More View!

There we go. All the donkey work is done, and now comes the fun part -- taking this hideous jumble of visual information and reducing it to something beautiful and elegant. Really, that's the essence of art -- removing unnecessary information from experience.

And there are no words for how nice the music is. I've got a Shel Silverstein album in the mix, and at one point he makes a guttural noise out of silence and I actually reacted as though someone were in the room. Now it's a collection of classic Stax soul. It is richly orchestrated to a degree that makes me feel like I'm eating a cube of butter. In a good way.

The First Glimpse of the First View

So I need some sky up top and some greenery to fill the gap between the horizon line and the base of the image. So it's a photograph or two and then the fun part -- distorting and processing the disparate elements into a cohesive whole. I'm still hoping to finish tonight, but we shall see. It's starting to seem unlikely.

But we shall see.

Anyway. I now have a very nice CD player plugged into the mixing board, playing through the studio monitors. The sound is insane. It's like listening while the music is being recorded. I'm hearing stuff I've never heard before... This is very nice.

I'll pop back in when I've got the finished basic composition.

Progress!

Thank you, Warren!

So. Yesterday, after my bold talk I wasn't able to take the photos I needed to take to advance on the Swillistrations. I walked downtown, and ran into an old family friend. Honestly, aside from my dad? He's known me the longest. We were very close when I was a small child, and I still think of our times together with fondness.

Well, I mentioned an interest in photography, and he drove me to a camera store, where they stocked a remote for my camera at an affordable price. Doesn't that seem like fate? Like magic?

Of course, I got home and wasn't able to make the remote work. But in my attempts, I found out how to set the camera so the shutter clicks ten seconds after I press it. So I am now officially at work on the next series of prints, currently entitled Fifteen Views of the Downtown Area.

Plus, my CD player is here, and it took me less than ten minutes to get it unpacked, located, and functioning -- and in the process I solved a long-standing mystery. When playing music, we use a laptop running Reason for our drum tracks. We've found that different drum sounds need to have the jack positioned very specifically if they are going to come out of the speakers. And we have been bitching about this for literally years now.

Turns out we were running a stereo signal into a mono track on the mixing board. Haw! Haw! Haw!

(Insider humor is always the best.)

But today? I work on a print, and I've got tunes to play while I'm working. And I get to feel good about it.

This could be worse. This could be a lot worse.

Every Journey Begins With A Stumble

So the lovely SLR camera loaned to me by the very kind Warren Lutz combined with a lovely new macro lens has proven a trial. I finally figured things out to the point where I could take pictures, and sooo-prise! Clicking the shutter makes photos too blurry to use.

But. They do make an inexpensive remote for this camera. (Nikon-D60, plenty good enough for the likes of me.) And they stock it in the camera store where I take my tabletop photography lessons. So my bold 'the future commences today!' has turned into, "Huh. Got a couple of days open. Time for small chores."

So this afternoon, I run about the city making deposits and small purchases. And tomorrow?

Dah-dah-dah-duuuuuuhm. I write my writing resume, in honor of Sr. Lutz.

Because from now on, every day must serve the interests of OafCo.

Brand New Oaf

This looks awful on the screen, but in print it is dee-licious. I'll be talking up the Phantasm plug-in for Illustrator big time in the near future, but let me just say it produces the best halftones since those dudes that worked on Dore's stuff. I am not going to color for the large versions of these any more -- the black and white now has all the color the work needs, and more would be detrimental.

The Oaf: I dunno, I've got this horrible streak of competitive Alpha-male in me.

The Missus: I know. That's what keeps me interested. You're not a wimp.

The Oaf: WHAT?! They told me I was supposed to be a wimp! I thought masculine power was inherently loathsome!

The Missus: Well, I'm awfully hard on you, and it wouldn't be any fun if I destroyed you.


So. It's been a while since I posted. I've been focused on Swill and taking care of personal business.

I've also been undergoing a bit of a sea change. The process of growth I've been coping with recently came to a head, and I'm breaking in a new pair of metaphorical boots. I mentioned in my last post that I've recognized the fact that I am a literary rather than a commercial writer, and how that realization was empowering and liberating.

It was reinforced a few days later when -- I ain't giving details til it's set in stone -- but I may be participating in an NPR-level public reading, and I'd be alongside people who's work I've genuinely admired. The stuff the dude running the thing said about my writing? I'm still glowing.

Well, that kinda reinforced things for me, illuminated a few interesting corners of my life. What is true of my writing is also true of other aspects of my creative life. While I still have an infinite amount of learning and study ahead of me, I am now a mature artist and writer capable of operating both in fine art and commercial arenas.

It is time for me to leave school. It is time for me to fully engage the world. I do what I do well, and it is time to find a place for myself.

