lost my marbles
down the mountain I roll
downhill to the sea
under the waves
to the abyss
volcanic vent
sink in the magma
to the center
a giant metal marble
where I laugh
...
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 1
Tuesday, August 27
Four Ways to Edit like a Chef
Last time I used the equation:
Thought + Write + Edit =
Ingredients + Cook + Garnish
Since I’m backasswards, I want to talk about editing first. We have the most control over the last part of the creative process, which is why we fuck it up. We let our insecurities, frustrations, and expectations get involved, and then throw everything away.
You have a disassembled word cake that just came out of the oven. Now what? Here are the pitfalls to editing, and strategies on how to avoid them, all by thinking like a chef:
1) Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen. Cooking is not a democracy. There is a definite hierarchy. Someone is in charge, and anyone who gets in the way is kicked out (sometimes nicely, sometimes not).
In your brain, who’s in charge of your word kitchen? How many parts of your personality are offering “advice” and telling you how to stir your macaroni and cheese? Do you let the images of your family and friends and teachers and critics into your kitchen? Are they hovering over your stove?
If so, politely tell them to get the fuck out of your writing and go wait in the dining room. Especially your critic needs to get out of the kitchen, and wait until you are done cooking.
I know this doesn’t make any sense, and goes contrary to everything you’ve ever been told about writing, but your critic doesn’t edit. You edit. Your critic waits until you are done, then eats your words, then writes a review. They might send the dish back because it’s cold or needs salt or whatever, but never let your critic into your writing space.
Be your own word dictator.
2) Leave the Drama in Your Writing. You are not a five-star restaurant. You don’t eat on gold plates. You aren’t bedecked in diamonds. When a chef cooks a steak, they know it’s just a steak.
So why do writers act all high and mighty about what they do? Your words are just words. Do you freak out about making a sandwich? No you don’t, so don’t freak out about writing a sentence. Don’t act like writing is life and death. Put the melodrama in the story, not in the process of writing the story.
3) Presentation is Everything. Here’s an ugly truth: everyone judges books by their cover. What? No way! That’s not fair. Yup, it isn’t fair, and life is not fair.
If you wrap a sandwich in paper, people will pay less for it than if a dude in a suit brings it on fine china to their table. That’s life. Hardback books cost triple what a paperback costs.
So when you edit, think about how you present your words. It should match the intended audience. For example, I can be edgy and swear on a tumblr blog, but in a college paper or a job, I would clean up my language.
Accentuate befittingly. If you bake a chocolate cake, you might not want to decorate it with mushrooms. Make sure the language you’ve chosen highlights your core idea (or most likely ideas).
When I write haiku, I format them like haiku, and I frame them with hashtags so everyone knows it’s a haiku. In a larger philosophical sense, art is anything in a frame, and as an artist, you need to make a conscious decision about your frame.
4) Know When to Let Go of the Plate. Imagine that a cook takes forever to bring your food, then as they’re about to drop the plate on your table they stick their finger in your mashed potatoes and say, “Oops, sorry, need to add more salt. Be right back.”
You would leave that restaurant and never come back.
When you edit, your goal is to finish, then move on. As I tell my kids, “Stop farting around.” Fix your writing, and send it to the table. Chefs are never like, “Oh no, I’ll never bake a cookie like that one again!”
Here’s your zen moment: you can only grab something new if you’ve let something else go. So let your old writing go. Then you can write something new.
…
Happy writing!
Thought + Write + Edit =
Ingredients + Cook + Garnish
Since I’m backasswards, I want to talk about editing first. We have the most control over the last part of the creative process, which is why we fuck it up. We let our insecurities, frustrations, and expectations get involved, and then throw everything away.
You have a disassembled word cake that just came out of the oven. Now what? Here are the pitfalls to editing, and strategies on how to avoid them, all by thinking like a chef:
1) Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen. Cooking is not a democracy. There is a definite hierarchy. Someone is in charge, and anyone who gets in the way is kicked out (sometimes nicely, sometimes not).
In your brain, who’s in charge of your word kitchen? How many parts of your personality are offering “advice” and telling you how to stir your macaroni and cheese? Do you let the images of your family and friends and teachers and critics into your kitchen? Are they hovering over your stove?
If so, politely tell them to get the fuck out of your writing and go wait in the dining room. Especially your critic needs to get out of the kitchen, and wait until you are done cooking.
I know this doesn’t make any sense, and goes contrary to everything you’ve ever been told about writing, but your critic doesn’t edit. You edit. Your critic waits until you are done, then eats your words, then writes a review. They might send the dish back because it’s cold or needs salt or whatever, but never let your critic into your writing space.
Be your own word dictator.
2) Leave the Drama in Your Writing. You are not a five-star restaurant. You don’t eat on gold plates. You aren’t bedecked in diamonds. When a chef cooks a steak, they know it’s just a steak.
So why do writers act all high and mighty about what they do? Your words are just words. Do you freak out about making a sandwich? No you don’t, so don’t freak out about writing a sentence. Don’t act like writing is life and death. Put the melodrama in the story, not in the process of writing the story.
3) Presentation is Everything. Here’s an ugly truth: everyone judges books by their cover. What? No way! That’s not fair. Yup, it isn’t fair, and life is not fair.
If you wrap a sandwich in paper, people will pay less for it than if a dude in a suit brings it on fine china to their table. That’s life. Hardback books cost triple what a paperback costs.
So when you edit, think about how you present your words. It should match the intended audience. For example, I can be edgy and swear on a tumblr blog, but in a college paper or a job, I would clean up my language.
