Finding Inspiration from Ken Burns

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Dave

I wasn’t too familiar with Ken Burns until fairly recently. But I’ve checked out some of his work and, more to the point, his online interviews on “Story” and what it takes to be a storyteller – and I am amazed.

A very well spoken guy, so direct and to the point – I just love what he has to say. One of the quotes he came up with on one of the interviews I was watching was something like “a good story means making 2+2=3″, for some reason that really struck me as a wonderful way to look at the art of storytelling. Another way of putting “the total adds up to more than the sum of its parts”, a reference I’m very familiar with but hearing it from another angle made me really stop and think about what it means.

We all know when we get into a really good story how much each chapter and scene adds to the whole. How putting it all together makes it so much more compelling than if you were to just pick a section out at random and read only that part. At least in most cases, anyway. That has certainly been true of most of the stories I’ve read and enjoyed over the years. Granted, some literature is so perfectly crafted that any one piece is wonderful in and of itself, but you don’t need to reach that level of genius in order to craft a compelling story. At any rate, that one simple comment really made me stop and think about what makes for a good story.

I will certainly make it a point to learn more about Ken Burns and check out his work. I’m definitely looking forward to it!

The Most Astounding Fact – Neil deGrasse Tyson

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Dave

Isn’t Social Media supposed to be Fun?

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Dave

I’ve been working hard making use of Social Media sites in an attempt to promote my blogging efforts, but I must say the advice I’ve received from so many quarters insisting that it’s a great idea to add your new blog content to a bunch of Social Media sites has proved to be quite a grind. A downright drag, really. Playing around with Social Media for fun once in a while is amusing, trying to keep up with all of it and make sure you continue to update your content on each page and make sure to add fun headlines and thank people who liked it and reciprocate all the friend requests that come along? It really does start to feel like an actual job after a little while. The idea of having a blog and trying to promote it is something that I thought would be lots of fun, but at least this particular aspect of it has turned into much more of a chore than I really ever thought it would be.

Fighting for Page Views

I have been relatively pleased with the amount of traffic I’ve been receiving for a newbie blog, but it absolutely feels like like I’m having to do a lot of work just to keep things on an even keel. FIghting for each and every page view, as it were. I hadn’t realized just how difficult it is to maintain even a small but steady flow of traffic to a blog, although given the amount of content out there and how many bloggers are trying to do exactly the same thing, I guess it’s not all that surprising.

On the few days I’ve put up some new content but done nothing to promote it, the results have been disappointing to say the least. Over on upbeatrhythms, for example, I’ve had several days when I got no visitors at all! Clearly that’s a bummer when you work hard to come up with some new content to share.

One Blog off to a Good Start

On the other hand, I do feel as though I’m still getting my feet wet, and I’ve not really gotten into the flow of putting up some really valuable and useful content and spent the requisite amount of time talking it up, so if I can keep at it I’m sure things will pick up.

Here on Mindbla I’ve been pleased to see a steady stream of visitors, and the third site which is my funny pictures blog has been doing gangbusters for such a new space, I had over a thousand visitors on a few occasions which is fun to see and makes me feel as though I’m at least heading in the right direction.

Part of the ease of that project is the fact that it’s much easier to upload a picture or two per day with a small blurb or comment. I’ve found it quite easy to stick to a schedule and then send out a few tweets and put up the links on Delicious or Digg or wherever, the pace and rhythm of it works well. It’s not so easy when you want to do some writing and come up with interesting topics or, in the case of the music site, to pave the way for some bigger projects such as a video tutorial series that I really want to get done but it takes a lot of time and effort behind the scenes before I’m even ready to publish anything. I did manage to get that video series off the ground last week, so now I’ve just got to keep at it. But it’s a lot more work and preparation than a pictures blog, that’s for sure, and that’s even before factoring in all the Social Media promoting I should be doing for the site!

*sigh* – now where did I put that password for StumbleUpon again?

