Pin Me!

A couple weeks ago I got sucked into a new online world.
No, not Google+ (still working out how worthwhile it will be vs. how worthwhile it could be).
Pinterest.
Explaining Pinterest to the uninitiaed is rather difficult. You can't really explore it until you join, and once you join you can't really understand it until you explore. A lot. It's a very experiential site -- the more you dive into it, the more you become one with it. It may sound very zen, and a tad creepy, but I have never found a 'fluff' (or as professionals call them 'social networking') site that makes wasting hours of time on it feel so useful. There's not much in the way of creating connections beyond a very surface level. There's no witty banter about life, politics, the weather, or CARMAGEDDON! There's no constant stream of outside links to click, videos to watch, or Farm games to play. It is, simply, a giant bulletin board of awesome/inspiring/pretty things. The users are a collective of people who like to create, express, explore, design, craft, inspire... and gaze at pretty things.

I'm a quote whore, and the number of amazing quotes I have found in exploring Pinterest astound me.
For example, I found this one this morning.



Remind you of anything?
"Sometimes I get nostalgic for the time when this massive universe called The Internet did not exist, nor was it so easy to create a stream of words, thoughts and ideas and then delete them in a flash.
Sometimes I want a physical record of my creations, not just a glorified collection of electric pulses and digital code translated to 'my work.'"

That, in a pin, is why I love Pinterest.

I'm Baaaaa-aaaack

Trying this new concept of typing an entry in Blogger's post field, as opposed to whipping something up in Word or Google Docs, because, well, neither of those have been inspiring to me as of late.

What has been inspiring is writing.

No, not this. This action of pressing keys with my fingers and having electric signals travel through the keyboard to the PC hard drive to this site and onto the screen -- this is not inspiring as of late. It's annoying. It's a blank canvas with the ability to erase whatever is composed too easily. It allows me to be fickle, to procrastinate, to delete thoughts before they truly form.

Which is why what I've written lately has been actually written. Physically. By placing a pen or pencil to a sheet of paper in a book and watching as my own hand creates words as they flow from my mind, directing myself in a physical action to create something that cannot be so easily destroyed as type on a screen.
I'm not about to get all high-horse and say that the physical act of writing is better than typing on a computer (or a typewriter if you're lucky enough to own such a device). Technology has afforded us a grand new method of creating and spreading ideas (and far be it for me to get snobby about writing). Still, sometimes I get nostalgic for the time when this massive universe called The Internet did not exist, nor was it so easy to create a stream of words, thoughts and ideas and then delete them in a flash.

Sometimes I want a physical record of my creations, not just a glorified collection of electric pulses and digital code translated to 'my work.'

Still, I feel the pull to write more and the readiness of this method, along with the ease of sharing, calls on me to return to the technological front...
Doesn't mean I won't occasionally run back to the physical creation.

Days of Green and Red

No, I’m not talking about the Christmas holidays. I’m talking about two major dates for an Irish Anglophile: St. Patrick’s Day and Red Nose Day.
Since I had the migraine from hell most of the week (it’s my body’s way of reminding me who’s in charge and why I should take care of it, the fucker), I wasn’t quite in the full Go Green spirit for St. Patrick’s Day. However, it was going to take more than crushing pain with a side of nausea to keep me from having a good time. I spent the evening with some of the most awesome co-worker/friend/theatre peeps in the world. After a little pre-gaming at my place (complete with my iPod playing a goodly amount of my traditional [read: beautiful yet depressing] Irish tunes, we all jammed ourselves into a tiny Toyota and drove a mere six blocks to a local Irish pub. Though they’d added a tent out back to make up for the teensy-ness of the place, the holiday + lack of cover charge = actual line outside the bar. A five minute wait time became fifteen with only two of the five people in front of us being let in, so we skipped our way down another two blocks to a favored watering hole where the $5 cover which previously hindered our desire to go there quickly turned into a blessing as we were able to obtain a table, down some car bombs, get some grub, watch some great Irish dancers and cut a few jigs ourselves. All in all a very good night, with everyone satisfactorily tipsy and on the way home by 10pm.
Red Nose Day is reason #7,862 on the list of Why I Live in the Wrong Country. It’s also very high on the list of programming I wish BBCAmerica would offer in the states. It may be a Brit-run fundraiser, but who says giving money to Africa through England is in any way less needed than giving it through the US? The Brits actually care enough to have a marathon (plus weeks of pre-shows) of original programming built solely around the purpose of raising funds for charity. Remember how the US had Comic Relief? Only available on premium channels and mostly live sketches by comics for one evening? Yeah, the Brits do it so much better (as per usual). There’s dance and song competitions leading to the big day, there’s fundraising via web, TV, twitter, etc. There’s a long telethon hosted by great celebs, and a slew of original skits produced just for the event – including new Doctor Who and a brilliant parody of Downton Abbey (it's hard not to crack up at Simon Callow as Julian Fellows). Sure, you can download some of these gems on iTunes or look them up on YouTube, but it's not the same.
I’m not sure how to go about it, but I really want to put a bug up someone’s butt in the upper management world of BBCA to get them to broadcast Red Nose Day, and Pudsey Day, in the US. I’d be happy to cough up a few quid to aid Africa if it means I get to see wacky Who and Merlin skits and seen Davina McCall, with her enigmatic bottom, macking on gay AND straight blokes…