Accentuate befittingly. If you bake a chocolate cake, you might not want to decorate it with mushrooms. Make sure the language you’ve chosen highlights your core idea (or most likely ideas).
When I write haiku, I format them like haiku, and I frame them with hashtags so everyone knows it’s a haiku. In a larger philosophical sense, art is anything in a frame, and as an artist, you need to make a conscious decision about your frame.
4) Know When to Let Go of the Plate. Imagine that a cook takes forever to bring your food, then as they’re about to drop the plate on your table they stick their finger in your mashed potatoes and say, “Oops, sorry, need to add more salt. Be right back.”
You would leave that restaurant and never come back.
When you edit, your goal is to finish, then move on. As I tell my kids, “Stop farting around.” Fix your writing, and send it to the table. Chefs are never like, “Oh no, I’ll never bake a cookie like that one again!”
Here’s your zen moment: you can only grab something new if you’ve let something else go. So let your old writing go. Then you can write something new.
…
Happy writing!
Good Writing is Good Cooking
oftemm: I just love your
poetry. I read it and wonder, “How do you even come up with these kind
of things you write about?” I’d ask for an answer but I’d rather be kept
in curiousity. :)
Don’t you stop your writing!
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoy my work. I want to answer your question, even though you begged me not to. :)
…
Good Writing is Good Cooking
Think + Write + Edit = Ingredients + Cook + Garnish
1) Think/Ingredients. Words are concrete thoughts, so it makes sense to begin with how to think. The best writing begins with the best thoughts. No one wants a piece of cake made with month-old eggs and moldy flour.
So spend time thinking. Exercise your thinking. Stretch your brain as far in the past as it can go, then imagine being very tiny, then imagine being massive. Imagine love. Remember an enemy. Remember what someone said. Combine thoughts. Mix them around, and see what batter forms. Then when you have a thought that feels roughly like it could exist in reality, stick it in the oven.
2) Write/Cook. Writing is an oven. It’s cramped. It’s hellish. It seems like it takes forever.
It’s also something you have to do over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Anyone who does anything excellent either had luck or had work. You can’t control the former, but you can definitely influence the latter.
I’m a quantity over quality type of person. You think every day, so write down what you think every day. No good chef is like, “Sorry, I have the ingredients, but I’m not going to cook today. I’m waiting until I figure out the Next Great Recipe.” Get in the word kitchen and write. Don’t set out to write lobster and caviar words: write cookies and ice cream and salad and french fries. Write what sustains you.
3) Edit/Garnish. This is the place where a lot of people get stuck. If you only have the first two steps, then all you have is writing, the majority of which is garbage. Most of your word muffins are burnt or lumpy or gooey or dry or clearly inedible. If you pass off your writing to other people without editing it is trash. (Unless you won the word lottery, congratulations! You can retire to your own private literary island!)
"Oh no! My precious words! Everything I write is the best thing ever! That’s how I feel!" Nope. It isn’t. Other people will take one bite of your pastry, and if it tastes like shit, they will not take bite number two.
So how do you edit? Same way you prepare a cake: let it cool, decorate it, and serve it on your best porcelain. Think about what you wrote. Take time with each sentence, every word. Say it out loud. Cut off the burnt pieces, the cliches, the clunky word flow, the lapses in grammar. Frost your writing with a thesaurus.
(At some point you will be able to edit AS you write, but this takes practice or else you might end up throwing everything you write away. Writer’s block is overzealous editing, which is a topic for another post.)
I like the haiku format because it forces me to slow down and edit. Unless I’m lucky and the words taste divine, I’m probably going to have to garnish my work before its tasty.
4) An Example. I start with the thought:
"Good writing is something that is a good thought that you write down, and you do that a bunch and then you read what other people write and you figure out what is good then you edit it and then it has to echo through people like a drum."
Which is absolute drivel. So I edit out the garbage:
"Good writingis
something that is a good thought that you write down, and you do that a
bunch and then you read what other people write and you figure out what
is good then you edit it and then it has to echo through people like a drum.”
I check a thesaurus, and I find that “reverberate” is a stronger word than “echo”. It also means I can get rid of “drum”.
"Good writing reverberates through people."
I look for words better than “people”. I like the alliteration of “being”. Also, this applies not just to writing, but to art in general. A little bit of reformatting and I have:
good art /
reverberates /
in your being
#haiku #sixwords #poetry
Don’t you stop your writing!
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoy my work. I want to answer your question, even though you begged me not to. :)
…
Good Writing is Good Cooking
Think + Write + Edit = Ingredients + Cook + Garnish
1) Think/Ingredients. Words are concrete thoughts, so it makes sense to begin with how to think. The best writing begins with the best thoughts. No one wants a piece of cake made with month-old eggs and moldy flour.
So spend time thinking. Exercise your thinking. Stretch your brain as far in the past as it can go, then imagine being very tiny, then imagine being massive. Imagine love. Remember an enemy. Remember what someone said. Combine thoughts. Mix them around, and see what batter forms. Then when you have a thought that feels roughly like it could exist in reality, stick it in the oven.
2) Write/Cook. Writing is an oven. It’s cramped. It’s hellish. It seems like it takes forever.
It’s also something you have to do over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Anyone who does anything excellent either had luck or had work. You can’t control the former, but you can definitely influence the latter.
