1. February 3rd, 2012

    Inspired Again

    Inspiration is a strange thing. It can hit you quickly and surely, lifting your mind and your work to great heights in what feels like an instant. Or, more depressing, it can leave you and not come back for months.

    Inspiration left me awhile ago. The lack of writing on here is a good indication of that, as is the lack of recorded music and uploaded photos. I don’t have a good explanation as to why I haven’t felt inspired other than the usual “winter doldrums” stuff that Minnesotans throw around.

    Although I hate to admit it, a major part of it might also be how little great music I’ve heard lately. Until now, I haven’t realized how much music serves as a source of inspiration for me. As of last week, I had pretty much resigned myself to feeling, as I put it in a text to a friend, that “I’ll never care as much about music as I did back in high school.”

    That might be still be true, but, for now, I’m inspired again.

    Last night, I visited the website of the band fun, which is, if you aren’t in the know, the newer project of Nate Ruess of The Format. On the site, the video for a song “We Are Young” from their upcoming full-length plays automatically. The song has been out for months, but I’ve somehow managed to miss it.

    That’s not quite true. In fact, I’d been avoiding it. The new music I’ve heard over the past I don’t know how long has been, for the most part, incredibly disappointing. Either it’s me or the bands I’ve loved who have changed. Whichever it is, most of what I’ve heard has sucked.

    But this song is different.

    With soaring harmonies, impossibly catchy lyrics, and a pulsing beat, it’s pure pop. But it’s best kind of pop. It’s the kind of song that makes you feel like anything is possible, at least for the four or so minutes it’s playing. And for the four minutes that follow when you play it again. And for the four minutes after that when you play it a third time. And so on.

    Once again, I am excited and energized again about the idea of creating, and all it took was a stupid pop song to do it.

    Maybe pop songs aren’t so stupid after all?

  2. September 14th, 2011

    Writer’s Block

    I haven’t been writing much lately. Much less than I would like, especially since I’ve been reading some great writing, including two of my favorite of John Irving’s novels: The World According to Garp and A Widow For One Year. Reading Irving’s work is both rewarding and frustrating for me. It’s rewarding because his stuff is so good, frustrating because I doubt that I will ever be able to write such beautifully rich stories.

    Self-doubt aside, my mind is thinking in written terms. I should be using the occasion of revisiting these novels to write again.

    But I’m not. Or, more accurately, I haven’t been.

    There are two basic reasons for my lack of recent written output:

    1. To followers of my blog, it’s obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: I’ve been taking lots and lots of pictures. I like sharing them here, even though I know that there are infinitely better examples of photography out there on the internet. Posting photos online puts the same pressure to improve that uploading my recordings does. I write, record, and photograph for me, but knowing that other people will see my work acts as a kind of final nudge to refine, tweak, and refine some more.

    2. I agreed to write an article about my family’s first Mac for another site. It’s due by September 30, and, frankly, I’m kind of terrified. I have the roughest of drafts so far, but I don’t particularly like much about what I have. It’s lacking in message and cohesion, and I’m afraid that I’ll never come up with anything good. Call it a classic case of writer’s block.

    I know my current avoidance of writing is ridiculous. Writing is hard, even for seasoned veterans. The only way to end up with something you like during periods of writer’s block is to keep writing, even though the only stuff you turn out feels like utter shit.

    Still, I feel guilty every time I sit down at my computer. Smultron, my lightweight text editor of choice sits open on my Dock but minimized, mocking me for my lack of output.

    Which is where I’m at. Utter shit. Rambling, incoherent, utter shit.

    But I think it’s going to get better, and I can already tell that writing this blog post is helping, because, for the first time in weeks, I’m writing words — actual words — on my computer for public consumption. Words that link with others to form sentences. Sentences that combine with others to form paragraphs. In a word, writing.

    Of what I’ve written so far for the piece that is due in about half a month, I might have to throw out everything I have so far, but I’d be okay with that. Good writing, for me, flows from a place of confidence. When it flows, it feels effortless.

    I’m not there yet, but I feel it coming.

