A Stephen King quote clipped from Goodreads.com that says, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” (Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1404-if-you-don-t-have-time-to-read-you-don-t-have)
Is a musician who doesn’t go to concerts the equivalent of a writer who doesn’t read? In that case, does the Stephen King quote apply?
The lyrics to “Unpindownable” by Chumbawamba.
All over the chart for me. “For I am unpindownable—“
(I suspect that the fourth quadrant will be largely unoccupied even with more complete data, given how songwriting works in the industry.)
An empty Cartesian coordinate system with the x-axis indicating “DIY/subcultural” versus “mainstream/commercial” and the y-axis “solo” versus “collaborative.”
A Cartesian coordinate system with the x-axis indicating “DIY/subcultural” versus “mainstream/commercial” and the y-axis “solo” versus “collaborative.” The first quadrant contains Sabrina Carpenter, the second Bikini Kill, the third Elliott Smith, and the fourth Jacob Collier.
Random thought: You can probably fit every musical act within the realm of popular music into this Cartesian coordinate system.
Andy's fantasy novel is finally available, and it's wide at all APPS and available for libraries. Sword and Sorcery. Inspired by the New Wave fantasy of Moorcock, McCaffrey and le Guin. Existential journey in unfamiliar lands. Action, quest and adventurers. A standalone story. “Everything decays, but the glass’steel decayed at a rate so slow as to be invisible on the scale of a single lifetime. In the sword she saw visions of her home. Her home so far away, deep down in the reflection of her elven eyes, sunk deep in her memory, transferred to the blade, as far away as a million years is long.” Zana Hala’Kaalni is a warrior princess in exile, untethered from her home, and from her sense of self. Allowing chaos to lead her, she enters a nation on the verge of civil war, a quest for a failed utopia, and the ruins of a long dead era, the lost history of her world. Aertelis combines the action of classic Sword & Sorcery, the literary themes of the Sci-fi Fantasy New Wave, and the character-driven storytelling of the modern era. Aertelis is a standalone story in the Kalni Chronicles anthology.
Do you want a character-driven adventure echoing classic Sword & Sorcery film and TRPGs, but also the literary style, worldbuilding and themes of the New Wave writers like Moorcock and Le Guin?
I've got you covered. And it's wide + available to libraries.
UBL: books2read.com/u/bz9BOE
#booksky
📚💙
On a separate note, as part of my research, manually curating and listening to music cues me into the moods, social milieux, and interior worlds inhabited by my characters, and helps me resolve narrative issues via association. Free-writing to music can also be useful for getting out of a rut.
Agree, agree, agree. Speaking of, I need to read Keith Johnstone’s book.
“Whatever works.”
Just saw the spectacular Chicago Neo-Futurists in performance, doing their “30 plays in 60 minutes” piece. It was rough theatre at its finest, the cast acting unapologetically as themselves. I donated 10 bucks to their ongoing fundraising campaign, and you can, too: neofuturists.org/donate-2/?dr...
A photo of a framed poster hung on the wall of the computer lab of my college’s Writing Center. The poster shows a list of crossed-out misspellings of the English word “failure,” black text on a blue background, culminating in the phrase “failure endears” accentuated in a black rectangular outline at the bottom. The photographer (me) can be seen in reflection form.
Daily reminder to keep failing better.
So hyped to start watching the second season this weekend.
“And then, you act.” - Anne Bogart
“Who wants to be that alienated (wo)man from the ivory tower? Try. Win. Fail. Put on different roles, masks, personas. Don't wait until you're told what you're supposed to do. Choose by yourself. And do it yourself.” - Nadya Tolokonnikova
I woke up this morning and reminded myself to live with intentionality.
Update, Mark Graham ⬇️
"Wanted to share an update from Team Wayback Machine
The archives are safe & the Wayback Machine is up in read-only mode.
We hope to turn more web crawling on within a day to make sure our web collections remain whole.
Next up: Save Page Now.
Thank you for the support!"
Trying to manifest the radical egalitarian vision of the Internet as a communal space of free and uninhibited information exchange beyond entrenched class boundaries by staying off Instagram for three months and counting, returning to email and text messaging for comms. One step at a time, people.