the only Dickinson we talk about

generally, the best answer to the question of what you should do, when you have a choice, is what you want to do.  

I remember in my first year at uni - my second go at uni - agonising over which essay I should choose, because I'd never been in that situation before where you have a choice about what question to answer. So, I booked some time with my tutor to get some advice, and her advice was to do the one that I wanted to do - the one that I found the most interesting. When she put it like that, it was obvious to me. I did the essay about Frankenstein. 

I've been interested in Frankenstein ever since, just as I've been interested in the life and work of Emily Brontё, and George Eliot since I first encountered them. 

Speaking of great women writers, I bought the e-book version of a new biography of Sylvia Plath - RED COMET: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (2020) by Heather Clark - which looks absolutely superb. 

My interest in Sylvia Plath is kind of different from the others I mentioned. Shelley's, Brontë's and Eliot's novels are among my favourite novels - actually, they pretty much constitute the list of my favourite novels. 

but, even though I enjoy studying poetry, I don't take to it naturally like I do to the novel. Emily Brontё, unlike her sisters, was a poet of considerable stature...but I don't really know any better. I just know that I was captivated by Wuthering Heights, which led me to also study her poetry and read numerous biographies, and that, the further I went, the more I was captivated by the complete picture - of a life, the life of a writer. There's really a kind of integrity between Emily Brontë's life - her personality and character - and her work. 

With Plath....I've read her novel, The Bell Jar, which was intense, profound, deep, eloquent, but (for me) a bit too raw for comfort. So, that was my first encounter with her. and then I heard about her poetry, but I've never actually studied it. Now that I'm reading this biography, I'm going to buy an edition of her poems. 

but what really got my attention is her letters and journals. I went in to a bookshop a few years ago, not necessarily intending to buy anything, and I picked up a copy of The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000) and just started reading parts of it.....I thought, this is exquisite...it was like getting to sample a range of delicious foods. So, then I bought that book, and later I bought Letters Home (1976), which is quite a large selection of Sylvia's letters, selected and edited, with commentary, by Sylvia's mother - Aurelia Schober Plath - to whom most of the letters were written. Recently, her complete letters have been published, in 2 separate volumes. 

One of the things I really like so far about RED COMET is the attention it gives to the literary tradition in which Sylvia Plath was steeped and which she helped to shape...from Chaucer on, because that's one of my interests /// literary tradition, the canon. That was one of the appeals of Sylvia's journals for me - that cognisance of literary tradition, and her desire to read and study rich, difficult books, and to engage with them in her own creative work. 

It's interesting - that intersection of secular canonicity and personal literary expression. It's interesting to think about what sense writers had/ have of the literary merit of their own work. It's a complicated issue. 

Emily Dickinson only published 10 of her 1,800 or so poems during her life, but, based on those poems, published after her death, she is now regarded as one of the giants of American poetry in the 19th century. 

A couple of interesting things I discovered from wikipedia: 

• Her biggest literary influence was Shakespeare
• One of her favourite poems was Emily Brontë's, 'No Coward Soul is Mine'

I found this great video a while ago, that was inspired by a TV series about Emily Dickinson:

Emily Dickinson • "I am a poet."

space to write

the thing i like about art is how, as it's being created, it looks like a mess, but then it becomes something. in a way, watching a video of someone creating art affords more of an appreciation of the artwork. 

maybe writing is like that too - the first parts you write, or maybe even the first full draft, are not really good writing. 

I think that's actually what Susan Sontag meant when she said that her writing is smarter than her because she can rewrite it. I think she was talking about her final products - her published books and articles. That's a bit more prosaic than I originally thought. At first I thought she was talking about the alchemy/ the magic of writing - how, just by writing, you are producing something that is special and powerful. But now I think that she's talking more about how you can invest a lot of time and thought and research in working on your writing, so that it becomes something better than what you could write at any particular time - it's smarter than you can be when you are 'thinking on your feet'. 

like, how many times, have I had conversations, and then later on I think about the perfect reply - a statement that is much more smart and insightful than what I expressed at the time?.....and there's a feeling of frustration that - I think this is a particular weakness of mine actually - that I didn't give the smart reply at the time. 

I'm generally not good at responding in the moment....I go away and think about things, and then I react. 

this idea that the work is meant to start off rough and unformed, encourages me in my work on my novel, because my feeling about it is that it's going nowhere, or at least, I don't know where it's going, and it doesn't seem like a novel. 

i just keep opening it up from time to time and adding to it. I've written about 700 words so far. I'll definitely be able to keep going. lately there have been times when I didn't know what to write for my blog, so I opened my novel and worked on it. I think now that I've got this idea - which came from the conversation I had with my writer friend - I can write a whole book about it. Not that they gave me the idea...it was more like I told them my idea(s) and they encouraged me about it and I know they know what they're talking about. Before (and still now to some extent) I had/ have this idea about what it means to write a novel, and I have something I want to write about, and there's no mutual space for the two to occupy....the main thing I drew from the conversations I had is that the two can occupy a mutual space. 

कुछ और

I was in the library the other day. I like to get 3 or 4 books and then flip through them. So, the other day, I gathered the following books, and was looking through them:

Living, Thinking, Looking by Siri Hustvedt

Generation M: Young Muslims Changing the World by Shelina Janmohamed

The Lost Art of Scripture by Karen Armstrong

God: A Human History by Reza Aslan

I mainly read Hustvedt and Aslan, as they were the ones I found most interesting. I didn't really do justice to the other two because I got really engrossed in Reza Aslan's book - so much so that I actually bought the book on Amazon, and it arrived today. 

What I found really interesting was the idea that the early books in the Bible were a conflation of a few different manuscripts written by different writers with very different styles and views. It's an interesting subject and I don't know much about it. Aslan also talks about the influence of Sumerian culture and stories (e.g. The Epic of Gilgamesh) and the influence of other world cultures, on the Bible. He even talks about how there is a sense in which there were actually 2 different Gods originally in proto-Judaism, or at least there were two very different ways of referring to God, and monotheism emerged out of that dualistic view. 

but I'm pretty disappointed by the book I received (Aslan's God). First of all, it's a short book. It's 300 pages long, but nearly half of that is notes and the index. I'm not sure exactly why....I just do not like short books. There are some exceptions, but it's because they're really good books. Shortness in itself (in books) is something I'm prejudiced against. 

but the real turn off for me was how the book ends:

Believe in God or not. Define God how you will. Either way, take a lesson from our mythological ancestors Adam and Eve and eat the forbidden fruit. You need not fear God. 

You are God.  

This is not a book that interests me, because it's based on a flawed premise. 

