Regular visitors to this site know that I’m quite literally 175 years old. What you may not know is that just five short years ago — at the ripe old age of 170 — I had a series of micro-epiphanies regarding the creative process, the most important of which was this:
I’d always thought art was about sitting around, waiting for inspiration to strike. As a result, I did a lot of waiting and not that much creating. But it turns out, art and inspiration don’t have to (entirely) work that way. You don’t have to just wait. There are actual techniques you can use — habits that help drive inspiration, ways to tackle a blank page and to catch ideas as they spark through the day. Why didn’t anyone tell me that before? Like, when I was 140?
Anyways, hoping not to lose any more time, I began to gather up a personalized set of these techniques — what seemed to work for me. And then I started to wonder, what techniques have other artists come up with?
The result of that question is this here brand-new cv.com feature: “Conversations about Creativity.” Over the next several weeks, you’ll be hearing from dancers, poets, computer graphic effects artists, illustrators, stand up comics, musicians, and a host of other creative professionals about how their creative process works, how they deal with dry periods, and what they do to stay productive, keep their work fresh, and generally tap their personal woosh.
The first interview goes live tomorrow, and new ones will follow each Thursday. In the future, if you ever want to jump straight to the Creativity in Practice page, you can bookmark it right here.
I’ve really enjoyed these initial interviews, and I feel like I’ve learned a lot already. I hope you’ll enjoy ’em too and come on back for more.
Tomorrow: a conversation with Jeff Raz, clown, actor, playwright, teacher, and the star of Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo.
-Cecil
Cecil Vortex
The Against the Day Deathmarch, Week 2
If I knew Tesla was coming, I might very well have baked a cake. Because, well, you know how much Tesla loves to eat cake.
Lots of fun this week — excellent comments from an international crew of ‘marchers, plus a promising start to the novel with all sorts of rich plot threads. It sounds like many of us, me included, are thinking “hey — that was actually kinda fun.” But we can’t rename this a “funmarch” can we? That would just be silly. And of course, who knows what lies ’round the bend….?
Like several of the commenters, I’ve been making lists of characters. I tend to write “intro so-and-so” in the margin when a new character makes their first appearance. Another habit I picked up when we read Gravity’s Rainbow is writing a quick summary of the action on the top of each page. So, for example, page 13 was “naked lady below,” page 42 was “Lew can notice things,” and page 48 was “a fight avoided.”
If the slew of references gets you dizzy, bookmark the AtD wiki. I’m mostly staying in the text and avoiding a ton of extra research, but I did drop by the wiki twice this week — once to find out what a “charabanc” was, and once to confirm my suspicion that “The Unsleeping Eye” referred to the dread Pinkerton’s.
All in all, a great start. I’m really surprised how downright excited I am to back in Pynchonville.
Next Tuesday: Let’s stretch our page count just a touch so we can get to the end of Part One. We’ll pull over for nuts and clementines at the bottom of page 118, “toward a fate…few would willingly have chosen.”
(which is to say: use this thread to comment through page 118. Try to finish reading that part of the book and to comment on it here by end o’ day next Monday)
Pugnax!
-Cecil
Legends from My Childhood, #2
She took too many pills or something
and nearly died
but the main thing I remember
is sitting down at their
kitchen table and her
telling us how at that critical moment
she saw the light and turned back.
I thought: “She seems sad.”
And: “I can’t believe a grownup is
telling me this and treating me
like I’m a grownup
when I’m not.”
On Halloween, she dressed me
up as a 50s kid and put my hair
in a DA with goop.
She told me that the look worked —
that I had a 50s face. And I
took that as a
compliment.
****
Legends from My Childhood, #2, card art by eb.
Underground
They date underground
they do.
And they skip by the mushrooms
they dance with the dwarves
They sleep under waterfalls
lightless with dark sparkle and foam.
They leave the sun and the wind and banana peels
to the squirrels.
The Against the Day Deathmarch, Week 1
Welcome to The Against the Day Deathmarch — a mass-tackle of Pynchon’s latest tome. This is our fifth deathmarch, and I haven’t been this excited about an onine mass read of a challenging book since, well, since we tackled Gravity’s Rainbow back in January, 2005.