  3. August 12th, 2011
    "I think that I was forty before I realized that every writer of fiction or poetry that has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it."

    - Stephen King, On Writing
  4. August 10th, 2011
    William Eggleston in His Music Room, Alec Sloth, 2000 This was one of my favorite new pieces from my Sunday visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I relate to it for what I think are obvious reasons. I found it reassuring to see a “real” musician recording in the midst of his ordinary living space. Not in an isolated recording studio somewhere, nor in a set aside studio space within his home, Eggleston is captured working amidst the clutter and ordinariness of domestic life. The photo is a good reminder that creative work doesn’t require a particularly elaborate workspace or even isolation. One less thing to offer an excuse for why you aren’t writing, recording, painting, photographing, or whatever else it is you should be doing. For more on the painting, visit its entry on the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ website

    William Eggleston in His Music Room, Alec Sloth, 2000

    This was one of my favorite new pieces from my Sunday visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I relate to it for what I think are obvious reasons.

    I found it reassuring to see a “real” musician recording in the midst of his ordinary living space. Not in an isolated recording studio somewhere, nor in a set aside studio space within his home, Eggleston is captured working amidst the clutter and ordinariness of domestic life. The photo is a good reminder that creative work doesn’t require a particularly elaborate workspace or even isolation.

    One less thing to offer an excuse for why you aren’t writing, recording, painting, photographing, or whatever else it is you should be doing.

    For more on the painting, visit its entry on the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ website

  5. July 19th, 2011
    Courageous Sucking

    Merlin Mann writes a lot of great stuff about the day-to-day struggle of doing your best work. This piece is another winner.

    I stumbled upon it via Marco Arment’s blog, and the post hit me right away, as most of Merlin’s writing does. Over the past few years, I’ve started a bunch of new hobbies/interests. Hockey, web design, photography (as mentioned in Merlin’s piece), and graphic design are all things that, when I entered college, I had never really tried before but, now, are things I do all the time.

    Each time I started a new hobby, I felt same exact fear of sucking that Merlin mentions. Every time. Not the piss-your-pants kind of fear that you might feel if pursued by an angry grizzly bear with teeth bared but rather the gnawing, subtle, ever-present kind that stops you from ever taking the time to really get good at something. The former is definitely worse but the latter is far more insidious.

    Getting better at something takes a shitload of work. I think that people often assume that great artists, musicians, athletes, etc. are just naturally gifted. To an extent, it’s probably true. But what people don’t see are the hours-upon-hours that go into nurturing and developing that talent. That’s not to say that any average Joe can turn himself into an elite athlete through hard work (though Dan McLaughlin over at The Dan Plan is trying to do just that). Certainly, though, that same average Joe can, with enough time, become decent at just about anything.

    One of the difficult parts is enduring the criticism of others, especially when so much criticism is of the anonymous, internet-troll type.

    In Merlin’s words:

    Nobody likes feeling like a noob, especially when you’re getting constant pressure on all sides to never stick out in an unflattering way. And, in this godforsaken just-add-Wikipedia era of make-believe insight and instant expertise, it’s natural to start believing you must never suck at anything or admit to knowing less than everything — even when you’re just starting out. Clarinets should never squawk, sketch lines should never be visible, and dictionaries are just big, dumb books of words for cheaters and fancy people. Right?

    To steal Merlin’s words again, you have to have the courage to suck. And not just for a few weeks or even a few months. You have to have to courage to suck day after day for, potentially, years until, finally, it hits you: You’re a lot better than you used to be. And that feeling is amazing.

    Don’t let the judgement of others stop you from courageously sucking. Do what you do for you and nobody else.

    Take pictures if it makes you happy.

    Play hockey if it makes you happy.

    Paint pictures if it makes you happy.

    Write blog posts that nobody will ever read if it makes you happy.

    Yeah, at first, you will suck, but, even at your worst, you suck a lot less than the asshole who spends all his time criticizing instead of creating. I guarantee that, if you stick with it, you’ll be a lot better in a year at whatever it is you are trying to do, and that asshole will still suck.

    Do what makes you happy, regardless of what other people think.