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 8th 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