I’m a quantity over quality type of person. You think every day, so write down what you think every day. No good chef is like, “Sorry, I have the ingredients, but I’m not going to cook today. I’m waiting until I figure out the Next Great Recipe.” Get in the word kitchen and write. Don’t set out to write lobster and caviar words: write cookies and ice cream and salad and french fries. Write what sustains you.
3) Edit/Garnish. This is the place where a lot of people get stuck. If you only have the first two steps, then all you have is writing, the majority of which is garbage. Most of your word muffins are burnt or lumpy or gooey or dry or clearly inedible. If you pass off your writing to other people without editing it is trash. (Unless you won the word lottery, congratulations! You can retire to your own private literary island!)
"Oh no! My precious words! Everything I write is the best thing ever! That’s how I feel!" Nope. It isn’t. Other people will take one bite of your pastry, and if it tastes like shit, they will not take bite number two.
So how do you edit? Same way you prepare a cake: let it cool, decorate it, and serve it on your best porcelain. Think about what you wrote. Take time with each sentence, every word. Say it out loud. Cut off the burnt pieces, the cliches, the clunky word flow, the lapses in grammar. Frost your writing with a thesaurus.
(At some point you will be able to edit AS you write, but this takes practice or else you might end up throwing everything you write away. Writer’s block is overzealous editing, which is a topic for another post.)
I like the haiku format because it forces me to slow down and edit. Unless I’m lucky and the words taste divine, I’m probably going to have to garnish my work before its tasty.
4) An Example. I start with the thought:
"Good writing is something that is a good thought that you write down, and you do that a bunch and then you read what other people write and you figure out what is good then you edit it and then it has to echo through people like a drum."
Which is absolute drivel. So I edit out the garbage:
"Good writing
I check a thesaurus, and I find that “reverberate” is a stronger word than “echo”. It also means I can get rid of “drum”.
"Good writing reverberates through people."
I look for words better than “people”. I like the alliteration of “being”. Also, this applies not just to writing, but to art in general. A little bit of reformatting and I have:
good art /
reverberates /
in your being
#haiku #sixwords #poetry
Friday, May 27
We Are Made Of Dots
We are made of dots
fourteen billion years
old, 'fore then cannot
ken celestial sphere
perhaps four thousand
B.C. we sprang from
dust, who's to question
omnipotent psalm
maybe yesterday
memories intact
aggregate birthday
begat with one fact:
when we disappear
our dots persevere.
...
Written for One Stop Poetry Friday Poetically with Brian Miller.
Painting by Chuck Close.
...
Wednesday, March 9
Wednesday, January 26
Why You Should Never Read a Blog
I'm watching Lost on Netflix streaming at the moment, and I've come to the conclusion that I hate television.
I really do, but not in the way you are thinking. Rotting my brain with all the crappy people doing crappy things thrills me, so that's not the issue. What bothers me about normal t.v. shows is that they go on and on and on and on and on, for season after season after season.
Now it's not so irritating after the show is over, and I have a definite timeline for how many hours of my life a specific show is going to devour. In this case, Lost has six seasons, so I realized when I started that I needed to set aside a certain number of brain cells to kill. (Twenty seven neurons burn out every time Jack talks, just like Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn in LotR when he exclaims, "You cannot wield it! Weenie man, away!")
The same thing applies to a blog. They have indefinite endings. Whoever you are following is just going to keep blathering on about crap, and never really get to a conclusion. At least until they are dead, which is the one crucial advantage that books and movies have over television and blogs.
So I beseech you. Please, do not read blogs, at least until they have an exact stopping point. That way you are truly certain that once you start, you can see the end in sight.
I really do, but not in the way you are thinking. Rotting my brain with all the crappy people doing crappy things thrills me, so that's not the issue. What bothers me about normal t.v. shows is that they go on and on and on and on and on, for season after season after season.
Now it's not so irritating after the show is over, and I have a definite timeline for how many hours of my life a specific show is going to devour. In this case, Lost has six seasons, so I realized when I started that I needed to set aside a certain number of brain cells to kill. (Twenty seven neurons burn out every time Jack talks, just like Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn in LotR when he exclaims, "You cannot wield it! Weenie man, away!")
The same thing applies to a blog. They have indefinite endings. Whoever you are following is just going to keep blathering on about crap, and never really get to a conclusion. At least until they are dead, which is the one crucial advantage that books and movies have over television and blogs.
So I beseech you. Please, do not read blogs, at least until they have an exact stopping point. That way you are truly certain that once you start, you can see the end in sight.
Tuesday, January 25
Wednesday, January 12
What RPGs Should Learn From Movies
As you know, I'm currently playing Dragon Age: Origins, and while I'm certainly enjoying myself, I'm also bored out of my mind. I think this game would have been far more effective as a storytelling platform had it taken a thing or two from another medium.
My BA was in Creative Arts with an emphasis in film, while I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, I do think that I've been exposed to a fair amount of quality narratives in not only the movie structure, but in literature and fine arts as well. I am a holistic artist, which is why I have such an interest in video games in the first place, considering they combine all aspects of every other art form in existence already. I'm not writing this post because I despise video games and think they can never be art, but because I am passionate about them, and am absolutely convinced that video games are art.
So here are the places where I think Dragon Age fails, and hopefully future video game narratives can pick up the slack:
1) Video Games Should Reward You For Conflict. Way back since dudes in togas, we've understood as artists that conflict is compelling. In fact, I would almost be inclined to say that you can't have art without strife, but I'd rather not derail this post. Suffice it to say that the most common form of artistic expression demonstrates forces in opposition.
