I was recently writing a short story that I purposely wanted to have a “Twilight Zone” feel for both the structure my overall understanding of how the story would unfold. I mean, I linked to it above, but the phrase “Twilight Zone” and its implications has permeated culture so thoroughly that, even without an impressive three follow-up series, I think it would still occupy a place in people’s minds. So, after finishing the story, I…
Last week, I posted a few videos about David Lynch and how to hook yourself an idea or two. Well, as you might expect, I plowed through a number of Lynch videos at the same time, in part because the two I shared last week are just about the nature of getting ideas. But, in fact, the first video I watched was a piece asking Lynch about his screenwriting process… and since it’s just over…
What better way to kick off the work week with a theory of creativity including why it doesn’t occur at work as much?
This is one of my rare time-sensitive posts, so bottom-line up front: if you want to watch The Little Prince on Netflix — and my premise is you should — it’s leaving on May 4th, so do it now! Those of you who have read last year’s installment of my Favorite Films list already know I hold this film in high esteem, but I believe the 2015 film version of The Little Prince is one…
The seven or nine regular readers of my blog will recall I have, over the years, advocated setting aside time to do creative work, even if you’re not good at it! (from January, March, and December of last year). One of the activities I love doing is “Inktober,” an annual art challenge every October where you try to do an ink drawing every day based on a one-word prompt. I’ve done this as an after-dinner…
TED Talks are probably good fodder for Monday Motivation posts, and here’s a good one, especially for creatives wondering about why they’re doing what they’re doing.
I began this year advocating creating art as a hobby and I tried to practice what I preached shortly thereafter. Most people who know me generally observe I’m pretty darn busy which is one of the reasons that I feel the need to carve out time that is entirely not productive. It’s hard in today’s “make every job a gig and make every gig a hustle” economy — and heaven help you if you want…
Trying to make a living –or just some nontrivial income– from your creative endeavors seems like a monumental task. At least it feels so for me. Luckily, for me, I enjoy some of the minutiae of process and procedures and figuring out devilish details I can repeat so all that small stuff is not stuff I sweat over. Then I constantly get reminded about how much I don’t know. Also I don’t have enough time.…
Let me start by giving credit where credit where credit is due. The inspiration for this post, and indeed the title above, comes from a post this past May by Russell Nohelty on his Complete Creative site. His post hit on the current issue I have with Jabberwocky Audio Theater. It’s perhaps the most difficult metaphorical needle I’ve ever had to thread — and so I’m writing it about it here in case you’re in…
Someone posted an article by Casey Lesser on Artsy about one of those things we creative folks already knew. Having a network is important. In this case, some MOMA researchers looked at artists in the 20th century, their personal networks of colleagues, and their work to do analysis on how much “who you know” helped. How to network is worth its own series of posts, but reading some of the observations was interesting… and there’s…