Part of this means taking care of myself. And part of that means creating an environment and life that is healthy and appropriate for me, rather than awkwardly fail to live the kind of life that 'normal' people live.

Right now I am, and have been, in a uniquely fortunate position for an artist. I have a small amount of cash, and a supportive spouse. I am making the choice to begin living the life of a professional artist, and if I hit the skids before things work out? I'll worry about that then.

Right now? My life, on my terms. Which are extremely flexible, it must be confessed...

So there are two big steps I'm going to take. First, the monetization of my natural, habitual creative acts. Writing is already firmly on the tracks. All I have to do is keep doing the next thing.

The prints from Swill -- sample above -- will be coming out about once a year. I need to find them a gallery, or possibly find an art agent, and this year I'll submit them to the Spectrum competition, and do a POD calender of the images.

Paleo art. A gallery outlet would be nice, but I think the natural place for my work in this area would be either working with paleontologists or doing children's books. And again, submit to Spectrum and do a POD calender.

Swill itself is starting to itch at me. I need to sit down with ol' Rob (You seen his new blog? I think he swiped the title from me -- I once referred to him as 'Rob Pierce, the man with two verbs for a name.'), but I have recently been spending a lot of time moaning about how there aren't any real gatekeepers for self-published fiction, and I want to do book design, and I want to do readings, and Swill has, over the years, developed an eerie credibility that might be of some use in...

Gotta talk to Rob. But I'm dreaming big.

So what this means, is that I'm getting to work on my big projects in a systematic fashion, and at the same time I will be actively seeking work as a copywriter or commercial artist. I will finish my scientific literature class, because it is providing me with a lot of topsoil -- it makes me feel smart and gives me good ideas and teaches me useful stuff. It is adding energy to my life, rather than draining it. But when that's done, classes will be taken in order to achieve specific projects.

Basically, given the response my work has received thus far, it is obviously time to take all the half-finished projects and send them out into the fucking world. This means I will be spending my time doing things I like to do, and do well. This is one reason I've been delaying getting my shit together for so long -- I shun pleasure instinctively, and the life I'm shaping for myself could be sweet if it works out.

Here is the immediate future.

1. Swillistrations. I've got a class in tabletop photography on Saturday, and I've got a work table for my studio on order. I will do fifteen pieces, and seven of them will go into Swill. When finished, I will submit them in a batch to Spectrum, and produce a POD calender based on the best of the old Bonelands series.

I will also do a tutorial based on one of the prints. I will try and make it as complete and professional as possible. When it's done, I'll send out a request for career information to as many different graphic software companies as I can find, and include the tutorial as a portfolio piece.

Then I will put together a portfolio, and look for galleries and art agents. Once I get a sizeable batch of portfolios circulating, I forget about it for a while.

2. Write a resume for my writing, and change my personal site -- seancraven.com, it's primitive but enthusiastic -- to a business site, advertising my services as writer, artist, editor, and designer.

3. Then I write the novel. Straight through, by myself, write it, read it, revise it, then it's line edits and off. No dicking around. I have a fucking plot, I've written it nine times already. It is time to be a pro.

4. Then I put together a round of portfolios to send out to ad agencies and so on.

5. Then I finish the script and get it off to agents, and possibly self-publish it as a book. Because I'm like nine kinds of crazy.

6. Then I find out about doing dinosaur books for children.

At that point, it's vague and fuzzy, which is fine. I'll be changing this as it goes along.

But I need to be focused on effective productivity. Part of that is recognizing that if I get too scattered, too worried, too unhappy, too stressed, etc. I stop functioning. So I need to eliminate sources of stress from my life to a degree that, yes, is not normal. Is not something that would be acceptable in most people.

I have the option of doing that. And I'm taking it. I think that the combination of focusing the bulk of my time on the large, ambitious, self-expressive work, while searching for commercial work in-between bouts, will produce some kind of positive result in the long run, even if it's something I can only keep up for a while.

I will be trying to find the balance between my obsessive need to do one project at a time, and my desire for a more systematic and predictable life, especially the money part. If I'm going to function, I need to respect and work with my obsessions.

I told the missus that I might make some decisions that will be wrong or crazy over the next six months or a year, and that we were going to have to live with that. Because it's time to do something different.

It's time to do it -- not Frank's way, not Sid's way -- my way. Folks, if you haven't tried it? Put yourself in a position to rub your hands together and cackle. It is scary as shit but it's hell of fun.

Affirmed

From this...

... to this, in less than two years. How did I do it? With expert assistance.

I've been trying to figure out what I'm for and how to make me work for a long, long time now, and over the last while I've finally started making some serious headway.