Yet, in Dragon Age: Origins, when I talk to my companions, I get points for agreeing with them, and I lose points for disagreeing with them. If I disagree with them a whole bunch, they get pissed off, and will leave my party. This means I am rewarded for passive behavior, and punished for instigating conflict.
Here is a perfect example where gameplay and storytelling are at odds with each other, instead of working together to keep the player involved in the world. The designers have set up a Catch-22 where if I want the most points, I'm bored, but if I seek to end my boredom, I lose points.
Future games, if they wish to be taken seriously as narratives, must switch this dynamic around to something counter-intuitive: players must be rewarded for disagreeing with companions, and punished for agreeing with them. Then not only is the player happy with their bonus points, but they are also excited by the conflict in your story.
2) Cut Out Your Exposition. Or at least, if you absolutely must have it, stick it in an obscure place that players never have to experience, and do not reward players for reading it. No one gives a crap about the country of Ferelden, or the Ash Warriors, or the history of your fantasy land. It is crap. It seriously is. Audiences want a story, and a story is conflict, not a history lesson.
If the exposition does not flow from conflict, then it should be cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. If you don't show it on screen, then it is unimportant, and is actively hurting the immersion of your players. And by "show it onscreen," I'm talking about the old but true "show, don't tell," which RPG designers seem to feel doesn't apply to them. Bull shit. Your explanations disguised as dialogue are terrible, especially when you make me read them to gain points for agreeing with your NPCs.
Don't treat me like an idiot. If you want me to know that mages can become abominations through demonic possession, then freaking show me a mage getting possessed by a demon. Don't make me listen to voice actors tell me about it. Fail.
In short, show me your world through scenes of conflict. That is the first thing beginning film scriptwriters learn, and it is a lesson every game designer needs to know.
My BA was in Creative Arts with an emphasis in film, while I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, I do think that I've been exposed to a fair amount of quality narratives in not only the movie structure, but in literature and fine arts as well. I am a holistic artist, which is why I have such an interest in video games in the first place, considering they combine all aspects of every other art form in existence already. I'm not writing this post because I despise video games and think they can never be art, but because I am passionate about them, and am absolutely convinced that video games are art.
So here are the places where I think Dragon Age fails, and hopefully future video game narratives can pick up the slack:
1) Video Games Should Reward You For Conflict. Way back since dudes in togas, we've understood as artists that conflict is compelling. In fact, I would almost be inclined to say that you can't have art without strife, but I'd rather not derail this post. Suffice it to say that the most common form of artistic expression demonstrates forces in opposition.
Yet, in Dragon Age: Origins, when I talk to my companions, I get points for agreeing with them, and I lose points for disagreeing with them. If I disagree with them a whole bunch, they get pissed off, and will leave my party. This means I am rewarded for passive behavior, and punished for instigating conflict.
Here is a perfect example where gameplay and storytelling are at odds with each other, instead of working together to keep the player involved in the world. The designers have set up a Catch-22 where if I want the most points, I'm bored, but if I seek to end my boredom, I lose points.
Future games, if they wish to be taken seriously as narratives, must switch this dynamic around to something counter-intuitive: players must be rewarded for disagreeing with companions, and punished for agreeing with them. Then not only is the player happy with their bonus points, but they are also excited by the conflict in your story.
2) Cut Out Your Exposition. Or at least, if you absolutely must have it, stick it in an obscure place that players never have to experience, and do not reward players for reading it. No one gives a crap about the country of Ferelden, or the Ash Warriors, or the history of your fantasy land. It is crap. It seriously is. Audiences want a story, and a story is conflict, not a history lesson.
If the exposition does not flow from conflict, then it should be cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. If you don't show it on screen, then it is unimportant, and is actively hurting the immersion of your players. And by "show it onscreen," I'm talking about the old but true "show, don't tell," which RPG designers seem to feel doesn't apply to them. Bull shit. Your explanations disguised as dialogue are terrible, especially when you make me read them to gain points for agreeing with your NPCs.
Don't treat me like an idiot. If you want me to know that mages can become abominations through demonic possession, then freaking show me a mage getting possessed by a demon. Don't make me listen to voice actors tell me about it. Fail.
In short, show me your world through scenes of conflict. That is the first thing beginning film scriptwriters learn, and it is a lesson every game designer needs to know.
Thursday, October 28
Well Hello!
It's been awhile since my last post (well, my second to last post). I think it's because at some point I ran out of things to say. I could have keep talking, but really, why blather on about nothing? My wife knows that I have difficulty speaking at times, and that can apply to creative endeavors as well.
They say that the only way to be good at this stuff (and by this stuff I mean the act of creation) is to keep doing it over and over again until something you make doesn't suck. (I'm paraphrasing.)
Hopefully I can find the balance between productivity and drivel, and not subject anyone (mostly myself) to thoughts and ideas that are better left unsaid.
They say that the only way to be good at this stuff (and by this stuff I mean the act of creation) is to keep doing it over and over again until something you make doesn't suck. (I'm paraphrasing.)
Hopefully I can find the balance between productivity and drivel, and not subject anyone (mostly myself) to thoughts and ideas that are better left unsaid.
Monday, May 24
Can I Come Out Now?
Since it's nearly June, and my nerves have kicked into full gear, I suppose it's time to write something. The stewpot has been simmering, and what were once ashes have rekindled into a roaring fire.
The little one is bigger, the big one is bigger, I've lost more hair. An almost two year old is hanging off her chair, with her sunglasses on and no pants, and she's saying over and over again, "Need flower, need flower, need flower," which I suppose is code for happiness in toddlerspeak.