So, I went looking for a book that talks about a lot of the same issues but in a way that I see as reasonable and intelligent - a way that accords with my faith - and I found a kindle book I bought a while ago called, The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (2016), Edited by D. A. Carson. With length, I kind of have the opposite problem with this book, though - it's huge: 1257 pages. but, like I said, that actually disposes me in a book's favour. and it has contributuions from really good scholars - D A Carson, Craig Blomberg, Douglas J Moo, just to name a few. Actually I've never heard of a lot of the contributors but the fact that it's edited by D A Carson means that (in my view) it's solid. 

The other big Christian book I have is Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth Edited by John Macarthur and Richard L. Mayhue. It's a bit shorter - 1024 pages. 

I was watching a video where Siri Hustvedt was talking about how, in recent years, since writing her book, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves (2010) she's written a lot about neuroscience. The book, and her subsequent work in that vein isn't popular - it's serious science. She's also continued to write novels, essays, etc - which are popular. 

One of the interesting things she says about writing in the interview is:

“I have the feeling that the book knows more than I do. That I am in service to the book rather than the other way around.”

It reminded  me of something that I thought Susan Sontag said (but I searched and couldn't find it) along the lines that her writing knows more than she does. I was keen to find the actual quote because she goes on to explain what she means by that, and I can't quite remember what she said. I think she said her writing knows more than she does because she can revise it.....ah! /// after so many searches, I found the exact quote (and it was by Susan Sontag): 

“...what I write is smarter than I am. Because I can rewrite it.”

I've experienced that feeling at times....writing something and you feel like you're just the conduit for this expression to manifest itself. I think it happens after you've been working on something for a long time and you have this sense that what you're writing is insightful or true, in a way that you hardly feel like you are capable of....maybe you distilled it from all the scholars you've read in your research. 

A friend of mine once described a similar impression when playing the piano. He'd be playing some beautiful piece, and look at his hands producing that exquisite expression and have a sense of awe and wonder....something more was produced than seemed to correspond to the mechanics of the situation. 

novel

my novel is taking shape. I've written around 500 words, and I've introduced some of the major themes. 

I'd always thought that the subject matter I'm writing about was not suitable for a novel, but a conversation I had recently changed my mind, and now I'm writing about those themes. 

I feel like the technical skills I've developed from blogging and work are helping. I know how to get to the point - how to express ideas...but also, I think writing my blog has developed my creative writing skills....how to be spontaneous, random, strange. 

if it turns out to be any good, I will probably publish it on Kindle/ Amazon, as I know how to do that now, after publishing my first short book - daemons and radicals. I received my first royalty amount, and it was really small, but then, I priced it really cheaply and it's not exactly something that's going to go viral. but if I write a novel, I can charge a bit more for it and maybe it will be good and people will buy it. 

the work

I've written a couple of hundred words of my book. I'm not waiting for the official start of nanowrimo on November 1. I'm not sure how I'm going to go with nanowrimo. I'm not really enjoying the writing process. It's something I feel I have to force. 

but I'm warming up to it. I just wrote another 100 words. 

I feel like I'm actually going to be able to do it, because, for the first time, I've started and have a sense of how I will be able to continue. The other times that I started trying to write a novel, I would get so far...not very far...and just think that there's nowhere to go from here. but this time is different. what I've written isn't that great, but I have this really good idea - a kind of driving question - to keep me going. 

another creative outlet that I've re-opened is instagram, and using my phone for photos and videos. 

as for youtube.....I'm not so sure I'm gona do much more with that. I don't feel like it went well. I don't really like the work I've done. It's true that you have to be content to do things badly before you can do them well, but we're not all meant to do everything. I'll probably make a few more videos though....like, continue the excel series, but sporadically, not very regularly. I also have in mind, using my phone to make vlogging videos or something like that - maybe talk about books and so on. 

čudnosť

Once again, I went out for the day and I took with me, Harold Bloom's, Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Minds (2002). I went from page 36 to page 80. 

I was struck by how little I've read of the works and writers that Bloom talks about in this book. I have read some of them, but a lot of those I've covered so far, I know of them, but I haven't actually read them. So far, in Genius, I've covered Shakespeare, Cervantes, Montaigne, John Milton, Tolstoy, Lucretius and Vergil.....and coming up is Augustine, Dante, and Chaucer. 

Yes, I've read some Shakespeare, I've read Don Quixote by Cervantes, I've read Tolstoy's 2 major novels - War and Peace and Anna Karenina. I've read a tiny bit of Chaucer. But out of the genii in the first 80 pages, I haven't read Montaigne, Milton/ Paradise Lost, Lucretius, Virgil, Augustine, and Dante. I have their works - Montaigne's essays, Virgil's Aeneid, Augustine's Confessions, Dante's Divine Comedy, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I have them all, because I know they're good, but I haven't read them. 

and the same goes for the rest of the 100....I've read a few here and there, but there are many that I haven't. Some authors I've read a few books....like, I've read quite a lot of Dickens....actually, I think he's the author that I've read the most works of. That's partly because Dickens wrote more than most novelists - although, not crazy amounts like Balzac and Trollope (none of whose works I've read :-( ) - but it's also because I really like Dickens. But for me, nothing surpasses David Copperfield, even though the experts prefer Bleak House. And I've read a couple of Dostoevsky's novels, and, as with Dickens, I disagree with the experts. The Idiot and The Possessed are like distilled fire, and The Brothers Karamazov - which the experts say is his best, is....I dunno....it's OK. 

I like Bloom's idea of his 100....he points out that they are not the 100 best, according to anyone, including him...they're just the ones he wanted to write about. I like that about Bloom, He's such a contrarian. Even his theory - his criticism - his original contribution to the field...he calls it an antithetical criticism. He's fully committed to ranking authors - and his criterion is aesthetic power - but he seems to be equally committed to resisting that tendency. The hallmark of genius, according to Bloom is strangeness. Like, how unsystematic can you get?

a good process

I was thinking about that verse in the Bible - Hebrews 12:11:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

In the context, it's talking about how we should see the hardship we go through as discipline from God. He's our parent and he disciplines us for our good. This is where I don't really understand the Christian teachers (who otherwise I think are very sound, good teachers) who want to say that none of the bad stuff that happens comes from God....they're like, no, the bad things come from the world, and God is in you helping you deal with the bad things. And, with Romans 8:28:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

which is basically read to mean that, even when things happen that we don't like, God works it out for our good. The teachers who want to say that no challenging thing comes from God want to say that the bad stuff happens in our lives because of evil or sin (ours or other people's) or the harmful, stupid things some people do, but then God works it out so that it turns out for our good. 

To me, that teaching is kind of unsatisfying, because it's as if there is some sense in which the bad stuff wins, at least temporarily.....like things go wrong/ things go awry and a bit out of control because someone does something thoughtless, stupid or just plain bad, but then afterwards God brings about something good. I'm not really satisfied with that model and it doesn't match my experience. 

