Posts

Showing posts with the label symposium

Writing About Writing Vol. 17

Image
      Before I get started, I will say that I absolutely stuck with the established-for-the-topic image on this post… Okay, let’s boogie.      For the past several years, I have led True Story©… off with an image loosely related to the story, usually related to the very topic of the tale itself but sometimes to the punchline of the story when I was feeling particularly funny.      For the month of March – well, for the three out of five stories in March I made after this was presented to me – I started to employ AI image generators to make those images.  For the YEARS prior, I would simply Google search terms somehow related to the story, then I would scroll and sift through the image search results and simply steal and use whichever one humorously partnered with my story of that week. … and I prayed that the rightful owners of the images never said anything.  Thus far they have not.      The topic today is “stick and move,” as I have now had several weeks of ingress as it r

Writing About Writing vol 16

Image
“Just talk it out…”      That seems like a simple enough instruction to follow, right? Well let me explain something.   I am a middle child by birth order, a creative weirdo by nature and a bit of a misunderstood outcast due to both of the above. …   I also talk about writing like underground rappers talk about rapping.   It is something I enjoy and I am good at.      You know what I DON’T do a lot and never became particularly good at?   Talking! This isn’t to say I am inarticulate or lack vocabulary, I am just used to “sit down and shut up” as a parenting technique that I tend to silently watch a room until I need to talk.      Unless I am excited. When I am excited, unless the audience is similarly interested in what I am yammering on about then I fully expect to feel the “sit down and shut up” vibe I was raised on.   The only difference is nobody better put their hands on me, lest there will be an expensive lesson taught. The same can be said for topics that I am par

Writing About Writing Vol 12

Image
“The Elements” Back on September 1 , I explained – err, shared Will Smith’s explanation of – the relationship of talent and skill. Those are not the elements I intend to speak on this month. February 5 th was my, unbeknownst to either of you, official end to my holiday malaise.  I had been thinking and brainstorming on shit I would write when I sat down and put myself to it, but had not typed a damn thing in weeks.  The last place I had left off in the moment was my ongoing beef with Santa Claus . That morning, I sat down at work after dropping the princess off at school, and I started typing.  Pt II was born in less than an hour.  A little later, III was real.  As of when you read this, I am done through at LEAST part VI and have plans for the series. Focusing still on that same week, I wrote my Hotep Wednesday post THE morning it was to be posted.  I wrote The Bakery later on that afternoon at the end of my lunch break.  Friday morning, I wrote the two most recent Ma

Writing About Writing, Vol 11

Image
     Sometimes you don’t know what the fuck you want to write, you just know you want to write when you sit down to do so. My trick when I find myself in this spot?  A key word or phrase… What do I mean? Come back to August and September with me. Work Spouse : ALL I knew I wanted to include in that story was the “Pennsylvania into her Virginia” line and had been thinking about it for THREE WEEKS before the scribe. Quaaludes : I was talking about The Get Down with someone the day before I wrote this story and the only thing I could think of was “boogie oogie Disco Biscuits.” I wrapped ENTIRE stories around getting those words/phrases into the mix.      Sometimes, that is about all the spark you should need.  A “why” to your “what.”  Having one goal to write toward is what it took to get you typing, the real fun is making it JUST there. To me, that is the fun part; sitting down with NOTHING to go on and remembering some silly shit that happened in a text

Writing About Writing, Vol 10

Image
Be a "Volume Shooter"… This guy, he was a volume shooter: What does that even mean? A lot of people saw Kobe Bryant as a ballhog of sorts.  What people were missing is that sometimes overachieving will come from an outpouring of effort.  Putting up a ton of points on a bunch of shots might be the easiest way to it.      If you write, then write .  Every time your smartphone comes out, your notes app should be available within two taps of your screen.  MS Word (or whatever word processing application you use) should be on your frequently-used or shortcutted on your computers. EVERYTHING can be written about.  Writing should be a constant process.      Stick to it, stick to it constantly.  Throw a million things at the wall in hopes that a thousand stick, and fine tune the whole FUCK out of that thousand.  Write until you're tired, but not until you're burnt out. You will write some things you hate.  You will write some STUPID, bitter or