I yell at her as she draws on the chair. She looks like she's about to cry, and as I turn my head, she draws on the chair again. I yell again, "Don't. Draw. On. The. Chair." She's got a pouting lower lip, and I'm the bad guy. I laugh at her. She points at me and says, "No!"
"You can't draw on the chair." I notice her paper is full of scribbles. "Do you need more paper?"
"Yes, please." I give her another sheet of paper, and everything is happy again. All it takes is a sheet of paper.
The little one is bigger, the big one is bigger, I've lost more hair. An almost two year old is hanging off her chair, with her sunglasses on and no pants, and she's saying over and over again, "Need flower, need flower, need flower," which I suppose is code for happiness in toddlerspeak.
I yell at her as she draws on the chair. She looks like she's about to cry, and as I turn my head, she draws on the chair again. I yell again, "Don't. Draw. On. The. Chair." She's got a pouting lower lip, and I'm the bad guy. I laugh at her. She points at me and says, "No!"
"You can't draw on the chair." I notice her paper is full of scribbles. "Do you need more paper?"
"Yes, please." I give her another sheet of paper, and everything is happy again. All it takes is a sheet of paper.
Thursday, November 19
Sad about SAD
It's been a week since my last confession...er blog post, and I don't know why I've been negligent.
Every fall my mood shifts from opportunity to gloom. I feel like I want to find a cave and fall into it for three months, until my ravenous hunger drives me to find the opening and the glorious spring beyond. It's also stressful that we are slowly moving into our new condo, which means that we are painting it red and green and purple. (Artists! Go figure.)
Also, the kids really are kids now. They aren't little babies that sleep most of the day. If I'm not keeping them entertained from morning until night, then they are parked in front of a T.V. or they will play together, and I'll be drawn into it eventually by the screams.
I realize that it sounds hypochondriacal (yes, that's a word, blogger) to say it, but I've always felt that I've had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is another way of saying that I get depressed in the winter. I'm not a doctor, so I tend to shy away from diagnosing myself of anything, however in this case it seems to fit. I always get reclusive during the winter, and my energy levels plummet. I want to sleep in, eat too much, and do nothing.
The reverse is also true. Come spring, I will bounce around the house, start projects (that I most likely won't finish), and ingest only air and water.
Now the danger here is that I use this as an excuse for not doing anything. I don't want to wake up tomorrow and say to myself, "I have SAD, so I'm not doing a damn thing," because that's a surefire way to never do anything.
Every fall my mood shifts from opportunity to gloom. I feel like I want to find a cave and fall into it for three months, until my ravenous hunger drives me to find the opening and the glorious spring beyond. It's also stressful that we are slowly moving into our new condo, which means that we are painting it red and green and purple. (Artists! Go figure.)
Also, the kids really are kids now. They aren't little babies that sleep most of the day. If I'm not keeping them entertained from morning until night, then they are parked in front of a T.V. or they will play together, and I'll be drawn into it eventually by the screams.
I realize that it sounds hypochondriacal (yes, that's a word, blogger) to say it, but I've always felt that I've had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is another way of saying that I get depressed in the winter. I'm not a doctor, so I tend to shy away from diagnosing myself of anything, however in this case it seems to fit. I always get reclusive during the winter, and my energy levels plummet. I want to sleep in, eat too much, and do nothing.
The reverse is also true. Come spring, I will bounce around the house, start projects (that I most likely won't finish), and ingest only air and water.
Now the danger here is that I use this as an excuse for not doing anything. I don't want to wake up tomorrow and say to myself, "I have SAD, so I'm not doing a damn thing," because that's a surefire way to never do anything.
Thursday, November 12
Puzzle Pieces
On a similar note to last post, I've always had a difficult time marrying my opposing interests in gaming and art.
(And by gaming I don't mean gambling. I'm not talking slot machines here.)
I enjoy all forms of games, including but not limited to, tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons and Storyteller, video games of all sorts, ranging back all the way to the 8 bit systems of my youth such as the NES, all the way to the games of today like Team Fortress 2 and Torchlight. I made a roleplaying game, I've tweaked even more rules than I can list, and I've made a couple card games.
I also have a Creative Arts degree, which means I've acted, made movies, written reams of bad fiction and poetry, studied music and art, what have you.
These two fields, though they have many things in common, like perspective and narrative, flow and feel, are almost impossible for me to combine in my everyday life. I'm not an artist in the sense that I don't paint, I don't draw (at least, very well), and I don't play an instrument. Likewise, I don't program computers. I'm in the middle ground of mediocrity, where I can see the specialists at both ends of the spectrum, and I'm floundering while trying to glue together disparate parts of a huge puzzle.
What do I do with my writing ability? How do I apply that to games? Or art? Or games and art? There has never been a clear path for what I want to do, and so many times I end up back where I began: with nothing.
I've been looking into things like game design, and I realize that these things are difficult. People don't do this because they are easy. I have a lot of hard work ahead of me, if anything in my head is going to come to fruition, and that is a sobering thought. It makes me want to give up, which is the worst possible place to be.
Of course, even my son knows that Elmo says you should always keep trying. Elmo is a pretty smart...er...guy?
(And by gaming I don't mean gambling. I'm not talking slot machines here.)
I enjoy all forms of games, including but not limited to, tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons and Storyteller, video games of all sorts, ranging back all the way to the 8 bit systems of my youth such as the NES, all the way to the games of today like Team Fortress 2 and Torchlight. I made a roleplaying game, I've tweaked even more rules than I can list, and I've made a couple card games.
