The Creation of Fiction (a story of the universe)

Once upon a time, the great pools of energy that whorl and moved about, were like a canvas and all souls used them to create the ever-changing art of lives and worlds. Change was the only constant. If one soul said, my hair is purple, it was so. If another said, I want rain, it was so. All were like gods, co-creators in the playground of the universe. Anything was possible.

One day, one of the souls did not like the way things were going in another's world and said, "You are dead." The other soul was snuffed of its life, but someone else observed the interaction and said, "He will be alive once more." And, because all stories were equal, the one who was dead, became alive again. But his enemy was furious. He muttered and huffed and puffed, searching for a way to permanently destroy his rival. One day he found it. In the presence of all, he declared, ONLY MY STORY IS TRUE. ALL OTHERS ARE UNTRUE.

A shudder went through the fabric of the universe. There was silence for a long time. Eventually, someone tried, "I have a farm of dinosaurs." Nothing happened. The world had changed and reality had lost the ability to flow and alter with the thoughts of all. Will it remain permanently locked, or is there a way to fix this? This is my riddle and another koan. What words will undo the creation of fiction and liberate the universe to become once again, like it was, a world drawn by the stories of all?

(t.y.m.)

Ignorance?

Most people are irritated by ignorance, but I make a point of not being one of them. Ignorance is my clown and my muse. Ignorance makes me smile like fireworks at New Years, because from the dark earths of unknowing, some of the most beautifully impossible flowers are spawned to delight me.

Not quite #fridayflash fiction - The reflection and the echo...

This is just a bit of experimental story-telling. I came across this website on a rainy Sunday afternoon and wanted to play a little with the form....

The Siblings (for Theo and Nannerl)

I've been wanting to write this blogpost for some time. We all admire artists, often a whole lot better once they are dead and gone. But we often forget the price paid by their family members... the ones who invisibly served as gatekeepers to a great spirit truly gaining the opportunity to express itself. Behind many creative people, you will find parents who financed music lessons, sisters and brothers who paid the groceries, or perhaps merely through their presence, became the bridges to excellence.

Theo Van Gogh idolized his older brother Vincent and financial supported him. It is known that the only Van Gogh that sold in the artist's lifetime was bought by his younger brother, but how many people realize that we owe Theo a great debt for each and every coveted Van Gogh that now sells for millions at auctions. Theo bought Vincent's art supplies and regularly sent him financial means to support himself, but Theo also encouraged the development of his artistic style through regular feedback on Vincent sketches and plans and also by introducing him to other prominent artists of the era such as Paul Gauguin, Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau, Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat. Vincent van Gogh's story seems so sad and lonely, until you see that one Theo is probably worth a million admirers. Theo van Gogh died about six months after his now famous brother, almost as if subconsciously he realized that his task here on earth was done.

Since his father was a music teacher, it is unlikely that the incredible music talent of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would have gone untapped. However, it might not have been discovered at such an early age, if there had not been another, slightly older child in the household who was just beginning with piano lessons. Mozart worshipped his sister, Maria Anna, a.k.a Nannerl and spent much time watching her playing and practicing, which eventually led to his own very early improvisations on the same instrument, in an attempt to copy her. Wolfgang and Nannerl played together in public until she reached marrying age, and although none of her work survived, it is known that she also composed music and that her brother had a high regard for her efforts. It can be argued that it was Nannerl's talent and mischievous influence, as much as their father's lessons that helped shape Mozart's incredible career as a composer.

The Gold Standard

Pink Floyd. 1971. Live in Pompeii. In my opinion, this band, at this stage of their career, is about as close as you will get to a 'gold standard' of progressive rock music. In any of their filmed live performances of the period, their absorption in what they do is absolute and one hundred percent. There are no attempts to connect with the audience. In fact, for 'Live in Pompeii', there is no audience (except for a few village kids, who allegedly hid out of sight). The band became their music. In one performance, you would see Dave Gilmour stepping up to Roger Waters mid-performance to re-tune his bass guitar. In another, Roger Waters adjusts his phrasing to cover the instance of Nick Mason dropping a drumstick. Everything they do is a playful exploration of shaping sound. Elements such as shredding speed or vocal range do not even come up. Those are cheap tricks for lesser bands to employ. If the music calls for a specific note at a specific time, one of the band members will find some way of bringing it in - and it hardly matters which one of them it is, or how he did it...