That way of thinking is true, in a way, especially from our point of view, and even the verse I quoted - 'No discipline seems pleasant at the time.....' - speaks to that reality. Now, you experience pain, and later that will yield a harvest of peace and righteousness. but the idea that - now it's bad, later it will be good is an oversimplification. The verse says, 'No discipline seems pleasant at the time....', so it's talking about how we perceive challenges. We feel pain but that pain is evidence of a process by which God is working in us and shaping us, and that process is a good thing from start to finish. 

a new school

do you want to draw unimpressive artwork that will blow people's minds? 

this is no ordinary achievement I'm talking about, so to avoid any deadwood dragging down my classes and holding everyone back, at great expense to myself, I conduct a screening process that I subject all potential aspirants to the noviciate stage of the unimpressive art academy I lead. 

Do you have what it takes? 

Yes you do. It's not a question of if, it's a question of what if?

It's one thing to blow people's minds with impressive artwork....anyone can do that, as long as they can create impressive artwork. but the next level - the level at which you will literally blow people's minds because your mind will resonate at an unparalleled frequency....is being able to blow people's minds with unimpressive art work. 

Testimonies:

Fred Red: I drew a stick figure and people were throwing money at me....I had more commissions than I could handle. I had to hire a staff of 100, rent a building and hire a security detail. 

Eric Earache: Since graduating from the unimpressive art academy, I've gone professional. I now have the skills and aptitudes to reduce my working hours to 10 minutes a fortnight. Once I learnt the secret of creating unimpressive art that blows people's minds, I can just do a few scribbles, and that's enough to support an opulant and jet-setting lifestyle. 

what is originality?

I went looking for that quote about how great writers steal, and I got an extra bonus: 

When asked about his writing influences, the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin responded, “Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.” The irony is that he was purloining as he said it, paraphrasing the great T.S. Eliot, who stated, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.” (from HuffPost, May 14, 2014)

It goes without saying that he's not talking about plagiarism. The reason I was thinking about that quote was because I was thinking about what I wrote about Jose Feliciano in my last post and about his covers of other artists' songs. It doesn't seem appropriate or respectful to say that he improves the songs he covers, but as I wrote in my earlier post, he fully owns them....which, interestingly, is another way of saying he steals them. 

When U2 recorded Helter Skelter, Bono said, Charles Manson stole this from the Beatles, now we're stealing it back. It's a cool thing to say and a worthy sentiment, but they didn't really steal it in the sense we're talking about here. It was very much a cover. They didn't really enhance or augment the song (I think). 

Someone(s) else that is a superb reinterpreter of songs is the O'Keefe Music Foundation. I mentioned them in my earlier blog post as well. Aaron O'Keefe wrote in the description box of their cover of Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine (December 10, 2012), that 'This video marks the beginning of how we will cover songs from now on. Instead of note for note covers the students will strive to reinterpret the songs, changing instrumentation, arrangement, melody, etc..' 

One of my favourite examples of this creative augmentation is the song New Noise. I like that these kids do hard rock, punk, death metal, etc - all in their own style, of course, and sometimes the lyrics have to be adjusted to be child friendly (The Pot by tool, which I included in my last blog post, is a good example of that). It's worth noting as well that they also produce very good music videos. 

So, here is their version of New Noise. And here's the original version, by Refused. I listened to the original after the O'Keefe one, and I like both. 

Harold Bloom's literary theory has this idea of stealing as one of its core principles. According to Bloom, no one really ever writes anything new, they just revise the work of those they most admire. They regard the work of their precursor(s) as perfect - unimproveable - so all they can do is reproduce it, but, to make their work original, they deliberately 'misread' their precursor(s). Bloom makes much of the idea that they wilfully do this, regardless of the many writers who insist that this is not at all what they do - that their work is not about or overdetermined by the work of other writers, as Bloom suggests. Bloom calls this phenomenon 'the anxiety of influence'.....the anxiety that I, as a writer, have nothing new or worthwhile to add, so I have to make a space by creatively misreading other writers. I come up with a wrong interpretation of the text I want to copy and then I write that. One of the things I really like about Bloom's theory is that he conflates reading and writing. So, a writer's work is their misreading of other texts - writing as reading. 

Just in case you think I'm exaggerating (or misreading Bloom), here is his main argument stated in his book The Anxiety of Influence (1973):

Poetic Influence–when it involves two strong, authentic poets–always proceeds by a misreading of the prior poet, an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a misinterpretation. The history of fruitful poetic influence, which is to say the main traditions of Western poetry since the Renaissance, is a history of anxiety and self-saving caricature, of distortion, of perverse, willful revisionism without which modern poetry as such could not exist.

To Bloom, there's nothing benign about the process of poetic influence. He doesn't believe in the idea that poets might inspire each other, or interact in a way that is mutually enriching. I forget where he wrote it and exactly how he worded it (and don't want to go looking right now) but Bloom suggests that, where the relationship between poets is friendly and collaborative, if anything, that weakens the poetry they produce. Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees with Bloom. Some poets especially, take exception to his views about how poetry works because it differs so markedly from how they see it working, and....they are the poets! 

but, to return to the O'Keefe Music Foundation songs, if there's some truth to the idea that no creative work is completely original and new - but draws on existing work - and I tend to think this is the case, even though, like many others, I think Bloom takes it a bit too far -  then ⇾ while we think of the O'Keefe versions as covers, there's a sense in which their work is as original as any other song. 

I don't think originality used to be such a big deal. Like, for example, Shakespeare didn't make up his stories from scratch. He adapted old stories, legends and historical events. He also drew on contemporary stories. It makes me think of the way hip hop music pulls samples from songs that have already been produced. Here's an example: 2pac changes (under pressure) remix. There's also 'Ice Ice Baby' which draws more heavily on the words and melody of  'under pressure', but isn't as good as the 2pac one (in my opinion). but anyway, it was quite successful and Vanilla Ice got into some copy right trouble and ended up having to pay rolyalties to Queen and David Bowie. 

But, especially in the 20th century, copy right and intellectual property became a big deal. For example, George Harrison got sued because his song My Sweet Lord sounded so much like the Chiffon's 1963 hit, He's so fine, and the judge ruled against him, although he (the judge) did say that he didn't think Harrison plagiarised deliberately. The litigation continued until 1998, and Harrison was charged with subconscious plagiarism and had to pay $1,599,987. That was simply because the melody was (admittedly) virtually identical. 

But I think - and I could be wrong about this - things are swinging back the other way in the 21st century. Like, sampling is a thing. Yes, Vanilla Ice got in trouble with his use of 'Under Pressure', but he used the melody, the words and everything. The 2pac song I linked above, just sampled the main melody, and used some of David Bowie's singing towards the end. I don't think he was cashing in on or exploiting a great song. The song also draws on 'The Way It Is' by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, and 'Changes' by Black Sabbath. 