I also have a Creative Arts degree, which means I've acted, made movies, written reams of bad fiction and poetry, studied music and art, what have you.
These two fields, though they have many things in common, like perspective and narrative, flow and feel, are almost impossible for me to combine in my everyday life. I'm not an artist in the sense that I don't paint, I don't draw (at least, very well), and I don't play an instrument. Likewise, I don't program computers. I'm in the middle ground of mediocrity, where I can see the specialists at both ends of the spectrum, and I'm floundering while trying to glue together disparate parts of a huge puzzle.
What do I do with my writing ability? How do I apply that to games? Or art? Or games and art? There has never been a clear path for what I want to do, and so many times I end up back where I began: with nothing.
I've been looking into things like game design, and I realize that these things are difficult. People don't do this because they are easy. I have a lot of hard work ahead of me, if anything in my head is going to come to fruition, and that is a sobering thought. It makes me want to give up, which is the worst possible place to be.
Of course, even my son knows that Elmo says you should always keep trying. Elmo is a pretty smart...er...guy?
Friday, October 16
Yay! I Winzor!
I won a random geeky contest on Crispy Gamer, and I'm totally stoked. I'm glad that someone out there with at least a little bit of clout thinks that I can write a decent sentence.
(And yes, my winning entry was "Dude. My thumb has a crapload of pixels." Which took longer to write than you would think: I fully endorse the scriptwriter's credo that Less Is More, so I switched ideas multiple times, cut out extraneous words, and rearranged the structure of the sentence to put the punchline at the end. That one sentence took ten minutes to create.)
Then I read something along the lines of this, and I'm again humbled by someone who can put big words together and make sense. Perhaps it's because he's British.
It's my hope that in continuing this charade of a blog, that some skill with language develops over time, and that at the end of the process I'm a better writer than I would have been had I done nothing.
(And yes, my winning entry was "Dude. My thumb has a crapload of pixels." Which took longer to write than you would think: I fully endorse the scriptwriter's credo that Less Is More, so I switched ideas multiple times, cut out extraneous words, and rearranged the structure of the sentence to put the punchline at the end. That one sentence took ten minutes to create.)
Then I read something along the lines of this, and I'm again humbled by someone who can put big words together and make sense. Perhaps it's because he's British.
It's my hope that in continuing this charade of a blog, that some skill with language develops over time, and that at the end of the process I'm a better writer than I would have been had I done nothing.
Thursday, October 8
Genre Combinations
First of all, watch this:
Now, I realize the above clip is meant to be humorous, and it is, though I also got a separate and equally valid lesson in it, which is that certain genres do not do well when combined together. I can only name a few instances where combining aspects of fantasy, science fiction, cowboys, horror, you name it, has turned out well.
Whenever a Star Trek episode veers into a holodeck, the story rapidly declines into Suckville. Cowboy vampires, robots with swords, dragons in the present, these all sound neat in theory, but when put onto a screen or in a novel, you end up with campy crap.
I don't know why that is. Maybe the dissonance between discordant images shatters any suspension of disbelief the audience has built up over the years. Perhaps we can take bloodsucking fiends in one movie, and guys with lasers in another, but when you combine the two into vampire cyborgs, we step back and think, "Hey, that's lame," which is shorthand for when we deny the piece any plausibility.
So it works in the video above, but if anyone is thinking it would be great to make a science fiction musical theatre review with knights and dragons, please reconsider. The world will be a better place if you don't.
Now, I realize the above clip is meant to be humorous, and it is, though I also got a separate and equally valid lesson in it, which is that certain genres do not do well when combined together. I can only name a few instances where combining aspects of fantasy, science fiction, cowboys, horror, you name it, has turned out well.
Whenever a Star Trek episode veers into a holodeck, the story rapidly declines into Suckville. Cowboy vampires, robots with swords, dragons in the present, these all sound neat in theory, but when put onto a screen or in a novel, you end up with campy crap.
I don't know why that is. Maybe the dissonance between discordant images shatters any suspension of disbelief the audience has built up over the years. Perhaps we can take bloodsucking fiends in one movie, and guys with lasers in another, but when you combine the two into vampire cyborgs, we step back and think, "Hey, that's lame," which is shorthand for when we deny the piece any plausibility.
So it works in the video above, but if anyone is thinking it would be great to make a science fiction musical theatre review with knights and dragons, please reconsider. The world will be a better place if you don't.
Monday, October 5
A Self-Referential Post About Posts
Since I've been brooding over writing, I've been curious as to the nature of a blog. Will I ever run out of worthwhile things to say? Can I maintain the discipline required to compose something nearly every day? (There have been many days thus far where I exclaim, "Screw it! I've got nothing important in my brain," and then I come back the day after with some kernel of an idea and bang out a half decent paragraph or two.)
Certainly, eventually I'll decide that this isn't worth it. Either I'll die, or become an alcoholic, or colonize Mars, or invent some other half-baked excuse and this blog will fade from existence. Whether it happens in one or a hundred years, I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it.
I had started this exercise with the premise that there were an infinite different ideas to explore to begin with, so how could I ever run out of things to say? Besides, it forces me to write, even when I don't want to, the hungry maw of the internet remains ravenous regardless of my pitiful justifications. This rectangle simply must be fed with large quantities of words at regular intervals, until my fingers cramp up from arthritis, and I break my back shoveling phrases out of my skull.