I’ve read the first few pages of AtD, and I can report from the trailhead that it doesn’t start out in nearly as dense a thicket as Gravity’s Rainbow. But it does appear to share at least three things with GR: (1) silly names packed with portent (“Darby Suckling”), (2) a new character every 7 sentences, and (3) something particularly startling or amusing on every page. “lavatorial assaults from the sky,” “the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast-bags,” “The Great Bovine City of the World”? What’s not to like?
Um…OK, but how’s this whole deathmarch thing work again?
Here’s a quick recap for new folks….
Short version: read, comment, finish, get a prize.
Longer version: comment on every thread from this week till the end, and finish the book, and you qualify for your choice of either an AtDDM mug or magnet. (Capped at 30 winners to protect my children’s college fund.) Comments can range from erudite analysis to content-free exclamations. “I’ve fallen woefully behind” counts as a comment. Not a great comment. But a comment. Try not to get very far ahead. And if you have zipped ahead, be sure not to get past that week’s reading in your comments. Every Tuesday I’ll post a new thread, and it all starts up again.
Next Tuesday: Let’s meet up at the bottom of page 56, where “the temperature” is “headed down.”
(In other words, use this thread to comment on pages 0-56. Try to finish reading that part of the book and to comment here by end o’ day next Monday)
Merry ‘marching,
-Cecil
Legends from My Childhood, #1
Don’t forget what’shisname — Steven?
Really smart.
Played guitar.
Got into heavy metal.
Sort of wavy black hair?
He was a tough little dude.
I think they came in second in that Battle of the Bands.
All covers. Maybe Free Bird. OK, probably Free Bird.
But Blue Öyster Cult too.
He had a girl in his band. Leather pants.
He played guitar.
He got Bs without trying.
He was a tough little dude with a girl in his band.
Don’t forget him.
****
Care to add any childhood legends in the comments?
-Cecil
Legends from My Childhood, #1, card art by eb.
Dialogue, motivation, bumpers
Thought for the day: Trying to write dialogue without first getting a bead on your characters’ motivation is a little like trying to move a car by pulling on its bumper. Oh sure, you can do it. If you’re really strong. At least, some people can do it. But there’s an easier way.
The Against the Day Deathmarch Chit-Chat About Prizes
Got my book this week. I’m all excited, and who can blame me? I’m fighting the urge to dive in. I have read the quote that opens the book, and I have read the first line, and I can report that they are both excellent. The second sentence will have to wait till next Tuesday.
Today’s post is another spot for chiming in if you’re planning on joining the ‘march, or for just saying hey to other ‘march-types. Based on the response to the launch post, I’m guessing we’ll start with something like 20 folks on the trail. A nice number to tackle such a mighty tome.
In last week’s post, I mentioned prizes. A few folks are first-timers, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to explain how that works.
Tell me more about these so-called “prizes”
OK. Read and finish the book and comment every week (starting next week), and the AtDDM prize mechanism will release a deathmarch mug or a magnet, your choice, like a mother hen dropping a mug or magnet-shaped egg. (note: prizes capped at 30 winners.)
Here’s a look at a couple of past prizes (note: len flares not included):
The “I Survived the ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ Deathmarch” mug
As you can see, the molecular structure of the GRDM mug is solid enough that all these many months later it can still securely contain a beverage such as milk, or chocolate milk, or orange juice. It calls to you, yes?
The “I Survived the ‘To the Lighthouse’ Deathmarch” magnet
The TtLHDM prizes should be going out to lucky winners shortly. While you can’t tell this from the picture, please take my word when I say that the magnetic pull of these beauties is so powerful that I had to have them delivered to me in sealed lead boxes to avoid adversely impacting the local tides.
Alright then — I hope the stakes are clear now and your collective mouths are watering as much as mouths can water in response to non-edible objects like mugs and magnets. See you back here next week, when we “single up all lines” and let boots and dust collide….
-Cecil
Were they bats?
Were they birds or were they bats?
Does it matter?
When they drop down in darkness.
When they brush up against the back of your head and nudge you along.
When they flap in your hair.
You want to know.
Feathers or fur? Beaks or black noses.
Were they bats?
Your Warehouse
Looking into your warehouse it’s clear that
someone’s really good at stacking boxes.
I know they use machines
but it’s still a skill
to form
a lattice like that
three stories high
to hold against
the pull top boxes feel
their natural urge to tumble
and tip
to splay and splash
to show the floor their glory.