Your Reaction To It
In life, and in art, it is not what you are reacting to that matters, it is your reaction to it. Why do some people breeze through life, seemingly carefree, while others seem to have nothing but bad luck? Is it because only good things happen to them? Is it because they are born to [...]
Post 30 – All’s Well that Ends Well
This is my penultimate post in Connie Green’s 30 day challenge (I’ll end with 31 posts. I’ve always been an overachiever. Okay, a teacher’s pet. You can say it.) Because of this, and because I’ve already covered Beginnings and Middles, today I’ll talk about endings, and use Mr. Shakespeare’s title without compunction or permission. What [...]
Post 29 – The Muddle in the Middle
A few days ago I posted about beginnings of stories, which can actually happen in the beginning, the middle or the end of the written work. Now let’s look at the middle. Often, I’ve heard that the basic reason that much writing doesn’t quite work is “the muddle in the middle.” I think this can [...]
Post 28 – Passion
Passion has always been my favorite word (well, maybe not always, I suspect when I was a kid, it was more like “fun” and when I was a teenager, it was more like “angst” but, hey, I’m an old fogy now and if I say always, take it how you like it!) I love when [...]
Post 27 – Mythic Journeys
I’ve talked a lot in recent posts, about myths that artists carry around that, unacknowledged, can thwart their creativity. I’d like to change tack a little and talk about myth itself. Myths are important to the development and cohesion of a society, and often art is where the myths are codified and perpetuated. The early [...]
Post 26 – Hope, the Enemy of Art
I hate the word “hope”. I’m going to let that sentence stand there by itself for a moment. In fact, I’ll repeat it. I hate the word “hope”. How can I hate it? The word means looking for a brighter future, it is a vision of a greater life. It is the basis of a [...]
Post 25 – Beginnings at the Beginning
It’s a new year, and as such, I thought I’d talk a little about beginnings. The western notion of story structure (no, it’s not Universal, I’ll talk about that in another post) dictates a beginning, a middle and an end. It dictates setups and payoffs. It dictates some sort of change to happen to a [...]
Post 24 – Confusion
There is a philosopher, I forget who, who has a scale of emotions with apathy and depression on the lower end. Confusion is a very high state. I’ve always thought that questions are much more powerful than answers. We are thrown (like a potter throws clay) to want the answers, but when we have the [...]
Post 23 – Writing a Short Story
I love short stories. I have read them all my life. I have had subscriptions to New Yorker, AGNI, Omni, Asimov and other magazines just so I could read the short stories. I have collections from Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post. And, of course, many, many collections of science fiction short stories. I have [...]
Post 22 – Why Art?
I know people who would rather not be challenged in their lives. They prefer a comfortable job and, as my friend and mentor Pat O’Bryan calls it, a McLife. It’s valid. It has confuses me, but, as the philosopher said, confusion is a very high state and understanding is the booby prize, so I don’t [...]
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