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Taking Risks: A Love Letter to Amanda Fucking Palmer

Recently a friend of mine has gone back to school, the daughter of another is happily enrolled in new classes and yet another friend is very seriously pursuing attending college for the upcoming winter semester. All this questing for new knowledge has left me feeling like I’m missing out, nostalgic for the classroom, which is funny because the first time through, I couldn’t wait to be done, outta there and living real life. Well that longing has landed me right in the middle of a trite — but nevertheless important – realization: I AM in school. Right now. The school of life. And I feel like I’ve been flunking this past year.

You see, I’ve been so wrapped up in being stuck on what I’m NOT accomplishing that I’ve been missing all the great stuff I HAVE been accomplishing.

Neil Gaiman

I’ve always been a HUGE fan of Neil Gaiman. Reading his blog has been a comforting ritual I’ve done for a few years now — if I can’t BE accomplishing, then I’m at least going to live vicariously through someone I admire, doing what I wish I was doing. I love his imagination, his outlook on life, his calm, intelligent sense of self and the world around him and his lamppost. I was however a little taken aback when he married Amanda Palmer. It seemed like such a bizarre match for him, even taking into account that opposites attract. I found myself wondering what he was doing marrying a woman 16 years his junior. I found myself wondering if my fave author was going through the classic mid-life crisis. I found myself wondering why it mattered to me. I mean, I’ve always like older guys — you think I’d see this as ridiculous to be preoccupied over. You see, I’ve been stuck in my head a lot and this is just a fraction of the Camptown Races swirling around in my very noisy mind every day.

Lately I’ve been doing EVERYTHING I can to keep myself distracted from making my art. It terrifies me.

In being distracted though, I’ve been learning new things. One of those things has been getting to know the public side of Neil Gaiman’s wife, Amanda Palmer. It began over a year ago reading about her in his various blog posts and eventually I was drawn to reading her own blog. The woman is wild. She is honest — sometimes brutally so. Yet she is kind. Beautiful. Courageous. And she wears her heart on her sleeve. All these things endear me to her and cause me to have such a profound respect for her. And in bravely creating her art in a way few have had the vagina to — and I say this lovingly, referring to what Betty White said about growing a vagina instead of balls because balls are delicate and a vagina can really take a pounding — Amanda is making it work. Really making it work!

And because she is putting herself out there and because she is making it work, she has been attacked over so many things, from the success of her kickstarter campaign, to the request of local musicians to play her concerts for free. More importantly though, she is attracting all these new fans who suddenly adore what she is doing, the risks she is taking and the beautiful art that she is making. New fans like me.

And I find myself wanting to be that brave, wanting to take those big risks, the ones that make you question your sanity every step along the way and the very questions you cannot take the time to answer, because to do so would stop you dead in your tracks. For the rest of your life. You just have to keep flying toward the sun ignoring that your wings are disintegrating because the flight itself is just so fucking beautiful.

I feel like I understand so much now. And yet so very little. I do feel like I have a glimpse into why my favourite author is entranced by this powerful woman. My hungry imagination feels fed, it can’t get enough. My fears are still booming around me, more terrifying than ever before, but I feel compelled to act on them rather than hide from them. I have discovered this quiet little place in my mind where the fear thunders around me, but I am at peace.

So what in the world does this have to do with storytelling?! EVERYTHING!!

Take risks and write. Every day. Take risks and show your writing to other people. Take risks in your writing, with your plot, with your characters — make your characters take risks! Just put yourself out there and make good art.

I <3 you Amanda Fucking Palmer.

Posted by  |  September 28, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Filling up the Bucket

So I just read one of Ben Nesvig’s most recent posts and I’m feeling a little down. It brings up a really critical point though: “Your mental capacity is not in a fixed state. Creativity is a muscle. Just like any other type of muscle, in order for it to grow stronger, you need to push yourself on a consistent basis. Spurts of 2 weeks of steady writing and one month off are too inconsistent. Whatever isn’t getting better is getting worse.”

Following the ‘creativity’ link, what James Altucher had to say further on the subject, was even a little more depressing: “You need to exercise the idea muscle. It takes about 3-6 months to build up once it atrophies. Trust me on this.”

