Metamorphosism » creativity

How do you do things?

mig — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 09:48:13 +0000

How?
How do you complete something you set out to do?
I never get anything done. Not on my own.
I mean: I have finished a couple first-draft novels on Nanowrimo in past years, but that required such an exhausting expenditure of nervous and emotional energy I nearly stopped writing afterwards.
Especially in the year when I did *two* novels for Nanowrimo.
But I lack that energy now, and I lack focus, and other things are going on, and so forth and I find myself sitting here, wondering, how do you guys do it, you guys who finish things. I am thinking of creative projects – how do you artists actually finish one painting and then start the next – how do you photographers get yourself outside taking pictures, or into the studio, or whatever – how do you musicians music? – but this would apply to non-creative projects as well – fixing one’s relationship, parenting, planning, household chores, shopping for a new suit, looking for a new job.
How do you do it?
How do you do it?
Only collaboration works for me. I am getting music done thanks to Horst. Evco got off the ground because it was a group project and because, at the end, Ute grabbed the controls from my paralyzed hands and landed safely.
But other stuff – writing, painting, photography – I sit on ideas until they calcify and inhabit my body like unborn twins.
I guess I have answered my own question, for me – I need a project manager, I need a collaborator.
How do you do it?

Why do you take my salami sandwich if you’re only going to hide it in the gutter?

mig — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 14:17:31 +0000

The weather is no longer trustworthy like it used to be back in the old days.
Now it’s different. Now it’s winter one day, summer the next day.
Odin is a-walkin’ down the sidewalk trying to figure out if both hearing aids are on.
He’s trying out hearing aids. The left one keeps cutting out, and he’s afraid he’ll walk in circles if they don’t fix it.
Actually, they’re making him new ones but it takes a while. He was at the shop yesterday and the guy squirted putty into his ears to make templates.
The putty was nice and cold, and made everything quiet.
Odin enjoyed sitting there in the silence while blue putty hardened in his ears.
Then the man removed the putty and the world re-became its old normal self.
Later, at the wine tavern, Odin and his wife and Loki were talking about sports and when swimming came up Odin described swimming a length of a pool underwater and, upon reaching the end and not being out of breath, turning around and swimming all the way back.
He realized that is why the putty felt so good in his ears, it was the same sensation.
He had even held his breath.

There on the corner the grey crow brushes him with his wing and lands atop a black car and regards.
Here you go, pal, says Odin and gives the crow half of half of his salami sandwich. The crow dissects it and hides a piece of bread with salami in the gutter, carefully covering it with leaves.

What say the slain?

No one, when they die, regrets not building more pyramids.
They regret not engaging in enough monkey business.
Ergo: monkey business is the highest human activity. And shenanigans, and hanky-panky. High-jinks, lunacy, antics, pranks and hoaxes.

What say the hanged?
One so often finds oneself in situations externally dictated that it is really nice now and then to be able to say, this is weird, i don’t know what it is, but it’s all mine. Sustain whatever crazy little shard of creative oddness pierces your heart.

The story starts when the protagonist opens a lost diplomat’s email

mig — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:15:33 +0000

Pew-pew-pew! Lasers! Pew-pew-pew!

Nanowrimo. On the one hand.

But, on the other hand.

Who knows?

I’m tempted.

I have this mental image of a rusty bus overgrown with blackberries, being jumpstarted by kids plugging half a mile of stolen extension cords into a socket at a dialysis center.

Who knows?

I googled “plot generators”.

Castles are popular.

In her new book, “How to be an explorer of the world,” Keri Smith mentions a meditation exercise used by Leonard, which involves imagining being Leonard Cohen. What exactly would he have to do?