Digestible Linkage

In addition to spouting off a fair amount this past week, I’ve also been catching up on reading. Sadly not novel reading as my attention span has yet to recover from the Death Flu, but I’ve been reading many interesting and varied articles across the interwebs – enough of them that I feel compelled to share some of the highlights:

Fellow LA Theatre Slave, Gedaly, has a great piece on how theatre still markets itself like it’s 1936. While I believe intrinsic changes need to occur at the AEA level to even begin to move us forward (because even non-equity houses fear the wrath of the AEA), I do concur that internet marketing, specifically in video form needs to be made better use of in productions. The secondary hang-up is that in small theatre, which needs the marketing most, the desire to find inventive ways of incorporating video marketing is often there but the manpower to make it happen on less-than-no-budget is not. That speaks more to the inherent lack of non-actors and designers involved in theatrical ventures (that aren’t revivals or rip-offs of tried-and-true hits) than to anyone directly involved in a production, but it still is a root cause of this problem.

Author J.S. Chancellor has decided to go for pomp (and hopefully avoid broke) in advertising that his new (and unfortunately partially leaked) novel will be available for free download in March. As a starting novel in a series, this grand gesture could garner enough support from readership to gain buzz and profit for the succeeding novels.

Chamber Musician Today features a guest blog on how/why to join a vocal ensemble. While it lacks a bit in the directional ‘hows’ of joining (i.e. what to be prepared for in different ensemble types and what to expect in audition/interview processes, and how the rehearsal and performance schedules can differ between various groups), it does offer several varied options for vocal groups and what might appeal to potential members. As someone who’s constantly toying with the idea of finding a new vocal home, this gave me a little push to maybe give it a go.

This interview with Andrew Chambliss would have knocked me on my ass, if I hadn’t already been on it. There’s nothing new or astonishing in the article; it’s just a successful writer-geek talking about his work and those he’s worked with. However, as he’s a) a phenomenal, young writer and b) has worked on shows with writers I worship and adore, it’s pretty much a geekgasm-causing insight into the inner-world of writers I would love to know and would consider myself lucky to emulate.
TV writers also hold a bit of enigmatic awe for me as the concept of anyone’s mind working that fast, let alone a room full of people working at that pace, astonishes me.

All right, so I can’t help but be a bit self-indulgent as this final link (via CJDirector) is to a site which put me on their main page. I’m down in the ‘Health’ section, which is a little off for the entry, but I will certainly take publicity in any form I can get – especially for this entry on music snobbery. I will use pretty much any avenue I can to headbutt the ignorance out of people resistant to Hanson.

Cursing the Cursor

While every advancement in writing technology offers its own v-shaped offensive gesture to writers who experience problems with a blank page, I sometimes think the blinking cursor is the vilest.
The blank page intimidates most writers. Breaking the seal, or popping the cherry as it were, with a hand motion can incite all manner of trepidation. Pros and amateurs alike have tricks and skills to help them overcome their dread and plunge forward with their hand and mind, creating a stained, non-virginal screen or sheet of paper. All these little tools and incentives are marvelous, but do not ever entirely change that fear of starting anew into energy for creation. I refuse to blame writer’s insecurity or mental lapses for this and instead blame something even more daunting than a completely blank page/screen: that damnable blinking cursor.
What did writers ever do to technology geeks that they decided to punish us with this demon? One little move in the name of advancement and suddenly the terror of a blank page becomes amplified by that taunting, teasing little bastard of a cursor who stares at us – daring us to conjure up ideas while it sits there menacingly waiting for us to fail.
Well this time, eternally blinking demon, I have triumphed over you by using your own flinching power against you. This is one game of chicken you lose.

Write, Damnit!