I trust both of you, Ben and James. In fact I think you are the bluntly honest talk I’ve been needing from a close creative friend. It’s been two years since I’ve been to the gym anywhere close to my regular routine of 3-4 days per week and reading these two posts has reminded me that it’s been 10 months since I’ve done any serious work on my novel. Hence the sadness. My physical and creative selves have atrophied. I really feel like I’ve let myself down.

Two questions immediately come up: Why have I let myself down? How do I get back on track?

Now, I am proud of the struggle I’ve been waging over the last few years to answer the first question of why I seem to be standing in my own way, but I really feel this frustrated sense of the closer I get to unpacking all this baggage, the more there is to sort through. You ever decide to do a monumental spring cleaning and lose your verve halfway through? You say you’ll get back to it, but if you stop now all you’ve succeeded in doing is creating a bigger mess. Well I’m soldiering on regardless of the bigger mess, but I truly feel I need a new tactic, new motivation, new determination. I think it’s time I focus all my energy on answering the second question.

So? How do I get back on track? Setting goals for myself is challenging. I have a hard time plotting out the little steps that keep me from getting frustrated that I cannot realize the big goal immediately. I also know that if I don’t get little rewards along the way I lose motivation. See, all that mess of unpacking has done me some good, I know my personal Achilles heel. The challenge remains how to surmount it.

So what does all this have to do with storytelling?

Quite a bit really. It’s about how to keep exercising your creativity, even when you feel the bucket is empty. One drop might not feel significant, but it’s a start and maybe adding just one more drop is the only next step you have to worry concentrate on. Once you get back in the flow, it’s easy to get caught back up in your creativity without even realizing it.

Posted by  |  August 7, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Lost in Limbo

So. It’s been a while. Four-and-a-half months to be exact that I’ve been lost in Limbo and you along with me. I can’t say I’m surprised — I’m easily distracted and have often felt overwhelmed these last few months. It’s also par for the course for my personal creative projects to suffer derailment just as they start really chugging along. I’ve learned this is due to faltering self-confidence and fear, the two really going hand-in-hand. And while I’m disappointed by this derailment, I’m learning to not be hard on myself, instead taking it in stride and using the downtime to recharge, rather than beat myself up. Easier said than done, but I’m becoming better at accomplishing that with practice.

I’m a collector, especially of creative ideas, stories and images. Stumbling across a new radio station and a photographer whose images blew my mind, I’ve found my imagination quite sparked. Now to let it percolate for a bit and see where it takes me. So far, nudging me to resurrecting my blog has been a great start.

Stay tuned to see where this ever wandering path will continue to take me. I promise not to keep you waiting longer than a week again.

Posted by  |  July 17, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Sucker Punch!

Over the weekend I stumbled across this AWESEOME clip and the first watch, I was just completely blown away by this kid’s talent. Cirque du Soleil should really snap him up. On second watch I couldn’t get the song he performed to out of my head, so I quickly Googled it. Both the original video and the cello performance inspired by it were like a sucker punch to my creativity and as the wind WHOOSHED out of my inner editor, my creativity lunged at the page hungry for expression after being kept on a leash for well over 3 weeks.

It feel good. I wrote for three hours, not once editing what fired out of my fingers. But as I take a break, I’m left wondering why my editor can’t play nice and allow my creativity the room to play before tromping in and fixing it all, strangling the words so it can correct as I go. I don’t enjoy smashing him to pieces like the broken glass in the foreground of the first video, because he’s really good at what he does…just not when he’s doing it at the same time my creativity is trying so hard to manifest.

I know one thing though, because this is usually the way it goes, I will not hesitate to sock the wind from his sails again the next time I need the room to create.

Posted by  |  March 3, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Pitfalls

Again, another two three weeks has zipped by between posts, even after I set myself up to continue the ideas set forth in my last post. One thing I’ve been trying very hard to do, is to start my week off with a BANG! By getting as much work done as I can in the beginning, I hoped I might have a bit more free time at the end of the week to focus on my own projects, like this blog and my own writing and heck, maybe even get back into taking the yoga classes I used to be so fond of.

