The musings of a madman...

     This is as much for me as it is for you… Given family history, a period of undiagnosed depression and a healthy/unhealthy fondness for fermented beverages, I am full aware that my mind will one day begin to slip. I was reading some articles a few years ago that explained the connection  of creative activities (writing, art, etc…) and the slowing of the process. [ link1 ] [ link2 ] [ link3 ]      Knowing what I know at 38 and of sound mind to think of it, I intend to stretch this process for as long as I physically can.  As long as I have my eyesight and my hands can perform the action of typing, I am going to keep writing.  Even if I don’t make a dime doing it, the value gained from preserving my future for as long as I can makes it worth it.      I know I can’t realistically expect my audience to be my forever audience, and as a middle child I am more than adjusted to this.  Given the info...

     I have a massive amount of respect and sympathy for tortured creative souls… There was a time where I just didn’t get it; the grief that comes with being one of those people who is constantly looking to pull everything they see/say/do into something that is their outlet du jour at the next moment they will arrive to their medium to do so.  As I have been back writing for the last 16+ months with an all-new focus here, I see it more than ever.      I look back to the last time I was actually motivated and I see it.  I finished my novel in 30 days, all 50k words of it.  Waking up at 5am to pound out an idea brewing.  Carrying a flash drive with me everywhere and writing without eating lunch.  Ignoring the whole-ass world around me, for better or worse.  I did it all.  Two of the four albums I listened to for that September/October month were Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Gil Scott-Heron’s Winter in Am...

     “Stick and Move.” Every day I have been near a desktop computer for about the last 16 months, I make a point of opening my blog dashboard and looking around.  I make sure of the traffic numbers, I look at comments that might have found themselves in the Moderation Queue, I look back over previous posts and make small changes I may have missed on the way through the first time. Most importantly, I open my drafts queue.  In it there is usually one to three posts I am actively working on, one I am purposely never posting and FIVE I can best describe as a “false start.”      My archive goes like this: 2009 – 204 posts.  I was new and excited. 2010 – 178 posts.  I was still into what I was doing but busy in the real world. 2011 – 110 posts.  Ava showed up in July and my time was strained. 2012 – 35 posts I was slowly being dragged somewhere I wound up not liking. 2013 – 8 posts…  see above, I was actually...

“Voice” As I learned – or, more accurately, willed myself – to write, I used to hear/read things about “voice” in writing. As I look back over my old writing, I think I understand more clearly what was meant by "voice." [ Phlip note : I HATE some of my old work] What I have observed over the past year or so, though, I have watched my work evolve.  What started as a 150-300 word blurb on my FaceBook wall has grown to an every-Thursday event that both of you VERY much look forward to. The growth has come with some evolution in my presentation and not just with the addition of a leading picture to each of the posts.  I had to learn to structure them physically to help each reader make their own adventure of it. What does that even mean? It means that I use indentation to start certain paragraphs, and not in others.  The indentation is to begin a new though, the lack of it means I have not finished that last idea yet but need the separation that simply ...

     I am a great many things… ·          Reader ·          Writer ·          Alcoholic ·          Obsessive personality ·          Pervert ·          Supervillain Most importantly to these things is that I am a planner.  I LOVE to write creatively, evidenced by what you all read every Thursday here at 7:30am.      In a conversation with the tallest person I personally know on Wednesday following my Tom Hanks piece, I explained a piece of my creative process, and the response I got was more or less “holy fuck dude, REALLY?!!?” and a followup that I should probably be giving some kind of seminar on that shit.      It’s Sunday, my birthday was yesterday and I am chi...