The thing is, technically, 'changes' did breach copy right, but there was no copy right controversy or litigation about it. I don't think, in this era, there could ever be a repeat of what happened with George Harrison's 'My Sweet Lord', and I think a big part of what's changed is the way that technology has facilitated a kind of creativity that has an element of curation about it. Like, for example, on Youtube, as a result of the principle of Fair Use, you're allowed to play parts of someone else's videos (so their intellectual property) as long as you don't use too much of it and also as long as you're using it for a different purpose to that of the original video. Examples of acceptable purposes for fair use are: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. So, you're basically allowed to sample as long as you do it in the right way. 

Technology has opened up the possibility for a much wider range of people to create content, so of course a lot of that content is going to be derivative and of course there's going to be a lot of new issues and complexity around copy right. 

 

playlist

my situation with art is that I'm developing my skills in using fire alpaca - so I can do some nice abstract kind of images but I don't have good technical art skills. There's a way you're supposed to work - you do a sketch, then you do the line art, then you colour in the line art and add shading. 

so, I stopped watching tutorials about fire alpaca and clip studio paint (because they're generally about that process I just described), and I've been watching videos about doing art - traditional and otherwise - and trying to incorporate an element of realism (or stylised realism) into my images. I was going to put an image in this post, but it's too embarrassing. 

i kind of feel like a liar, and I'm struggling with the idea that I shouldn't write at all, because I'm going through mental health issues. 

In her book, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia (1989), Julia Kristeva writes (in the first sentence): 

For those who are racked by melancholia, writing about it would have meaning only if writing sprang out of that very melancholia. 

but writing or any other form of creative expression does not spring out of melancholia. It's kind of a truism - I've heard it and read it in a few different contexts - that depression is, in many ways, the opposite of expression. I'm not sure if it's a quote. I read one article that said that Dr Wayne Dyer said it. anyway, it's true. depression leads to withdrawal, and it feeds on that withdrawal. It makes you feel alone and alienated, and that is confirmed by people's response to you, because people don't know what's going on in your head so they just think you're behaving badly - so you get criticised, rejected, people leave you alone (they actually think that's what you want, because of the way you're acting, and because you're withdrawing). So you feel worse and withdraw more and feel worse and withdraw more, etc. You think, based on their reactions to you, that no one would be interested in hearing about how you're feeling and why you're acting the way you are. 

but unfortunately, it's not a simple equation where you negate your depression by expression. 

Sometimes songs help. Here are some of the songs I've found helpful:

Audrey Assad　Breaking You

Tell Your Heart To Beat Again - Danny Gokey

Lauren Daigle - You Say (Cover by Nadia Khristean ft. Rise Up Children's Choir)

You're Gonna Be Okay (Lyric Video) - Brian & Jenn Johnson

Plumb - Beautifully Broken

Matthew West - The God Who Stays

Lauren Daigle - Rescue

Casting Crowns - Oh My Soul

It's interesting that they're all Christian songs. It's not that I don't like secular songs.....hey, I've never been a particular fan of Christian music. I like Greenday....listening to them now actually....and Pearl Jam and Grimes, Powderfinger....and Tool....and O'Keefe Music Foundation's kids' versions of Tool....like, check these out:

The Pot by Tool Version 1 / O'Keefe Music Foundation

The Pot by Tool Version 3 / O'Keefe Music Foundation

but where do you go when you actually really need hope, when you need help? When you need a bit more than some encouragement or a kind word? When you're beyond help? When there's no chance things are going to work out? When everything seems to be ending and dying and falling apart? There's only one place that I know where there is redemption. 

.....anyway, as I was writing that I was thinking about all the secular music I love. Here are 2 of the best cover versions ever: 

Purple Haze Jose Feliciano / Jimi Hendrix

I'm not gona say that Feliciano outdoes Hendrix here, because that's not really possible, but he does his own extremely good rendition. He also does some excellent covers of the Beatles and The Mommas and the Papas and other bands from the 60's and 70's, where he does a similar thing....his version is his own - he owns it. 

Powderfinger - While My Guitar Gently Weeps (The Beatles Cover)

Powderfinger was one of the great (Australian) bands. I think they're up there with INXS and AC/DC, but somehow they didn't get the international recognition they deserved. Maybe they didn't court it. Not sure what happened. Anyway, they're one of those bands whose live performances (like INXS and AC/DC) as good as, and sometimes better than, their studio performances. 

Coda:

José Feliciano - California Dreamin' 

novel means new

I mentioned the conversation I had with a writer friend about my plans for nanowrimo. The talk raised, not problems, but issues. it gave me much more of an ambitious vision, but 2 things: 

• I don't know how to achieve that vision
• it is at odds with my intentions for nanowrimo. I don't mean that in a bad way, like, how could you suggest that? there's no way I want to do that! It's more about how my plan for actually being able to get the novel written in a month involved making it easy for myself to write, like I did for when I did Inktober - I followed tutorials that were basically designed for kids. My plan was to write something very experimental/ fragmented/ unstructured, but my writer friend did 2 things:

• inspired me with a vision of what would actually make a really good novel - like a really good novel - and I want to write it, but....
• he talked about the technicalities of writing a novel or a story or screenplay or anything like that, and, basically, it's like with art....I don't know if I can achieve the technicalities, and I don't actually know if I want to. 

I have a strange confidence that I can resolve these issues, or maybe it's just that it doesn't really matter. It's not a problem in the sense that anything is at stake. It's like with art....yes, I know that my technical skills are nowhere near pretty much all the art tubers I watch, but it doesn't matter because I can do whatever I want. I can make bad art which isn't really bad because I'm creating something that at least I like. 

ପର୍ବତଗୁଡିକ

I think I mentioned that I like to listen to the art youtube channels that are more chatty/ vlogy while I do other things. I found a new one that I really like: Jonna Jinton. She has a website as well. Her videos and her works in general are so rustic and natural and yet so elegant and fine at the same time. 

sometimes, in the morning, when I walk the doggoes, I look up at the mountains, with the sun shining on them, and you can see the rock, cliff faces as well as the bushland...I look at them and I think how cool it would be to have a place there...like a farm or something and work the land and things like that. It's not about possessing anything. It's more about connection. It makes me think of Abraham - how God said to him: “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.” (Genesis 13:14 - 17) 

I went outside and actually took a picture of the mountains in the distance, but then I thought...I don't wanna dox myself, so I'm not using that image. anyway, I found a much nicer one on one of the several websites I find free images on. I think it captures the spirit of what I'm talking about nicely. 

രാത്രി

I used to like going to the computer labs at uni late at night to work on essays. They were open 24 hours a day, so you could go there any time - you just swiped into the building with your student card. 

I've always liked working at night. At night, there's a kind of timelessness. There's a sense in which you aren't constrained or bound in the way you are during the day. 

An example of a night: 

• I lived in this house (I think it was in Parramatta) and this house was quite old and it had a fireplace. One cold night, we went out looking for fire wood and found some, and had a wood fire.

