for instance.

            I’m going to try not to drop into the ridiculous and start insisting on cut-and-dried genre definitions. I mean, if your story features magic as a major element (even with spaceships and robots), then it’s fantasy. If your story turns on some piece of high-tech hardware or a scientific principle (even if you have giants and unicorns running around) it’s probably science fiction. But I see all of these ‘plot types’ as simply hints or signposts. If you’re really stuck in your story, have a look at the general plot definitions and see if your story fits one of them. If it does, see if the plot type can give you any clues for going forward. If doesn’t fit any of them, congratulations – and I feel really sorry for you.

            The reason for the above is: humans aren’t all that inventive. These general plot formats have been around for a long time – thousands of years – and not too many new ones have been added over time. The likelihood that you will come up with something startlingly original is tiny by comparison with the possibility that what you’re writing is simply pointless and confused. So, when you feel lost in your story, by all means refer to the tried and true. And don’t worry about originality – if you tell your story in your own voice, you will by definition be original. However, what if you have an idea for a story that you don’t see in any plot synopsis?

            Here’s where things get interesting. Chances are still pretty good that you’ll be following a previously established plot form, but don’t worry about that. Your primary concern has to be your characters – especially the Main Character (Hero) and the Opposition Character (Villain). These two characters must be developed in depth: with a past, a goal (two, max), and a subtext. Every other metric of the character (likes/dislikes, powers, romantic entanglements, etc) are nice to have, but they’re basically just added spice unless they directly affect the outcome. Your best choice for goals is to have the hero and the villain want the same thing – each for their own reasons. This will create the maximum amount of conflict. To have a villain want to foil the hero’s plans (or vice versa) just because they don’t like the guy is a weak conflict – discard it.

            The subtext is where your twists come in. This is the unspoken, often unconscious, need or driver for the character. The subtext will often work in opposition to, or at right angles with, the character’s stated goals. It’s the thing that will get your character to do something that looks out of character, but it’s really not. For the hero, this subtext – if the hero learns the lesson it teaches – will be the reason that they win. The villain will ignore their better nature or subtext, which is why they lose.

            If you look at it closely, you will see that this description of character is what creates plot – not the other way around. Ray Bradbury said: “Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.” Full-blooded characters with goals and unspoken drives will automatically come in conflict with each other and they will do whatever it takes to win. Isn’t that what storytelling is really about? “I know this guy – you won’t believe the mess he got into…” This is the basis of all great stories – we invite the audience in to witness someone else’s life and how it turned out. If you can do that, why would you want to do anything else?

            Writing novels or plays comes down to this – show us a character we can relate to and then mess up his life. All description and plotting and word choice boils down to mere set dressing after that. Those things are nice to have, as are things like symbolism, rhythm and sexual tension – but don’t focus on them. That’s for the edit. Get your characters solid, and you won’t worry about plot anymore.

Be well.

bcd

            It occurred to me recently that I’m doing you, the reader, a disservice. While I will admit that writing and publishing a blog is a pretty self-absorbed act, there’s no reason to bore you with it. You see, I’ve always been an egoist. I am terribly self-centered. I write in run-on sentences because that’s the way I tend to think, and I want people to know exactly what I think. The most common topic of my conversations with others is … me, what I’ve seen, what I think, what I’ve done. I tend not to be all that interested in what others have done. Even the most common topics I follow on YouTube are all about me: Sigma Males, the problems and traits of intelligent people, or how to improve and sell my artwork. I used to watch videos about the INTJ personality type, but I sort of quit that. Dear God, how can anyone stand to be around me? It also explains why this blog hasn’t done all that well.

            There are, of course, reasons why I am this way – reasons which I either ignored or accepted as valid – but I’m not going to go into those here. Let it suffice that I am now fully aware of my excuses for the fact that I have been a crashing boor, and that I no longer accept them as valid. I may deal with the psychological underpinnings of my stupidity at a later date, but not now. Moving on.

            I was considering what this blog should be about from this point forward. I’ve covered all the futurism I currently think about – no need to repeat myself. I’m not a good enough comedian to write a series of joke columns. I am no doctor, or politician or lawyer – so those topics are out except as occasional background noise. I’ve read some history and economics, I’ve dabbled in engineering and architecture, I know a little bit about astronomy. I know quite a bit about the U.S. space program, at least up to 1980. All these things make for good side references, but there’s not enough information there for me to write 500 to 1000 words a week about. So saying, let’s stay with a series of subjects I do know something about, I am continuing to learn about, and my readers might find interesting. Let’s stay with Art in its various forms. At least for now.

            Just to give you a short resume – I’ve been drawing since I was about 4 years old, painting from about 10 or 12, the earliest writing I remember doing was about the age of 13, I’ve been acting on stage since the age of 16 and doing drafting from about the same age. Oh yeah, and I’ve been singing in choirs and singing solo since the 8^th grade, so, 12 or so. My most complete training has been in theatre, voice and drafting. While I’ve done drawing and painting for more years than anything else, I have found recently that I know the least about them. I doubt very seriously that I could be a good instructor in any of these subjects, but ignorance of the topic never stopped any of my former teachers, so what the hell? I’ll do the best I can.

            I don’t currently have a studio space, but I need one and I find I miss it. I will probably cover that topic as it comes up. I’ve been thinking of converting part of my shop (in the garage) into a studio, but it’s summertime – in Nevada – which means I’m not going to be spending much time out there until I can improve the space. What I’ve spent the most time, effort and thought about for the last several years is writing. And I can do that at home, on a computer.

            As in most things, the subject you spend the most time on is where you’ll see your biggest gains. (You would not believe how long it took me to learn the truth of that statement.) In any case, because I’ve spent so much time and thought on writing, I have discovered just exactly how bad I am at writing. Or at least mostly – I probably still suck horribly in one or two other ways that I haven’t discovered yet – we’ll see. For instance, I recently discovered that part of the reason that my stories get bogged down is that I haven’t developed the characters enough.

            Every character should start their story in a place we’ll call ‘Normal Life’ – not bad, not good, kinda sucky, but tolerable. Then something should intrude on that normalcy and make the hero realize that they want something different – this becomes their external goal. On or about the same time, we – as the audience – should realize that there is something the hero needs. The hero may or may not realize this, but they do nothing about it in either case. (My acting teachers called this the subtext.) This subtext is the great lesson the hero must learn by the end of the story in order to win. It may not even be entirely clear to the audience at first, but they have to know there’s something deeper that the hero is missing. Don’t worry about plot. The entire rest of the story will spin itself off from the character, her needs and wants, if these are strong enough. As Ray Bradbury put it: “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before.”

            I am ashamed that I had to relearn this stuff 40+ years after being taught it the first time. But, better late than never I suppose. Because of my extraordinary ego, I never learned the lessons I should have when they were offered to me. I am learning them now, as quickly as I can go, but I still have a long road ahead of me. I hope you’ll be patient with me.

            Be well

            bcd