“Don’t be a ‘writer.’ Be writing.” —William Faulkner
Ten steps to being a writer. Five rules to writing a great novel. Or seven rules. Or fifteen. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many rules, how many steps, how many lessons, who gives the advice, and what intentions they had behind it, because most of you don’t even see the staircase.
You want to know the truth? Continue reading So, You Want to Be a Writer…
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What is art exactly?
It’s all art. The way you dress, how you walk, how you talk. It’s all art. Poetry and philosophy and paintings and songs and movies and the soundtracks of those movies – sometimes even their reviews are art. Every joke ever made, every scribbled note, every photograph. All the fairy tales and the ballads and the legends.
It’s all art.
Architecture. City planning. A mathematical algorithm. A software program. A smartphone. The Internet.
The way the stars shine bright against the night sky. The sound of the rain. The smell of flowers on a summer afternoon.
This world, and everything in it.
It’s all art.
Every bit of beauty that was ever witnessed by another human being is art. Everything that ever made us forget ourselves in admiration, every little thing that took our breath away.
It’s all art.
And we’re all artists.
“I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.” – Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential painters of all time, but his work received no recognition during his lifetime. His paintings were often described as being too dark and lacking the bright liveliness of the Impressionist paintings of the time. He produced more than 900 works during his lifetime, but only sold one painting, Red Vineyard at Arles.
Paul Gaugain. El Greco. Claude Monet. Johannes Vermeer. Stendhal. Franz Kafka. Sylvia Plath.
What do all these artists have in common?
They only became famous after their deaths.
And the list goes on and on…
It’s almost as if that’s a rule, right? Some fundamental principle of the universe. Artists can aspire to barely make a living, if that.
Then how can one become a successful artist?
Well, there are three simple things to keep in mind. Continue reading Do You Want to Be a Successful Artist?
“Archaeologists have not discovered stages of human existence so early that they were without art. Right back in the early morning twilights of mankind we received it from Hands which we were too slow to discern. And we were too slow to ask: FOR WHAT PURPOSE have we been given this gift? What are we to do with it?” – Alexandr Solzhenitsyn – Nobel Lecture
There is not even a single person on this planet that does not consume art. Regardless of their race, sex, religious beliefs, level of culture, education, income, political affiliation, there isn’t a single human being who does not consume some sort of art. Music is a good example of an artistic medium that is indispensable.
You could probably give up on a lot of things that define who you are, what you do, what you have, but you wouldn’t be able to give up on art.
No Netflix and chill? Ever?
But how is art going to save the world? Continue reading TMM: Art Will Save The World
Ever since we first invented the written language and decided to try and document our experiences and pass down knowledge, there has also been the risk of losing certain books. Paper does burn, which is a tragic statement given the context.
Of course, we will never know about all the great books that have been lost during the ages, but we do have some clues as to what some of them contained.
Here are five lost books that could have changed the world.
Continue reading 5 Lost Books that Could Have Changed The World
Tonight’s muse comes with a picture. Just one, and that’s all you get. Oh, and a question:
Isn’t it true that the best of stories always seem to be closer to reality than they are to fiction?
They transfigure their medium, becoming something else, much more valuable than words on paper, sentences glued together.
The best of stories are always more… more than all their components put together, more than just storytelling or mastery of the word. The best of stories are closer to revealing who we are than anything else we’ll ever create.