I'm watching a sketchbook tour...☕️ SKETCHBOOK TOUR #1 (2020) || PLUS My Main Art Supplies! [[[and it's night time now (so it relates to this post)]]]. I was just going to listen to it as I write....I do that - I listen to the more vlog/ chat type art videos, and other videos, while I write or do other stuff....but I got intrigued by what she was talking about and kept checking it out and thinking how great it was. the pages are literally works of art. 

in the darkness is where the light shines. 

compromise

 Thomas Mann said: 

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

That quote came to mind yesterday when someone who is an experienced writer in different media - novels, screenplays, etc - was giving me advice about my upcoming nanowrimo project. I hadn't asked for advice....I was just sharing that I'm going to do it, but the advice was really good...it gave me more of an idea of what I could write. But it raises the problem that I always seem to face when it comes to writing a novel. 

I've figured that the only way I'm going to be able to do nanowrimo is if I make it really easy for myself, but the ideas I took from the conversation yesterday were not easy things /// they were exciting and interesting things. But my writer friend, at the same time as inspiring all of these ambitious ideas, was also advising me not to worry about the quality of the first draft - just get it done. 

So, I'll probably combine the two - write it in a way that is easy for me, and, draw on some of the interesting ideas that came from my conversation yesterday. 

starting a book

I finally decided on a book to read - Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Examplary Minds (2002) by Harold Bloom. 

Yesterday I decided (kind of on the spur of the moment, although there were particular things I needed to do in the near future) that I was going to go out. I knew that I was going to be on the train and waiting around for fairly lengthy periods of time, so I wanted to take a book with me. I looked at the selection I have on my shelf that are my 'to be read' books in order, but I had that feeling of.....in theory, yes, these are the books - and the first one is the book - I want to read next/ first, but, when the moment comes, I'm not so sure. 

I was just not that excited about any of those first 15 or so 'to be read' books that I keep on the shelf above my desk, so I looked at all my other books. I think the deciding factor - against the ostensible TBR books and for the book I actually chose - is scope. This is one of Bloom's book - like The Western Canon (1994) - that encompasses pretty much the whole of human cultural history. So, there's scope, and with Bloom there is also always depth. 

side note: I was thinking just now that, actually, I could have taken my kindle with me and then had a range of books to choose from and not have to carry the weight of a book....so I got out my kindle and had a look at it...and all the books have gone. my library is empty. These days I read the kindle books on my kindle desktop app, and that still has all my kindle books in it. still....why aren't they on my kindle? 

Bloom is fascinating on religion. It's kind of a secondary area of expertise of his, which flows from his literary interests. He's written a few books about religion and the Bible (specifically the King James Bible) and often refers to Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, gnosticism and other religious ideas, in his work. Among the genii, in Genius, are the Yahwist (the writer of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible), the Apostle Paul, and Muhammad. He makes this astonishing (and true) observation about Muhammad and the Qur'an:

No one else in human religious history has given us a text in which God alone is the speaker. 

For Christians and Jews, this is true of the Bible, but in a slightly different way. It's still literally true - the New Testament says that 'all scripture is God breathed' (NIV) or 'inspired by God' (NASB, KJV and a lot of the more literal interpretations). But the idea is that God worked through humans to write it, so, from a human point of view, especially at the time it was written, there is a sense in which it is the work of human beings. That it was written by hundreds of different authors, from all different walks of life, over a period of thousands of years, makes it all the more impressive that it forms not just a coherent text, but a work of great literary value and aesthetic power, as well as being regarded as the very word of God by people of faith. 

Muslims also believe in the Bible in a sense. They believe in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) but they believe that it was later corrupted so that it's no longer reliable. Similarly, they believe in the gospel, but they don't believe that the books called gospels by Christians (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are a faithful representation of the gospel or that the message preached by the apostle Paul (as the gospel) is faithful to the true gospel. My understanding is that they believe the gospel was made known by divine revelation to Jesus, but has since been lost. But they also believe in the book of Psalms, and it seems like, of all the three aspects or parts of the Bible they recognise, this is the one they regard as most authentic and uncorrupted. So, if you were trying to engage in some kind of inter-faith dialogue, this may be a good place to turn. But there's so many interesting areas of overlap between the Qur'an and the Old Testament. I've listened to teaching from the Qur'an about figures and events from the Old Testament and the message is very conversant with Christian teaching about the Old Testament. In some ways it's better (the Islamic teaching on the Old Testament, I mean)....it's kind of earthy and practical - really looking at the life and experience of figures in the Bible (like Moses, for example) and relating it to our life and experience - including spiritual experience. 

But, getting back to the point - yes - while the Bible is written in all different formats and in a direct sense, was written down by humans, while, in a higher sense, it is fully God's expression, the Qur'an is more directly an expression of God as it is. Muslims believe that the Qur'an was dictated from God by the angel Gabriel to Muhammad, so the words were literally spoken by God. That's why the words - the actual words in the original Arabic - are so important to Muslims and are used in prayer and other religious activities. Even in teaching about the Qur'an and Islam, although the speaker may teach in English or whatever other language the audience recognises, they will begin by reading the main passage out fully in Arabic, and they will frequently refer to the Arabic wording and its meaning during their teaching - because the Qur'an in Arabic is the real thing - the Qur'an in its pure and real form - and a translation is more on the level of a paraphrase. 

For Christians though, the Bible in translation is regarded as the very word of God. This might seem problematic, but on reflection it's no more problematic - it's a similar kind of mystery - to the coincidence of human free-will and God's sovereignty. God is in absolute control. Nothing happens that God doesn't either allow or cause. But humans have absolute freewill. That seems like a contradiction, but a lot of the time, when something seems like a contradiction, it's simply because we don't understand it. We can't conceive of how it can be true, but our understanding is limited. It's actually arrogant on our part when we think that, just because something doesn't make sense to us, that it doesn't make sense and can't be true. In modern science, quantum physics has forced us to accept that. 

I didn't get that much of the book read. I got up to page 36. One of Bloom's main interests in this book is the influence of genius on itself - like, how did Shakespeare's writing of each of his plays contribute to his growth as a writer and lead to later works? So, with that question, he facilitates a movement away from viewing scriptural books, like the Bible and the Qur'an, through the prism of spirituality to viewing them as literary creations by an author(s). After all, that's what he's interested in - literary creation by human authors. 

anyway, it's good to be started on a book. 

վեպ

I'm going to participate in nanowrimo this year (national novel writing month). So, I'm going to write a 50,000 word (or so) novel by the end of November. Officially you're not supposed to start writing until November, but I'm not going to be strict about that. I've started writing/ planning my novel already. I gave it a name /// which has nothing to do with anything - I don't even know what my novel's going to be about yet, so how could I give it an appropriate title...so it's just a word. I've registered on the website and I think you're meant to actually write the novel on the website, and it's like a competition and someone wins and you get recognised for participation, but I'm not that worried about that part of it. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to write it as a word document. I'm more keen about doing the thing than all the peripheral stuff around it....but we'll see....it might be fun to participate in a more official way. 