A funny thing has happened along the way to accomplishing that. Well maybe not funny…I always try to find the humour in life’s pitfalls, but I have to admit that I’m drawing on the dregs of my normally optimistic view of life lately. The cracks in my rose-tinted glasses have been showing for a while and it’s been a challenge to navigate the fractured path I’ve been running down. I’ve never run a marathon physically, but I think I can certainly qualify for running one emotionally and mentally and as any athlete well knows, to stumble is to come face-to-face with your limits, but with proper training that is the threshold you face down with determination and push through to the other side towards victory. To fall though, is to invite disaster. Whether it be the minor pain of scraped knees or a more serious injury that is potentially career ending.

Because I’m fascinated by the saying: “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”  Why are some of us able to endure an endless obstacle course of pitfalls, where others stumble and falter? Where do some us find the courage and resilience to get back up and keep going where others give up, or break under the pressure. I find this question of inner strength especially intriguing when it comes to the characters in the stories we tell. Let’s face it, most authors LOVE throwing an endless barrage of life-altering challenges at our characters — conflict makes for a compelling story. I readily admit that I have a hard time caring for a protagonist if I don’t get to see him vulnerable, break down and cry, or bleed a little.

However, if I were to look at my current spot where I’ve stumbled and fallen, I’d be saying to the author of my struggle: “Enough! I’ve had enough and I need a break, something positive, some sort of win to buoy me right now.”

I’ve been saying this for a while now. But here’s the thing: I am the author of my own story, right? So it’s up to me to create my own break in the tension, to give myself the much needed respite to reassemble my resources, rest and recharge before sallying forth for yet another battle. And is it not also me that decides whether this is a war to be fought or an adventure to be enjoyed? You bet!

What hero hasn’t gotten to the end of a long arduous quest, only to realize that it was all an elaborate way for them to see they had what it takes to win the day all along, only they were unable to see that strength until after experiencing the whole ordeal of self-discovery.

I guess that’s what makes for an inspiring climax, a triumphant end to a story that keeps us coming back and wanting more.

Posted by  |  February 15, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Endurance

I was originally going to call this post Stamina. Once again I have been plugging away at trying to meet all my deadlines, keep all my goals in sight and face down any setbacks with renewed energy and determination, rather than give in to the frustrating defeat that seems to stalk me.

Each time I prepare a new post I start with the title. Once I have an idea of what I’d like to talk about I Google images that come to mind around my proposed theme. When I typed in my usual synonyms this came up for Endurance. It’s a fascinating and inspiring story of an aptly named ship and her courageous, unwaveringly optimistic captain. (Please ignore Dockers’ clap-trap marketing spin on the whole “The Art of Manliness” because the story is well told regardless).

Leadership aside for the moment (we’ll delve into that in another post), how do you face down an endless stream of defeating challenges and still find the resilience to not only continue on, but buoy your spirits enough to pick yourself back up and push forward with renewed hope and optimism? It’s a talent for sure. Remember my fave quote from an earlier post: “Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.” Thing is, falling on your face hurts. A lot. And ever since we were kids, we’ve learned not to do things that hurt.

So training ourselves to take these risks and do it again after we fail anyways, ends up feeling a little masochistic. When I was a kid, one of the activities my Mom signed my sister and I up for was figure skating. I loved the spins and fancy turns, the choreography and the year-end pageants (I know, big surprise there — LOL!). But when it came time to do any jumping I was terrified. I had a very clear image in my mind of falling on my head and it cracking open like an egg. Even after this very thing happened to my cousin and all she suffered was a mild concussion with the requisite dizziness, vomiting and over night hospital stay — proving that our heads are a might stronger than fragile eggs — I still couldn’t summon the bravery to risk it. So ended that possible career choice. Just as well, I guess.

Yet, strangely enough, I seem to conjure up the courage to toss myself on my head again and again and again, when it comes to taking chances with my creativity. Why is that?

Perhaps the secret here is finding the tipping balance where passion outweighs any lingering fear (or common sense). I believe we enjoy being challenged. Sure the failures are hard to take, but my god, the pay-off when you are successful is a pretty damn sweet feeling. This reward is what keeps us going, drives us forward toward our goals.

It’s what motivates our characters too. Come back Friday, and I’ll take this train of thought to the next station and examine how testing the endurance of our characters makes for some great storytelling.

Posted by  |  January 24, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

SPLAT!

So my first two weeks of 2012 have been less than stellar, but as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Still, it’s hard to have all these ambitious goals, only to feel like a safe has been dropped on your head immediately after heading out on your merry little way to accomplish them. Am I aiming too high with my expectations?  Perhaps. But I need to feel excited about what I’m setting out to do, it keeps me motivated. My challenge I’ve discovered, is not my desire to attain my goals, it’s in my follow through.

