Recent posts tagged creativity

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2020

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No Good Teacher Says "Don't"

No good teacher worth their salt says "Don't do X." They say, "If you do X, this is what's involved."

Leaning Into Topical Drift

How my new book 'Unmortal' started as "a fantasy story that discovers it's actually cyberpunk", and is now that plus something different.

High And Low

On the marriage of popular and artistic sensibilities (not that they were all that far from each other?)

Maybe We Can Dream Our Way Out Of It

When we can't think our way out of it, that is.

From Something, To Something

With your sources for a story, it ain't where you start, it's where you end up, and how you get there.

Let's Not Try To Understand All This Too Quickly

In a conversation with a friend, about the way our crazy moment in time is shaping our creative decisions, I kept coming back to a phrase I've said to myself before: "Let's not try to understand all this too quickly."

The Code Hole

I meant to blog a little more this week, but life happened, and I also stumbled face-first into what I can only call a code hole.

Hard Work Is Its Own Reward, Or So They Told Me

Not a great week or so, to be honest. Much emotional rollercoastering, much of it project related. And not in the ways you might think.

From Scratch Every Time

Every single time I start a new story, I'm starting from scratch in more ways than one.

Original Conclusions

It's hard to do your own thing, and for good reasons.

Why That Story?

What does it mean to say that I want to tell a given story about a given person or a given thing? Why me and not someone else? What do I bring to the table?

Faster Typewriters

I never want to make the argument that we should refrain from making things easier as some kind of hedge against mediocrity.

The Hardest Problem, Revisited

Naming things. Especially stories.

Bubble Poppers And What-Iffers

The more outside your bubble you have at your command, the more you have to answer any "what if?" in your work.

Why I Am (Not) A Filmmaker

I might have been, though. And I still wish I was.

The Zen In My Work And Vice Versa

I never wanted to be a "Zen SF&F author". If I did receive that label, I think I'd be very unhappy about it.

DIY Or Die

When is it OK to say, "Screw the world, I'm'a do me"? And when is it just being a self-indulgent twerp?

A New Definitive

We change all the time, and with every change comes a new kind of definitive.

Of The Here And Now, Or The Anywhere And Always

I've long been wary of using fiction as a system of polemic, not because I don't care about the world we live in but because such things typically make for bad fiction

Readiness And Other Lies

It's not about being ready; it's about being willing to fail.

Possibility Paralysis

What do you do when you want to do everything?

The Builders And The Finders

At first people think creating things is more like discovery than construction.

The First One Is Meant To Be Thrown Away

Each work is a bridge to the next one.

What It All Means

Zen's influence on my work.

The Pleasures Of Eating Your Own Dog Food

No, this isn't about pets; it's about making the tools I use for my creative work.

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See other creativity posts for 2020