At Last, the “Ah Ha” Moment I’ve been Waiting For

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Dave

I’ve been dreading life and writing, losing interest even in my blogging efforts, and feeling myself slide into a sort of malaise because I felt as though I wouldn’t be able to create anything of enough value for people to bother with.

But just today, I had a real Eureka! moment, and started writing and didn’t put down the keyboard for a long while. What I realized was, if I’m going to write something of value and worth, I’m going to have to gouge out my soul and hand it over for public inspection. Does this set me up to be mocked? Admired? A little of both? No way to know as of now, but the rewards are as enticing as the consequences are chilling. I do know for a fact that there’s enough pain and heartache and misery within me to fill up a few dozen volumes of compelling literature if I can manage to spit it out onto a piece of paper and then drum up the courage to let it be seen.

This revelation feels ‘right’ to me in one sense, since it gives me some measure of confidence that I have some stories that are worthy of being told, but the risk is far more painful to think about than I’ve been willing to admit to myself until now. The lighthearted side of storytelling is not me, never has been, and I can’t imaging it would be of any worth to anyone else as even I can’t stand to read what I come up with. Even as I type this, I can feel the dead in the pit of my stomach as I realize what I must do if I’m going to be a successful writer. It involves a ton of soul searching and the re-opening of old wounds and buried pain. Looking at all the options before me at the moment, being a writer is the one thing that I do believe has the potential to bring about that very success I’ve both longed for and dreaded my entire life, the success that has eluded me so perfectly and left me feeling as worthless as a worn out shoe most of the time, and this revelation is exactly why I now know why part of me has dreaded it.

For me to succeed, I will have to risk exposing everything I’ve carefully kept to myself all these many years, the pain and anguish, certainly, but also the secret hopes and dreams that I so fear will be met with ridicule, or scorn, or even worse ignored or unnoticed which would truly mean that I, myself, am worthy of nothing more than to be ignored and cast aside, a waste of resources and a drag on society at best.

So the question is, do I go for it? At the moment, my gut tells me I’m going to do it. I must do it. But that’s an easy thought to think on day one, and I’m sure it will be a long hard slog whether it takes weeks, months, or even longer to get anywhere. The writer I need to become was born today. Time will tell whether or not that birth was of any value to anybody but myself (or even for myself, for that matter!), but one way or the other I’ve got to find a way to become more successful in life because I am at the end of my tether as far as being just absolutely sick and fucking tired of being a failure. It’s time to get past that, because I can not maintain my sanity for much longer at this rate. Baring my soul on the page looks to be my salvation, albeit a cure who’s side-effects might just prove worse than the illness of my malaise.

What if I don’t really have a ‘niche’?

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Dave

Having been at this blogging game for about a month now, I’m finding myself frustrated by the constant barrage of advice ordering me to “find my internet niche” and other advice to that effect. Seems to be everywhere I turn.

As far as my other two sites are concerned, that works out well enough. One, upbeatrhythms, is a music site, rhythm to be more exact, and so the niche is built in so to speak. I just have to create some good content. Similarly, the lulzjapan site is a photo blog and the angle is humorous observational photos from Japan. A small niche, perhaps, but still a niche.

But then we come to Mindbla. My personal blog. And it is rather personal, although I do want to create a site that can be useful to others and a place for exchanging ideas and stuff like that. But what is the niche?

In researching other blogs, I find that a lot of bloggers’ internet niche is, well, blogging. They write about blogging, they offer advice on blogging, they give handy tips about the tools of the trade and that sort of thing. But what it all boils down to is people talking about what they’re doing. Not really a niche per se, more like a general discussion about how to do what you’re doing. Sort of like authors all getting together to talk about book formatting or something. Do they do that?

So I guess I’m still sort of up in the air. I want this blog to be useful, fun, funny, helpful, and most importantly successful. Perhaps I’m putting the cart before the horse by saying that, but if I didn’t want it to be a success why bother? I could keep a diary in a notebook all for myself if I just wanted to write down my thoughts and feelings, why make something like that public?