So keeping all my hang-ups in mind, something struck me when I was reading an old article (don’t ask me why I still had such an old issue kicking around–clearly my reading pile needs to be gone through). In it, Horror writer, Lee Thomas, was joking that he has more daddy issues than an Atlantic City stripper, but if he went into them too deeply he could probably just diffuse them, which would end up being bad for his work, so instead he just accepts them for what they are. Maybe I’m getting too hung up on my own issues and should just let them be, rather than trying resolve them? Perhaps the obstacles I create are good for me?

Obstacles are what shape us into who we are becoming — every writer knows this. Without obstacles, there is no conflict and without conflict there is no story. So in order for the story to be good, there has to be safes dropping on our heads and cliffs that are too high and utter failure, because that’s how we learn how to do it better next time. I think my big problem is not the too high expectations, I think it’s my utter dislike of failure. I’d honestly rather not do it at all than risk failure, but then I end up fermenting in my frustrating lack of growth. See the vicious circle I love to trap myself in?

I think Henry Ford really knew what he was talking about, but too many of his quotes apply here, so I think I’ll sum up my failed week with my current favourite quote from an unlikley source: “Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.” And really, it’s not how you get to your goal, merely that you finally get to it in the end. Right?

Posted by  |  January 13, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

New Beginnings

2011 was a tough year for me. Looking back on it from my rearview mirror as I speed away, I’m glad it’s over. What started off way back in optimistic January as a work day equally shared between time spent on my novel and time spent looking for gainful employment, slowly eroded into me juggling so many fill-in-the-gap-jobs that by October my two hours of morning writing on my novel were completely swallowed up by my game of survival — something had to give and I’m sad to say it was my own creative project, once again. Things got so busy in fact, I let my newest venture, this blog, lapse as well.

Admitting this both infuriates me and depresses me. A friend of mine, who I’ve always seen as very successful — hell, he even married his sexy boyfriend this past year — admitted that 2011 was a very tough year for him as well. He seemed to take his challenges in stride though, and dubbed 2011 not only his toughest year, but also the year that taught him the most about himself and through which he learned the most lessons. Well here it is, the end of the first week of the New Year and I’m still trying to figure out how the hell 2011 has benefited me.

The first image that popped into my head is that I feel like Heracles. Never once during 2011 did I succumbed to feeling like Sisyphus. In Greek mythology, Heracles was most famous for the Twelve “Impossible” Labours he was given to complete. Sisyphus, on the other hand was punished by the Gods for believing himself smarter than the immortals and forced to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. Before he could reach the top, however, the massive stone would always roll back down, forcing him to begin again.

There are certainly days where I feel trapped in an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration, especially when it comes to finishing and publishing my novel. I’ve been working on some draft form of it or another for over a decade. And yet, each time I’m pushed to the brink of giving up, I rally my strength — what Heracles was noted for — and press on despite the huge boulders rolling my way.

So, what has 2011 taught me? The most notable thing is how hard a worker I am. I’ve always chastised myself with thoughts of being lazy and unproductive, but after the sheer amount of job juggling I did last year, while still managing to meet all my deadlines and squeeze in some personal creativity, I will never buy into those negative thoughts again.

I know without a doubt, deep in my soul, that stories are my passion, my life blood, one of my true loves. I am inspired by the stories told by others, I collect them from everyone I listen to and I continue to strive to see my own shared with an audience of readers.

And finally, the hardest lesson I’ve learned, is how to ask for help from those close to me. Like Heracles I’ve always been determined to go it alone, confident in my personal strength, but even the great god of strength needed help in his Twelve Labours, whereas Sisyphus’ hubris rewarded him an eternity of fruitless work and everlasting defeat.

This early in the New Year, self-doubt still lingers and the scars from last year’s battles still ache, but I hold onto the lion’s share of my passion and continue to push forward.

Posted by  |  January 6, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Masks

I’m currently in the middle of working on our winter issue of PinkPlayMags. This issue’s theme is Burlesque and a really interesting sub-textual topic has come up in a number of the articles: The Masks We Wear.