However, I doubt that axiom at irregular intervals, especially when I am frantically searching my thoughts for something meaningful to share: there may be an infinite number of ideas in the universe, however, the number of good ideas is certainly fewer than that (though possibly still infinite) and the number of interpretations I can make is less than that, and most definitely finite.
Though all I am doing is linking writing with an unforeseeable end, and in theory, blogs have no end. This might carry on for all of eternity, until everything itself ceases, and the cosmos contracts to nothing, and we figure out once and for all if there really is an Oblivion, and whether it's as nice as we all had hoped, or it might end next week if I get hit by a bus.
That optimistic daydream is what compels me to write, that this might continue on after I kick the bucket, at least for a little while. Perhaps it's naive. Perhaps it's starry eyed to presuppose that other people give a damn about what I think about a myriad of topics. Though what is the alternative? To remain silent and twisted, as these images and visions conquer my mind? Such a fate seems worse than simply letting the horde gain entry into this world, one blog post at a time.
Certainly, eventually I'll decide that this isn't worth it. Either I'll die, or become an alcoholic, or colonize Mars, or invent some other half-baked excuse and this blog will fade from existence. Whether it happens in one or a hundred years, I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it.
I had started this exercise with the premise that there were an infinite different ideas to explore to begin with, so how could I ever run out of things to say? Besides, it forces me to write, even when I don't want to, the hungry maw of the internet remains ravenous regardless of my pitiful justifications. This rectangle simply must be fed with large quantities of words at regular intervals, until my fingers cramp up from arthritis, and I break my back shoveling phrases out of my skull.
However, I doubt that axiom at irregular intervals, especially when I am frantically searching my thoughts for something meaningful to share: there may be an infinite number of ideas in the universe, however, the number of good ideas is certainly fewer than that (though possibly still infinite) and the number of interpretations I can make is less than that, and most definitely finite.
Though all I am doing is linking writing with an unforeseeable end, and in theory, blogs have no end. This might carry on for all of eternity, until everything itself ceases, and the cosmos contracts to nothing, and we figure out once and for all if there really is an Oblivion, and whether it's as nice as we all had hoped, or it might end next week if I get hit by a bus.
That optimistic daydream is what compels me to write, that this might continue on after I kick the bucket, at least for a little while. Perhaps it's naive. Perhaps it's starry eyed to presuppose that other people give a damn about what I think about a myriad of topics. Though what is the alternative? To remain silent and twisted, as these images and visions conquer my mind? Such a fate seems worse than simply letting the horde gain entry into this world, one blog post at a time.
Saturday, October 3
Fiction Writer's Block
Recently, I've been thinking about writing fiction, and I admit, I tend to be less than super coming up with narratives about imaginary people and places. (Which is not to say that I haven't in the past, I just haven't pursued it with any determination recently.)
I mean, sure, I can take the advice of every creative writing teacher I've ever had and write about what I know, however, at some point when writing something untrue you have to eventually come up with something fake. It has to be something fabricated enough to count as fiction without feeling artificial. The characters have to move and act and think and most of all talk in realistic ways without being real.
Unfortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it) I tend to enjoy synthesizing aspects of ideas, and I am less than stellar understanding the motivations and desires of real people, let alone imitations that I've created. I'm getting better with time, and since the only way to continue improving is by doing it over and over again until I come up with something that isn't utter drivel, I had better get cracking and write something, even if the characters are wooden mouthpieces for my own philosophies.
It's better to have written poorly and sucked, than to have never written at all.
I mean, sure, I can take the advice of every creative writing teacher I've ever had and write about what I know, however, at some point when writing something untrue you have to eventually come up with something fake. It has to be something fabricated enough to count as fiction without feeling artificial. The characters have to move and act and think and most of all talk in realistic ways without being real.
Unfortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it) I tend to enjoy synthesizing aspects of ideas, and I am less than stellar understanding the motivations and desires of real people, let alone imitations that I've created. I'm getting better with time, and since the only way to continue improving is by doing it over and over again until I come up with something that isn't utter drivel, I had better get cracking and write something, even if the characters are wooden mouthpieces for my own philosophies.
It's better to have written poorly and sucked, than to have never written at all.
Wednesday, September 30
Virtual Environmentalism
Internet spaces like this are going to be more refined and organized in the future, especially when the next generation of people grow older and take up the mantle of leadership, particularly within the academic sphere. Virtual worlds, and by that I mean MMOs in specific and everything techy in general will be cataloged, debated and critiqued, and most of all, kept for future generations to peruse at their leisure.
I'm not saying that every game made will be available for anyone to play, instead, I envision a time when certain games are given the "Classics" brand and resold to consumers at the 2100 version of Barnes and Nobles. There might very well be a Shakespeare of our generation lurking within a PC or console title, and a hundred or even a thousand years from now, college professors might be dissecting the narrative of World of Warcraft.
I imagine societies and organizations dedicated to the preservation of video games of all types, and a type of virtual tourism, where we can visit the Yosemites and Yellowstones of these worlds (Storm Peaks and Grizzly Hills), and my kids and their kids will marvel at 8 bit graphics and sidescrolling sprites. With the emergence of this digital holistic medium, there will be those guardians that will harbor the articles of the past for our progeny. They will be the ones sitting in the virtual trees saying, "I defend this code with my life," as the authorities rev up their computational chain saws.
I'm not saying that every game made will be available for anyone to play, instead, I envision a time when certain games are given the "Classics" brand and resold to consumers at the 2100 version of Barnes and Nobles. There might very well be a Shakespeare of our generation lurking within a PC or console title, and a hundred or even a thousand years from now, college professors might be dissecting the narrative of World of Warcraft.