There's a couple of things that's been on my mind for the past few months with regards to creative expression:

- reading up (for a writing assignment) about the Renaissance, a time when some of the world's most amazing constructions sometimes took generations to complete.
- listening to Neil Gaiman comparing the early part of his career to 'sending out messages in bottles and hoping some of them would come back'
- my own withdrawal from participation in a certain popular social network - for reasons I won't go into right now.

And again and again, it seems to bring me back to thoughts about audiences and the creative process...

A good creative artist becomes the work and disappears into it. Speaking about my own craft now, telling a good story is less about using clever words and sentences and more about making the walls of the existing world vanish. The best writer is the one who becomes invisible within the first three sentences of the story. That would be my personal 'gold standard' and to me, the only way to achieve this, is to forget that there is an audience.

How Imagination Works

I believe we are all born with a wonderful application that expands the working of the human mind to take on the role of entertainment theatre, tutor, detective, psychic, creator and occasionally torturer. It is called the imagination. Some people claim that they don't have any, but I strongly suspect that (often through no fault of their own) it just got disabled. It can have multiple functions, but for the moment I will list what I consider to be the four most prominent ones.

 1. Open a frequency - incoming signal expected. Most artists, writers and musicians have experienced those moments when you are in the zone. When you sit in front of a keyboard to write a few sentences and end up looking at pages that just seemed to flow like water. When you appear to function as little more than a channel for something that blows you out of the water... This is when the imagination functions in its purest form, as a blank canvas, receptive to the unchecked flow of inspiration, where-ever it comes from, whichever spirit guided it.  

2. Start from scratch creation. This is when you have an idea, but for some reason, you want to spend a little time playing with it, as if it were modeling clay and you are in the mood to potter around a little.. You let it germinate, sprout a few roots and side branches.. experiment with the possibilities, do a test run, make a few adjustments along the way, until it comes together smoothly. This function is no less than the previous one - it just incorporates other elements. In the case #1, the idea probably chose you as a vehicle to set it on its path towards fulfilment. In the case of #2, you chose the idea, as a vehicle for learning and perfecting your craft, be it writing, art or music.

 3. Color the template. The first two functions were those of highly creative people, whose imagination will be fully enabled, but function #3 can be available to persons who will probably never write a book or produce a work of art. Do you read? Have you ever sat down with a book and halfway down the page you can sort of visualize this character or the setting he/she is in? Although you did not write the story, your imagination somehow got switched on by the writer's genius and while he/she gave you an outline, your mind is coloring it in, a bit like when you were a kid with your box of crayons. Music, art, games - various forms of art have the ability to draw you in to the point where you become a co-creator of a reality someone else created. Ever listened to a song and have this private movie running in your head? It's the same principle.  

4 Fix the chinese puzzle. In this case, you also get a template, but it is incomplete or there is something wrong with it. You have to figure out somehow how it should have been put together to make it work the way it is supposed to. This function is the detective, the trouble-shooter, the engineer. It can be used in combination with start from scratch creation, if you run into trouble, or it can be applied to an object or a situation that has been tampered with in some way. In all honesty, it can be the most difficult of the functions to succeed with. (t.y.m. - thank you to my inner muse for helping me work this one out)

At the dark side of the song...

Who needs perfect rolemodels? Who needs plastic overachievers whose only saving grace is their ability to run like clockwork to the machines of commerce and industry? Who needs people who say the safe things and do the safe things and never let us see but a glimmer of the true and terrible light inside their souls?


Here's to you if you have ever thought you might be defeated by the pain of carrying heavenly fire in the poor and imperfect vessel of a human mind. Here's to you, if the burden of inspiration you carry feels improperly matched to the means at your disposal. Here's to you, if you've ever found yourself at the wrong end of bad decisions. If you have ever loved the wrong person, or loved the right person so wrongly that you ended up shattering yourself, just give yourself a break. Loving badly may be a shame and a sadness, but it's not a crime. Don't crucify yourself, just because you live in the messy debris of creative chaos or be ashamed because, God, you look like a bad dye job from six months ago and although your socks are at least the same color, they didn't really start out as a pair. And anyway, there's magic locked up inside your head that make socks and physical appearance pale by comparison and if you start paying attention to everyone else's opinions, you'll only drop the keys you still need to let it all out.

And listen to the music, it's for real people...