The idea of writing a novel - not to mention, writing it in a month! - has always been daunting for me. I should mention that nanowrimo actually allows for other forms as well...so I could have chosen a form I feel more comfortable with, but I decided I want to write a novel, although it may not be a very conventional type of novel...it might break a lot of the rules and might not even be recognisable as a novel. but about the challenge...I'm going to approach it like I approached inktober a couple of years ago. Because I can't draw, the idea of producing an ink illustration every day for a month was quite daunting. but what I did was that I found a lot of very easy tutorials on youtube (that were really meant for kids) and just did one each day. I would get a drawing done each day in about 5 or 10 minutes. The results were not great works of art, but they weren't too bad at the same time. They were better than anything I could draw just from my imagination. I drew different cartoon characters, animals, plants....all kind of cartoony, not realistic. 

so, with nanowrimo I'm going to take a similar approach - not necessarily by watching youtube videos (though maybe I will....) \\\ I will write in a way that's easy for me....I'm not going to think of it as writing a proper literary novel....it's going to be more like 50,000 words of stuff that is funny or interesting or weird or [fill in adjective]. 

To complete the 50K, you have to write 1.5K a day ||| but of course that presumes you don't start writing until November.....still, even with the extra time I have, it means writing quite a lot each day. but I know that, if I write in a different way to how I normally write, it won't be that hard to meet the goal. I always think too much and read what I've already written over and over - I have a very strong inner censor. So, writing more means turning that censor off. It's kind of about caring less, actually. and key to that is that I'm not necessarily going to share what I write...though I would like to....I might even publish it, or it could be the first draft of something I will develop into something I will publish. but yeah, my focus will be on getting the words done, and less on writing well. 

ලዪαኬｇĵљｇ Рατれऽ

I watched this interesting youtube video - From Physics To Literature - My Story. The guy - R.C. Waldun - talks about how his initial love for physics, maths, engineering type stuff got lost in the academic rigours of early university study of those subjects, and then he found that passion again in philosophy, history, languages - humanities, basically. I can relate in some ways but in other ways not. For me, things are a lot messier than they seem to be for him. It seems like the humanities - and the study of the humanities at uni, and learning languages, and being a novelist and writer, represents a kind of panacea that has met all his needs. 

But what I wonder about is how his humanities path was completely free from the stifling effect of having to approach things in a mechanical way, because it's not just science and maths that involve that aspect. Actually, I'm sure a lot of mathematicians and scientists would take issue with his portrayal of their subject area as being purely mechanical. In fact some did in the comments section. I think what he experienced is more an aspect of the early stages of the study of maths/ science/ engineering - what you have to do in first year. 

There's nothing wrong with him dramatically changing his path. It's great that he was able to find something that he is passionate about and be successful at. 

But I don't quite get his logic. So, he went to a maths/ science/ medicine/ engineering school for high achievers because of his passion for solving problems in theoretical physics and his obvious brilliance, but then when he got going with the course he felt stifled by how mechanical the learning process was and also by how competitive everyone was. It seems like his thinking style/ learning style didn't fit in that context. but what's interesting to me is that he took refuge in reading some of the most heavy, intellectually demanding philosphical/ theoretical texts in existence. That's interesting to me because it challenges my idea of intelligence as being a kind of homogenous thing. Maybe maths and science require a whole different kind of intelligence to the kind that can engage with high level philosophy and literary/ cultural theory. anyway, it's good to hear someone say something good about post-modernism, Derrida, Foucault, etc. for a change. Speaking of that, another interesting link here is that James Lindsay, who is currently one of the most strident critics of post-modernism, critical theory, and everything associated with it, has a degree in physics and a doctorate in mathematics. That's one of the weaknesses, I think, in many of the arguments against critical theory ||| a lot of the people making the criticism have no expertise, and no real interest, in the field of critical theory. They haven't properly engaged with the ideas - they've just engaged with one manifestation of them. And I agree that that manifestation they have experienced is kind of ugly and unpleasant, but that doesn't mean the whole field is corrupt and malevolent. For example - just to choose one kind of theory - post-colonial theory. Post-colonial theory may inform some very subversive ideologies, but, as a theory, it has a lot of interesting things to say, especially about literature. Don't forget - that's primarily what it is - it's a literary theory. At least that's how I see it, but maybe that's because my interest is in literature and literary theory.  

I would love to hear R C Waldun debate James Lindsay...or maybe not. Things have gotten quite nasty in that whole debate, and, as I've written about on my blog before, there are some academics and some Christians who vehemently despise critical theory. Any debate is likely to be a kind of uncivil fight. The debate occurs, it's just that the two sides write and speak in different venues because they hate each other. 

anyway, getting back to the video and R C Waldun....I can't help thinking that he can only evade the mechanical aspect/ the discipline, in the humanities because he's so brilliant. For me or you, reading Derrida, Hegel, Foucault is not going to be 'comfort reading' - a refuge from the confines of academic rigour...it's more like the opposite. Also, he says in the video that he became interested in French from learning about the French Revolution in his history studies, so he's going to study French in his second year at uni, but isn't learning a language a kind of mechanical process? Then again, I think about someone like Harold Bloom whose parents apparently only spoke Yiddish, but he had taught himself to read Yiddish, Hebrew and English by the age of 6, and then became obsessed with the poetry of Hart Crane and William Blake at around 10 or 11, which led to his brilliant career in literary scholarship. It's hard to imagine Bloom excelling in any other area of scholarship besides the humanities. 

Like many brilliant people, Bloom actually didn't do that well in the school system (though he did ace the standardised tests). But once he went to university and started his academic career he quickly became a figure of massive influence. 

I've known people who pursued medicine as a career, but then, once they started studying it, they found it tedious because, in the early stages, there's a lot of drudge work - e.g. memorising the names of the thousands of parts of human anatomy. It's ironic that, to get into medicine, you have to be among the best of the best academically,  but then, when you get into the course, at least in the early stages, it's not very intellectually stimulating. You can see the same effect at other stages of careers as well....like with law. Like medicine, to get into law, you have to be among the best of the best academically (at least here in Australia) but I don't think that issue of being tedious in the initial stages is as big a problem with law....studying law is quite interesting and intellectually stimulating from the start, as long as you have the right kind of disposition. But then, I've heard from people who did law, graduated, then became lawyers, and absolutely hated it, because, when you first start your actual career, (apparently ... according to this person I spoke to) you have to spend the first few years doing really boring, tedious drudge work. That may not be the case for everyone, but I think that's true as a general principle. Whatever kind of career you pursue, it seems like, when you start actually working, you have to start at a basic level, and there's a sense in which it's just in the nature of work to involve things that aren't that interesting or stimulating. 