I recently ran into our old vet while yardsaling. After filling me in on his current unpleasant physical state -- he is not an enthusiast of aging -- he asked me what had been going on with my art and writing.

After I laid out a fistful of the ridiculous affirmations the world's given me over the last year or so, he put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me down so our faces were inches apart. He grinned. "So it turns out you're worth a shit after all."

That felt good. Nothing like an affirmation from an elder. I love 'em, and seeking them has brought me good. But while it may take a while for my habits to wear off, I'm done seeking affirmation for my art. I've had enough of the high-end stuff to know that I like it, and it helps, but you know what? It's time to stop asking for it.

I've mentioned that I'm taking a class in commercial fiction that Nick Mamatas is teaching? I signed up for it because I wanted to be told whether or not the novel was ready, and I sincerely hoped it would be very well received. Well, last Tuesday night, we went over the first chapter of the current draft of the novel.

I ain't telling stories out of school, but if you get a chance to take a class with Nick, do so. He's a Rinzai type -- if you're not a Zen buff, Rinzai was the Zen master who founded the hard school of Zen, where enlightenment was frequently inspired by a sharp blow to the head. I just grinned, talked slow, and took it. I know when that's the thing to do.

Essentially, he made me realize that I am not a commercial fiction writer, and that trying to make my work commercial was not helping things. That the characteristics that would make this book appeal to its natural audience are the very ones that I'm stifling in order to make it fit into the genre format.

I feel as though I've been given the book back. More then that, I feel no more real need for outside approval on it. I can see clearly that while the time I've spent with my creative energies focused on pleasing readers has been well-spent, it's time to cut it out and write the book I want to write and fuck everything else. I have been writing down, I have been making decisions I dislike for what are ultimately commercial reasons.

I can't let commercial decisions have any serious role in my work if it is to function properly. The next draft I write straight through, for myself, before I show it to readers, and then I will ask for just line edits and clarifications. That's it. And then it goes out. And I write the next one.

I love genre fiction. I respect its practitioners. I will promote my work in that realm, and I will happily continue to work and associate with my genre writer friends.

But ladies and gents, I am a fucking artiste. I'm done trying to be anything else. I work for me, I probably won't make a living at it, and who cares.

See, figuratively of course, in a moment strongly reminiscent of the ending of the Wizard of Oz, Nick gave me a box. And in that box, formed of letters cast in lead and crusted in sequins, were the words, 'Fuck You.'

And now, if someone says, "the lead character seems sort of lost," or, "this weird stuff goes on for too long," or, "this would be a lot more commercial if the lead character weren't mentally ill," rather than experiencing the sinking feeling that I'm a complete fraud who has no idea what he's doing, I can simply hold out the box and show them the words. Since I'm a literary writer, if my work is easy to read, I'm doing it right. And if my work is hard to read when I know I'm doing it right, then I'm doing righter.

It promises to be very convenient.

Here are the two drives behind all this. The need to achieve, and the desire for affirmation and approval. Now I'm at the point where the more of the former and the less of the latter I have, the better.

Thinking about this over the last few days, I've come to realize that this applies to more than just my writing. Or my visual art, for that matter. This is part of that maturation process I've been trying to get into. Working with confidence. The ability to say, "If you don't get it, it's your problem," and walk away.

Why am I in school rather than hustling to make a buck with my skills? Because I want affirmation. I want to have someone tell me my shit is worthwhile. Well, I've gotten that. It's time for me to stop delaying and just get my shit together.

I feel a sense of balance and strength I've never experienced before, and my manic state is quite mild, thank you. I'm beginning to get a sense of my proper time and place. And in the interests of the hustle, I'm going to go send a few emails in relation to a notion of mine that might bear fruit.

Okay, world, I get it. I'm worth a shit. Message received; over and out.

Ada!

Oh, my good golly gosh. I go away for a little while to take care of business, only to find I left a mess behind me.

Yes, it was Ada, she of the glitteringly intricate historical horror, who asked the question about the semi-colon! Dang, sorry about that, Ada. No slight was intended; as I've mentioned elsewhere, I have become a comically absent-minded individual recently.

I'm studying two texts on the semi-colon question, but honestly, at the moment I've got tons and tons of swell blog posts (I've invented another new instrument, for example, changed my mind about getting a stereo, have found a likely ancestor of Don Marquis's Archie and Mehitabel, complete with Rube Goldberg illustration and three one-hundred-year-old stamps, thoughts on constructing a novel, thirteen ideas taken from my compost heap, and so on) that I'm not allowed to write about until I get further along with fucking Swill. Which I'm going to work on now, in a state of flustered terror.

Cathy may be gone, but as long as I live, her plaintive 'aaaaaaack!' and fist-sized panicky sweat-globs will live.