I imagine societies and organizations dedicated to the preservation of video games of all types, and a type of virtual tourism, where we can visit the Yosemites and Yellowstones of these worlds (Storm Peaks and Grizzly Hills), and my kids and their kids will marvel at 8 bit graphics and sidescrolling sprites. With the emergence of this digital holistic medium, there will be those guardians that will harbor the articles of the past for our progeny. They will be the ones sitting in the virtual trees saying, "I defend this code with my life," as the authorities rev up their computational chain saws.
Tuesday, September 22
Multiple Me
I've had two friends from high school that are also INTPs join the Navy and prosper as officers. Now I may seem like a green hippie iconoclast, but in many ways I'm moderate, and it's only the internet that transforms me into something radical. I revel in my contradictions, and one of them is that I absolutely love games of all sorts, from board games to video games to card games to sports. Anything with rules, where people can compete, and where resources must be positioned for maximum effectiveness intrigues me.
Where this skill is useful is in any arena where I need to strategize about what the best possible course of action is to win any sort of engagement, be it science, war, business, or anywhere where it is necessary to not look at individual encounters, but the bigger picture. I tend to look in the long run at situations, theorize many different solutions, then plan accordingly.
I tend to spend my free time playing games where I can use this skill, like in games such as World of Warcraft (until recently), or Team Fortress 2 (where I can play whatever my team needs to win.)
What this means is that I could have flourished in the military. I can see that. I'm not going to use this space to disapprove of those that did. I'm not anti-military, any more than I'm anti-American. I love this country, and I respect the fact that someone else is putting their butt on the line every day for my benefit. I have the right to question where and when and how the military is being used, but it would be foolhardy of me to suggest that this country or any country does away with their armed forces entirely.
I think the one reason why I didn't enlist was the same reason why I didn't stay a Chemistry major when I first failed out of college: I just didn't like who I was surrounded by whenever I entered a math or science class. The lab professor for one particular class was a stodgy old guy who would stare, scrutinizing every time I wasn't absolutely perfect with a beaker and a Bunsen burner. I felt like every student in every class was a robot, and I was absolutely bored out of my wits.
The break came when I started taking radio classes, then creative writing, then art. That was it for me. Cute girls plus no right answer plus randomness appreciated? Sign me up for that!
I went back to community college, did theatre and a little photography and television and choir (which is where I met my wife). Did random jobs like pizza delivery driver and video game testing, I measured drainage ditches in Carmel by the Sea, and at some point my wife made me go back to school and eventually get my Creative Arts degree. I now do random art and take care of two kids.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like had I zigged instead of zagged. Maybe in a parallel universe there is another me on a submarine, wondering what it would have been like had he taken those art classes.
Where this skill is useful is in any arena where I need to strategize about what the best possible course of action is to win any sort of engagement, be it science, war, business, or anywhere where it is necessary to not look at individual encounters, but the bigger picture. I tend to look in the long run at situations, theorize many different solutions, then plan accordingly.
I tend to spend my free time playing games where I can use this skill, like in games such as World of Warcraft (until recently), or Team Fortress 2 (where I can play whatever my team needs to win.)
What this means is that I could have flourished in the military. I can see that. I'm not going to use this space to disapprove of those that did. I'm not anti-military, any more than I'm anti-American. I love this country, and I respect the fact that someone else is putting their butt on the line every day for my benefit. I have the right to question where and when and how the military is being used, but it would be foolhardy of me to suggest that this country or any country does away with their armed forces entirely.
I think the one reason why I didn't enlist was the same reason why I didn't stay a Chemistry major when I first failed out of college: I just didn't like who I was surrounded by whenever I entered a math or science class. The lab professor for one particular class was a stodgy old guy who would stare, scrutinizing every time I wasn't absolutely perfect with a beaker and a Bunsen burner. I felt like every student in every class was a robot, and I was absolutely bored out of my wits.
The break came when I started taking radio classes, then creative writing, then art. That was it for me. Cute girls plus no right answer plus randomness appreciated? Sign me up for that!
I went back to community college, did theatre and a little photography and television and choir (which is where I met my wife). Did random jobs like pizza delivery driver and video game testing, I measured drainage ditches in Carmel by the Sea, and at some point my wife made me go back to school and eventually get my Creative Arts degree. I now do random art and take care of two kids.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like had I zigged instead of zagged. Maybe in a parallel universe there is another me on a submarine, wondering what it would have been like had he taken those art classes.
Monday, September 21
Thursday, September 17
Diamonds in the Sky
I often wonder what my kids are thinking, like what is going through my toddler's brain when she is ripping up her toast on the carpet, or when my eldest is standing on the couch with no pants, eating a carrot the size of his arm, and listening to the garbage truck.
Fantasies where I am young again manifest themselves, and I'm curious as to this strange species called "children" because on the one hand, they bore me to tears, and on the other, I can be utterly enthralled with them.
Though whenever I try to repossess what has been lost, my adult nature kicks in, and I can't quite put my finger on where these beings are coming from.
They might as well be from another planet.
Fantasies where I am young again manifest themselves, and I'm curious as to this strange species called "children" because on the one hand, they bore me to tears, and on the other, I can be utterly enthralled with them.
Though whenever I try to repossess what has been lost, my adult nature kicks in, and I can't quite put my finger on where these beings are coming from.
They might as well be from another planet.
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