Posted: June 2nd, 2010 | Author:dave | Filed under:inspiration | Comments Off
Tom Waits reads Charles Bukowski’s “The Laughing Heart”:
The Laughing Heart
your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.
Posted: June 1st, 2010 | Author:dave | Filed under:create more | Comments Off
This is the agenda for the seven week ‘Create More’ program.
It is likely — desired even — that we will veer from this, depending on the needs and interests of the group. In the event that there’s more material than time, an extra session may be added to the end, if the group agrees.
Note that there is homework even before we begin! … Please come to the first session prepared to talk about the items listed under ‘pre-homework,’ below.
Pre-homework:
Be prepared to introduce yourself: your name, and what you’re creating
Talk about at least 2 influences. What started you?
Talk about at least 2 goals. Dream big.
Talk about at least 2 struggles. What stops you?
Week 1: Artists and the Wish to Create
Introductions
The pieces of an artist’s life
The desire to create
The two big steps to creating
The requirement of being wild and how to do it healthfully
Good food vs. junk food for the hungry mind
Homework: the random call to work
Week 2: Choosing Work
Discussion of the last week
Arriving at ideas
Choosing difficult ideas. “Deep creativity means dangerous creativity.”
Choosing easy ideas
What will you choose to do next?
Seeing your next idea
Is it the right idea?
Choosing among ideas
Homework: your autobiography
Week 3: Starting Your Work
Discussion of the last week
Sharing the homework
Starting and anxiety
‘Yes’ and active aloneness
Belligerent commitment and the healthy ignition system
Being the person who is an artist
The critical moment: killing to get to ‘yes’
The most important two minutes of your life: the walk to the work
The maze of choices
Starting every day
Homework: your operating instructions
Week 4: Working
Discussion of the last week
Logging your journey
Working in the moment
Making mistakes
Choosing in the trance of work
Impossible work
The dangerous territory of real work, and trying to feel safe
Using the day
Distractions
Depression
Hating your work, growing cold to it, and breaks
What working means
Homework: make something awful, destroy it, and mourn the loss
Week 5: Completing Your Work
Discussion of the last week
Many small completions
Showing yourself the work
Are you finished?
Being your first critic: appropriate and inappropriate judging
Revising
Are you ready to be finished?
The anxiety of past work
Homework: pick a piece of your own work, and describe how you will judge if that work is complete
Week 6: Showing the work
Discussion of the last week
Showing your work, and the problems with impulsive showing
Planning to show
Showing, exchanging, and selling
Selling the work
Making a living
Creating things that sell
Homework: pick a piece of your work, and write your sales script
Children, I am an author who used to type a book manuscript on a manual typewriter. Yes, I did. And mailed it to a New York publisher in a big manila envelope with actual postage stamps on it. And kept a carbon copy for myself. I waited for a month or so and then got an acceptance letter in the mail. It was typed on paper. They offered to pay me a large sum of money. I read it over and over and ran up and down the rows of corn whooping. It was beautiful, the Old Era. I’m sorry you missed it.
Maybe that’s how it worked for you, Garrison. If so, count your blessings, because you’re lucky beyond all belief. Most writers don’t make enough solely from their writing to survive, much less thrive. That era of martyrdom isn’t disappearing (though I wish it would–the stereotype damages a writer’s ability to make a decent living), and self-publishing won’t kill it because it’s not rejection that creates the stereotype of the starving artist–it’s the economics.
The thing that seems to pass Garrison, and Brian … didn’t exactly miss, but didn’t hammer home was this:
It’s never been easier for an artist to get her voice out there. As a result, there’s an explosion of creativity happening RIGHT NOW, and it’s ultimately great for writers and readers.
It is hard for a new artist to find an audience. This is not new. But, just like every other industry that’s had its gates opened by modern technology — desktop publishers, font designers, television programmers, film editors, and electricians, just to name a few — the addition of new talent into the field is a win for every one of us. More people get interested in the field, more people start doing work, more good work gets done.
Further, the more work that’s out there, the more opportunities seem to appear. People begin to value the art, and want somebody good to do it. Just take a look at font design, for instance … or how much better visual storytelling got after cable, or MTV, or computerized video editing. New techniques and languages and histories are formed, audiences get smart to them, and the art continues to improve.
9. There is nothing keeping you from doing the sort of work that you wish.
What do you want? It’s a hard, yet crucial question. We all do creative work to get happy. It’s why we let it beat us up, and it’s why we keep crawling back to it. Figure out precisely what you want, and realize that if no one will pay you to make it, you can still make it for yourself. And you still win, because you’re happy.
Garrison Keillor recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times on the 
Frank Chimero over at AisleOne wrote this list of “