My sister‘s instalment this issue in her column is called just that. As I was reading it through and editing, it struck a number of personal chords on insights I’ve been experiencing of late. (Sorry, no spoilers, you’ll have to wait until the issue comes out! I’ll do a follow-up post where I speak directly about her article. I know, such a tease, eh? But isn’t that was good burlesque is all about?)

Doing a quick google for images on masks I was struck by something very intersesting: most of the images of women in masks were elegant, beautiful and mysterious in a seductive way; conversely, those of men in masks were all horrorific or of the lucha libre sort, with the odd super-hero thrown in for good measure. I took from these images that women seem to use their masks to tease and entice, whereas men use them as a warning or armour to protect themselves from prying eyes.

Well all this has me thinking. When you are writing characters, you are typically stripping away these masks so that your reader has a chance to see what really lies at the core of the people in your stories. However, they must remain in place amongst these same characters in order for them to maintain their relationships in said story. Tearing them off for all to see, often becomes a pivotal moment of character transformation, forever altering — sometimes outright destroying — their evolutionary path in the story.

Fantastic examples that spring to mind are:

Jean Grey‘s Phoenix persona: was it just her repressed passions, or her dark side made manifest?

The knights’ elaborate, mask-like helmets in the John Boorman film, Excalibur, showed the personae of the wearers.

In Twilight, Rosalie Cullen, though she acts cold to Bella at first, reveals that she actually envies Bella and is sad on the inside because of her inability to get pregnant.

Everyone of any importance on Babylon 5, as summed up by G’Kar’s word of warning to Catharine Sakai: “No one here is exactly what he appears. Not Mollari, not Delenn, not Sinclair… and not me.” I thoroughly enjoyed Babylon 5 because of the intricate masks all the characters wore — it was like they had one for every significant relationship in the series.

In Avatar The Last Airbender, Prince Zuko, is introduced as a ruthless, conceited bully who cares only about himself and looks down on everyone, when in reality, he’s just a kid who wants his father to be proud of him. His sister, Princess Azula, pretends to be a secure, strong, cold woman, but it’s revealed that she’s horribly lonely and desperate for her dead mother’s approval.

So like the masks themselves, this whole idea of hiding yourself while continually seeking to discover what’s behind the masks of others, ends up being an irresistibly delicious conflict and why they make for such compelling stories.

And yet, my personal struggle continues to be one where I long to strip off all my masks so I can just be accepted for who I am, but beyond the terror of exposing myself so completely, I think my greatest fear lies in the fact that I’m unsure who I am without them: am I merely the sum total of all my personal masks waiting to be collectively assimilated, or am I something beyond all that?

Makes for an intriguing story, doesn’t it?

Broken Mask by Bas Hessels

Posted by  |  November 18, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Remembering

Without stories, how would we remember anything? Before stories were written down, every single culture in the world kept memory alive through oral tradition, telling stories around the fire at night. Two of the most vital and primal things in our lives have always been: the warmth of a fire and our need to tell the stories that matter to us.

Stories entertain, they make us laugh, sometimes cry, but most of all a good story teaches us something. Even if it’s a very simple tale, like a conversation between two people, we always walk away having learned something, at least about the person we’ve been talking to, if not about ourselves.

I remember hearing stories about the War from my Grandparents. Grandpa stayed home to work on the family farm, feeding the troops. Grandma was in the Women’s Land Army. It was a tough time, but I always recall how proudly they both spoke of their involvement. One of my favourite stories comes from that era.  You see, my Grandparents were brought together by the war. Grandma used to cycle past Home Farm, where my Grandfather grew up, every day to and from her job during the war. His eye, caught by the pretty young woman on the bike, Grandpa started waiting for her to pass as he worked in the fields. Romance sparked and the rest is our family story.

Both my grandparents survived the war, as did my father’s father, who was in the Navy. But many, many loved ones were lost so that we could enjoy the freedoms we now take for granted. So today’s story is their’s. One of bravery, courage in the face so much horror, pride and a fierce determination to provide a better world for their children to live in. If we pay attention to these important stories, then it’s less easy for us to get lost along the way and make the same mistakes that cause others to lay down their lives to protect us against the tragedy of war.

So today, I am remembering, lest we forget.

(I just learned that Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who wrote “In Flanders Fields” was from Guelph, which is where most of my relatives live. A local boy…)

Posted by  |  November 11, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

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