Thinking about all of this, I better understand R.C. Waldun's attraction to the humanities. I felt that myself, absolutely. In many ways I am like him. If you had told me in high school that I would end up pursuing literature, history and education as some of the main strands of my career, I would have thought there was no way. In late high school, I was encouraged to do science subjects and maths and economics. English was my worst subject. I never even thought of doing history. But then, after a few years, and trying out different courses and working in admin, I realised (I think around my mid twenties) that I was actually really interested in English, History and education - all things that I had not even considered as options when I was younger. 

poem

some people are quite critical of The Message by Eugene Peterson, which is called a translation of the Bible (and maybe technically it is, in some sense) but it's really more of a paraphrase, just because of the liberties he takes in recontextualising and modernising it. a good translation will be accessible to modern readers but be cognisant of the original context, but Peterson, in elucidating the message, refers to things that are completely foreign to the original context. To give a couple of examples, in Psalm 23, where the standard translations have 'though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil', The Message has: 'Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I'm not afraid'....what makes that problematic is that Death Valley is a literal place in modern day California. 

Probably the best example I know of to illustrate this point is John 2:15 - 16. The NIV has:

So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”

The Message has: 

Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, “Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall!”

I think that's going too far in the direction of transposing the text into our world. I don't hate The Message. Some people do. They think it's actually evil - a perversion of God's word. But some people say the same thing about the NIV, the NLT, or, in fact, every translation other than the King James Version. I don't want to get into that debate, although there's a lot I could write about it, because, as I've written before, I don't like making an argument or making a case. There's a long list of points that I would make if I was going to do that, but I don't want to. 

With The Message though, I used to quite like it, but then, when I tried to use it to actually study the Bible and explore the meaning of the text, I found it unworkable. It gives you one meaning, and that's it - there's nothing further to consider - whereas the other, more standard translations provide scope for really thinking more deeply about the meaning of the text, and coming up with your own understanding. The Message is really 'the Bible according to Eugene Peterson', and he would probably have no argument with that because it's literally true. Even though I don't think it's good for studying the Bible or reading it closely, I think it does sometimes shed an interesting light on some passages. 

But the reason I'm writing about The Message is because I wanted to write something about another translation that has been heavily criticised - The Passion Translation. The criticism of it is that it has obviously been written to serve the agenda of a movement within Christianity called 'The New Apostolic Reformation', which a lot of mainstream Christian leaders and groups regard as being in error, to the point where it's heretical - it's a false gospel, which is a very serious thing. There's also the criticism that, like The Message, the translation is largely the work of one man - Brian Simmons, while other translations are a collaborative effort of a team of scholars. I've done quite a lot of research (i.e. watching YouTube videos) about the NAR, and also I've listened to critiques of The Passion translation that talk about why it is not a good translation. Not everyone is super-critical of The Passion Translation - some people who seem pretty balanced and reasonable have some good things to say about it. There seems to be more strong criticism of it though, than there is praise, which makes sense because there is a lot of strong criticism of the New Apostolic Reformation movement that this translation came out of. And even the people who have good things to say about it seem to still put it in the same category as The Message....it's good to read to get fresh insights, but it doesn't sustain close reading or study. 

but something very interesting happened. I was watching a Christian YouTube video, and it wasn't anything extreme or radical...it was quite moderate and reasonable and grounded....which is what I tend to prefer. Then, in this video, the presenter referred to a passage in the Bible that I had heard/ read before, but it was expressed in a different way, and I really liked the way it was expressed - it really spoke to me, and it struck me as an accurate and insightful translation. So I did a search to find out which translation the presenter was talking about, and it was The Passion Translation. 

The passage was Ephesians 2:10. 

In the NASB, which is one of the more literal/ word for word translations (as opposed to thought for thought), Ephesians 2:10 has:

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

In the Passion Translation the same verse reads: 

We have become his poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!

Using the term 'poetry' is a very insightful and eloquent rendering because the root meaning of the word 'poem' is simply 'something that is made', so this translation carries the rich double meaning of God creating, in the sense of making something (or someone), but also creating in the sense of making something beautiful or meaningful. 'Workmanship' brings to mind something a bit more mechanical (maybe that's just me). I'm probably biased because of my interest in literature. But interestingly, when I looked up the Greek wording of Ephesians 2:10, the Greek word that is used is: ποίημα or, to transliterate: poiēma. So, while most translators focus on the fact that the Greek word ποίημα means basically 'to make', Brian Simmons has drawn on the rich double meaning of the word. And, when I look at the online etymological dictionary at the word poēma, which is an early variant of the word poiēma, it has that double meaning:

Greek poēma "fiction, poetical work," literally "thing made or created," early variant of poiēma, from poein, poiein, "to make or compose"

So, it's not like Simmons is introducing some modern spin on the word. It's more like he's drawing out a meaning that was already there.  

ұйымдастыру

I forgot that caffeine is a drug. I always drink decaf these days, but I just had a caffeinated instant coffee (Moccona) and it really lifted my mood. 

I do a lot of printing. Some people make use of multiple screens ||| I rename my documents - changing the start of the name - so I can distinguish and easily move between documents, but I also print so I can plan things out on paper and also compare the printed out documents with the document on the screen. 

I actually always make lots of notes on paper. I make lists and schedules and stick some of them up on the backboard in front of my desk, or just have these loose sheets that I refer to. I write any important things I need to address on my current sheet. I also use a kind of hard copy diary, but I don't use it like a diary. I don't write things under the relevant date. My 'diary' is just a long to-do list, so at the moment I'm just using a notebook. \\\ I keep in my backpack, along with my 2019 diary, which I just kept using after 2019 - in the way I described: just listing stuff - but then I got to the end of it, so I started using this notebook. It's a notebook I bought from one of those Japanese stationery shops. It has a lot of names on it and I'm not sure which is the brandname - Paper Pocket/ Signature Range/ The Blooms Collection (actually I did a google search and the brand name is Paper Pocket). The cover has lots of little doodle pics of plants. It has different sections:

• First page spread
• page 1 - Weeky To Do List, with a separate square for each day and a big lined square called 'Overview'
• page 2 has the following sections:
• Must do this week
• Calls to make (with tick boxes)
• emails to write (with tick boxes)
• 'Just get it done' project!!! (their exclamation marks) 
• Second page spread - grids with some plant doodles
• Third page spread - dot grids with some plant doodles
• Fourth page spread - Notes Page with lines - with heading 'Notes'
• Then a repetition of second, third and fourth
• Then a repetition of the first page spread - weekly plan
• And the whole book repeats that pattern over and over, with every once in a while, a whole page with larger plant doodles. 

But how do I use it? Like a barbarian, I just write an ongoing to-do list...that's it...I just list all these things I have to do, with no organisation whatsoever. It's not really a good system. The idea is that I regularly check it and do the stuff on the list, but I tend not to do that. Usually I end up doing things when they become more urgent or they're on my mind. Every now and then I look through the book(s). 