Writing about Writing, Vol 9

Image
     Today’s theme: Don’t Overthink it. As simple a concept as this may seem to be, it is DIFFICULT in a creative process that is constant to actually do.  The work done toward constant improvement is more in constant practice and willing acceptance of what comes back.  But that is a concept we have already dabbled in, so no need to repeat ourselves.      This is more about trusting yourself and your instincts.  You sat down to write, let that bitch fly!  What I mean by this is that your first gut feeling is usually the best.  Back over the summer, while I was in and out of vacation and away from both my home AND work computers, I was in a pinch to get things up and I kind of felt my work suffered some for it.  I would never let anyone know this shit as it is happening, but as I sit and type this, I see EXACTLY why that was. I was too obsessed with things like word count and a multitude of other shit that really didn’t matter that I neglected my time-honored approach of “

Writing about Writing Vol. 7

Image
Short post today y’all… “Fearlessness”      Not everything is for everybody.  Don’t let fear of catching a brick keep you from trying .  Some days, you will do something and present it to the world and at the end of the day, the only hits you’ll register are the ones that came when you visited the post to share it…  In your head you will hear the cartoon “whomp whomp whomp…” Fuck that, you stand learn more from having it happen than you EVER will from pussing out to avoid it.      Don’t be afraid to be the only one laughing.  Of course, when you find yourself in that position you should be working on what got you there to stop it.  Do. NOT. Shy. from being taken there from time to time. Don’t get comfortable BEING in that spot, by no means am I suggesting that being unfunny is a desirable place to reside.      Back to the leading thought.  You can NOT please everyone.  More importantly, you shouldn’t try to.  Do what works for you and let the chips fall where th

Writing about Writing Vol. 6

Image
“Controlled Chaos”      Ask me where anything in my house is, I will take you right to it.  You’d never know that to SEE it though.  It looks like some slapdash assemblage of stuff, but it really does make sense when I can explain it. My creative process is quite similar…      Imagine you sit down at your computer every morning, open FIVE instances of MS Word, then come back to each every time an idea strikes you, and scribble some notes on it.  Now imagine if you will you could somehow do this without having to necessarily sit down to the computer and type these things out. I do this shit in my head. Back in late July/early August, I had an idea for True Story© that I had been actively working on for a couple of weeks.  That idea is STILL in my drafts box.  I cut my grass one Monday and thought up, from start to finish, the Marlon story .  I went out into the yard with the first story in my mind and repeated lines to it as I worked on my grass, but the Cheaters/Marlon/d

Writing about Writing Vol. 5

Image
Two words that it took me a 3-years-plus hiatus to learn the importance of were “support system.” Surround people who have something invested in your passion.  No, not (necessarily) a financial investment, but someone who cares that you care.  They can know their lane and understand that to mean to stand aside and let you be busy at it, they can accept an active role if one is to be had, an advisory role if one is solicited or if nothing else, someone to pat you on the back and tell you you’re doing a good job when you’ve done one in their opinion. My mother : NEVER has she ever thought I was funny, and she has never been shy about telling me so.  More frequently, of late she has been letting me know at Sunday dinner that I am doing a wonderful job of getting her laughs out of her. Hotep Wednesdays are her favorite. My sisters :  Avid readers, the both of them.  One is mostly non-respondent to everything on the planet until there is an actual affront or something to be c

Writing About Writing Vol 4

Image
“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 putt

Writing About Writing Vol 2

Image
     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 chilling with my loves right now.  I feel like writing about writing. Specifically, I will talk about my creative process.  What will come as a surprise to those of you (if there are any of you) is that EVERYTHING I pour into a story is planned to be there as presented.  More important is the fact t