As it’s the start of a new year (January's not over; the year is still very young!), articles like this one pop up all over the interwebs, in addition to the explosion of articles in print which appear like spring daffodils that seem to sprout from nothing, shooting out their yellow-belled cheer overnight. Except cheer and writing don’t always mix. Sure, there’s cheer when you get a new idea, start plugging along with inspiring projects, or finish any work you feel even approaches half-decent, but the process of forming a plan to write consistently, committing yourself to knowing hours stretch before you when you may stare, aggravated, at a blank page or screen... it’s enough to stress you out to the point that even having an idea is a daunting notion.
However, a writer who’s not writing isn’t a writer. As difficult as inspiration is, and as impossible as it is to force inspiring thoughts to manifest themselves, the craft portion of writing only gets stronger with use. Thus, like many others who dabble and drown in the world of writing, I’m attempting to use a new year as a fresh start. So far my concepts and ideas have failed, however in blaming myself (and some pesky germs which knocked me down and rendered me incapable of focusing on anything except breathing and remaining conscious during work hours for two weeks) I also choose to blame technology.
First there’s the distracting nature of the worldwide beast that is the internet. I mean, this place has (nearly) everything and can feed it to you whether you want it or not. That need to feed yourself (usually) useless information becomes highly addictive and counter-productive to doing what you want to and/or should be doing. It can also make you painfully aware of your failings, seeing what others are accomplishing while you’re merely reading about how awesome they are and thinking about how awesome you’re not (yeah, I do this). Lest we forget, technology also gives eleventy-billion more ways to record our ideas and present them to the world. The stream of endless options coupled with global pressure to put out something useful and/or worthwhile can further our own insecurities, and let’s face it, writers are (generally speaking) a pretty insecure lot.
Thus, in addition to that nebulous yearlong goal of ‘writing more,’ which will hopefully soon lend itself to more measurable items within that goal, I’m going to try and stick to a goal of ‘useless internet less.’ This means instead of spending countless times refreshing facebook or twitter to see if anything spontaneously cool, funny, inspiring or random has occurred in the past few minutes (you do this too sometimes, admit it) I hope to use those F5 moments to continue writing when I get stuck, or read a few pages of a book, or (if I must stay plugged into the interwebs) search for something useful and potentially educational or inspiring.

Which prompts me to ask: what are your own writing/creative goals for this year, and what tips, if any, do you have for keeping distractions and that nagging, nay-saying self-doubt at bay?

Blog Sprint

This blog currently has no focus, which I only state to warn you that I have no idea what it may turn into. So what's the purpose of this entry? To write and keep writing.

See, when you're a participant in NaNoWriMo, the internet bestowed this miraculous and devilish networking tool on us called Twitter. Through Twitter emerged writing encouragement from the good people in NaNoLand in the form of word sprints. Since NaNo is centered around word counts, sprints came along to help people crank out words (sometimes a specified goal, sometimes not) in a certain amount of time.
While this is an extremely useful tool during NaNo month, it's also good for writing in general. So many times writers sit in front of their screens or notebooks or typewriters (yes, some people still use them) staring, seemingly, into space. For those who aren't or don't know writers, this staring does not equate to, say, a dog gazing at the wall for no particular reason, or a bored teenager in physics class daydreaming of being anywhere but physics class (or school period). When a writer stares off into space it's typical that the writer is conversing with a voice -- or voices -- inside their head, attempting to cull inspiration from the depths of the mind and translate that inspiration into words. Anyone who's needed to come up with a speech or announcement in a very short amount of time under immense pressure has an inkling of what this feels like.
None of this is original in concept. As long as there have been writers there has been writer's block. What I love about word sprints is they give you a deadline -- without pressure. Your goal is to write as much as you can, but no one says it has to be brilliant or original with perfect spelling and grammar. That's what editing is for. The point is to write and write and write until your fingers ache, whatever enters your mind, and then stop.
Some people don't work well in those situations, but I think it's more beneficial than detrimental to any writer. As with the general idea of National Novel Writing Month, the point is not perfection or completion but creating something from nothing, and dedicating a specified time of your life to it in order to end up with something that would not exist without your dedication to the project. This type of creative push can be applicable for all types of creative endeavors. Any kind of artistic venture carries its own style of writer's block as part of the package. What kind of music could be created if people took occasional composing sprints? What might be painted or sketched in a canvas sprint? What might be captured on film during camera sprints (an idea which forms many 24 or 48 hour film festivals)? What theatre might be created during a Fast and Loose adventure? If you're a creative type, next time you see one of these pop up, stop thinking about all the ways it can't work for you, and just go for it. Creating, unlike some aspects of 'real life,' carries much less risk for trying. Other than a bit of time, you have nothing to lose.

See, twenty minutes of sprinting and I created a blog that I otherwise may never have gathered the thoughts to compose... and in the few minutes it's taken you to read it, I hope you understand the benefit in just trying. Despite what Yoda says, when it comes to creating, 'try' can be a powerful force on its own, leading to much more doing.