One of the things that isn't really part of the ongoing to do list that I've written in these books is an ongoing list of life goals, which I like referring to, and adding to from time to time.  

But with all the different sections and tick-boxes and stuff....I've never really liked that kind of pre-arranged planning template - like filofax organisers and bullet journals. I know that some people use those systems to good effect - to actually be organised and to work towards goals (one big step beyond what I'm doing in just writing down my goals) - but for me it seems like actually doing the bullet journaling or filofaxing or whatever is like a project in itself. I don't see it helping me to get stuff done || instead it seems like it is itself one more thing to do. and it's actually the kind of thing I would add to my list....'develop/ adopt better organisation system/ start bullet journaling/ ....' 

But now that I'm really reflecting on it, it's becoming something I'm actually interested in...like art or coding. I'm watching a few youtube videos on it. From what I can tell, the key is to make it your system. I have a system - I have daily goals = things that I try to do every day (they're the same things every day), I have my diary/ to do type books, and like I said, I have these loose sheets that I keep close at hand, with things that are fairly immediately important. I could probably improve my system by adopting some of the bullet-journaling type things....

....but, to be honest, it just seems like a lot of work....it's like you're taking a blank book and then creating a diary in it - with all these boxes and sections and headings. I think what I will do is do some research and work on developing and improving my organisation system. I'm keen to do more digitally actually. Like, maybe I can use google calendar, outlook, Trello, todoist, kanban, etc.....actually, looking at the different platforms notion.so looks the most interesting. I've heard good things about it, it's free and it looks fun to use. It looks like you can do a lot of different things with it.  I'm kind of intrigued by the analog side of things too - like bullet journaling and sticking notes on the wall or a whiteboard or something. 

content to do things badly

I did it - I bought clip studio paint. One of the cool things about it is that there are two interfaces - the one you draw with, and one about news and how to do things - and with the one about how to do things there are a lot of tutorials, but the tutorials seem to be written by anyone who wants to write one. I think there are some 'official' ones made by the clip studio paint team, but then there are others that are posted by just anyone who wants to share how to do something. It's like a collaborative blog....there's a 'New Post' button that you can press and then you can create one of these tutorials....they're about things like how to draw different things - food, robots /// actually, there are so many about food and robots (and humanoids) /// and there are others about different tools, like different kinds of layers and gradient maps and how to achieve certain effects - e.g. how to make your work look like an oil painting. 

I did one of the official tutorials called 'Making your first illustration'. I skipped a lot of it and my drawing was really bad but I learnt the one thing I've been wanting to learn, which is how to use layers. I already knew it basically, but I thought it was more complicated than it actually is. There is a lot more that you can do with layers than what I now know, but I've done it now - I've drawn something with layers. It's basically a lot of transparencies on top of each other and you draw different aspects of the image on the different layers. It helps with things like, for example, say if you were using a watercolour brush and you were interspersing two colours, but you didn't want them to mix, you would put them on different layers, and, even though, in the image, they're touching, because they're on different layers, they aren't, and so they can't leak together. Or another use is that you can draw an initial sketch (which is something I've discovered is a standard thing when you do a painting), and then you reduce the opacity on that layer, so it's really faint ||| then you do the line art, which is where you convert the rough sketch, with all its sketchy lines, into clear lines (another thing that I've learnt artists do). Then once you have the lines, you can actually make the layer with the sketch on completely disappear. Then you add colour and shading, and, like I said, you (can) do the different parts on different layers. There's also a technique called (I think) layer clipping, which makes it really easy to add colour because, somehow, the only part of the layer you can add colour to is the part inside the shape your colouring....so you don't have to worry about carefully staying inside the lines. 

Anyway, I've been working on my third abstract painting in fire alpaca, and I've done my first, extremely bad but enlightening, picture in clip studio paint, so I'm making progress. I haven't done much with Krita yet. 

One of the reasons I decided to buy clip studio paint, besides the fact that it's a really good program used by professional level artists, and I'm keen to make good art, is that it's really reasonably priced. Also, it's a one off payment, so now I have it for life. Adobe have converted to a subscription scheme where you have to pay every year and it's quite expensive. It's probably better - it's the industry standard - but for my purposes, there's pretty much a cheap or free alternative for everything. 

For example, Krita, Gimp and Inkscape are all free and are really good. Apparently, over time, Krita has become more and more like photoshop. It even looks like photoshop. When I key in the words 'is Krita' into the youtube search bar, the first auto-complete that comes up is 'is Krita as good as photoshop?' Interestingly, the video that comes up was made by someone who uses photoshop all the time for work, and she wanted to compare it with Krita (which she hadn't used before). something else interesting, she uses a wacom intuos (which is the one I have - not the one where you draw on the actual screen - you draw on the tablet and it appears on your computer screen). That's encouraging because she's a professional level artist, so it shows that the step 'up' to the tablets where you're actually drawing on the screen is not all that important. She talks about how photoshop is the industry standard - like, if you work at Disney or something like that, you would use photoshop. Her overall assessment was that Krita compares very well with photoshop...it's lacking some of the more fancy features that photoshop has, but even she tends not to use those more advanced features. 

I mentioned Gimp and Inkscape as well as Krita because I think you can regard them as a kind of suite. Gimp isn't actually that good for art (at least, some people think that, and I agree) - it's more useful for editing photos and creating special effects, so that corresponds to one of the main functions of photoshop. And Inkscape corresponds to Adobe illustrator. Like Illustrator it's used for vector art, which basically means that when you zoom in, the shapes and images retain their definition and don't become pixelated. So, it's good for creating bright, colourful, cartoony type images, logos and things like that. 

For video editing, Adobe has Premier Pro, and a free alternative to that, which is extremely good, is Blender. Blender does a lot more besides. It's an awesome program used by professional animators, film editors, game developers, and lots of other creative people. It's so good and has so much technical capacity that it's a bit daunting. I'm pretty sure that, if you wanted to, you could probably do everything that all the programs I've mentioned so far can do, and more - much more - with blender. 

For music and sound production, there are a number of great, free DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) like Audacity, LMMS, etc 

For animation, Adobe has Flash and Animate, but most of the art programs I already mentioned can do animation as well - Blender, Krita, Fire Alpaca, Gimp, Inkscape and Clip Studio Paint, can all do animation. I've heard that Clip Studio Paint is particularly good for animation. And of course Blender is awesome at animation because animation (especially in games) is one of the main things it was designed for. There are also some very good free programs that specialise in animation, like Open Toonz. Open Toonz used to be a paid service (and it was called just Toonz) and it's been used to create some really great animations. For example, it was used extensively (and further developed and customised) by Studio Ghibli, the famous Japanese animation studio responsible for some of the greatest anime films ever produced - like, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle.

but I wonder whether I will ever be good at art. Maybe it doesn't matter. I like this quote from Andy Warhol: 

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”