I have given some serious thought to making this more of a current events space, and I might go ahead and write some articles with that in mind, but even so I hesitate to call that my niche. It’s just something to talk about right? Water cooler stuff.

I wonder if other bloggers have gone through similar feelings. When it comes right down to it, if I really wanted to find a niche I don’t really think it would be a blog sort of focus at all, in a blog I feel as though writing about “stuff that’s on our minds” is really the main point. I guess it all comes down to what my readers are looking for, perhaps that will give me some direction, trying to keep in mind the sort of stuff that a likely reader would find appealing. Am I writing for bloggers? For people just looking for stuff to read? Stories? Events?

I guess time will tell. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to give me a shout out here. I promise I’ll read all the comments, even if they threaten to overwhelm me out of sheer volume lol (I’ll cross that bridge, right?).

Thanks for reading!

Adorable kid will make you happy

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Dave

This is without a doubt the most adorable video of all time!

Well, to be fair, she is mine. But still, it’s super adorable ain’t it? Enjoy!

Making a habit of writing, shooting for a set number of words daily

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Dave

Is reaching a set number of words a day for a writer of any value if the number of words in question (let’s say 1000 words a day for the heck of it) aren’t much more than stream of consciousness junk?

Or is it better to set a goal towards writing one good scene a day, or one page you’re happy with, a goal more along those lines.

That’s a good question that deserves examination. On the one hand doing these sorts of brainstorming exercises could yield some interesting results. On the other hand, it could be time better spent writing something more coherent and focused, albeit a lot more slowly and painstakingly.

On the third hand, doing these exercises very well could train my brain to get used to writing scads of material on a daily basis, so that I could transfer that skill towards the more focused efforts little by little. So the daily word count idea could serve to get my creative ideas flowing in other directions as well.

In any case, for some time now I’ve set out a goal of writing at least 2000 words a day (thanks to Stephen King, horror master, for the advice!), but I find that some days just end up being a long and rambling stream of consciousness exercise and little more. I still have all that junk saved, though, so I can always go back to it and see if there’s anything worth elaborating on or even keeping at all. Other days, I get some strong ideas out of this type of self-discipline and I find myself writing beyond that goal, either by word count or at least by feeling as though I’ve made a lot of progress to particular scenes or parts of stories that have been bugging me.

Interestingly enough, today’s 2000 word effort started by my coming up with the idea for this blog post. Of course, if I start adding my blog writings to the 2000 words it won’t amount to much (given that I’ll be devoting a quarter to a half of it to the blog and not to story writing!), so I’ll have to be sure and keep all that nice and separate if the objective of getting some good stories written is to be fulfilled partly through this type of creative writing exercise.

Anyway, I suppose as long as it makes sense to me and is reasonably fun I might as well just stick with it. At the very least, it is improving my typing skills!

Habits of procrastination give way to high energy bursts, burnout

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Dave

I must confess I’ve have a real issue with procrastination, or at least I have struggled with it over the years. When I need to get stuff done, I find every excuse in the book to do something else. Sometimes even something else that’s a lot harder than the thing I’m trying to put off! Like when I’d get an assignment in college to read chapter 5 I’d read chapters one through four and then from six on to the end, all in an attempt to put of reading stupid chapter five. But, that’s largely in the past now. Over the years I’ve had periods of decent productivity along with times where I feel as though I got next to nothing accomplished, but I suppose that’s fairly typical. These days, I get highly motivated to get stuff accomplished, like blogging for example, and I go all out but then tend to burn myself out after a while. There has to be a middle ground somewhere.
This has not been true in all of my endeavors, though. Particularly when it comes to music and drumming, I’ve got a great work ethic and I have no problem practicing and preparing for as long as it takes to get stuff right. Which, I suppose, is a good indication that that’s what I should be focusing on, since I love it so much I have endless amounts of energy and drive to apply to it. Recently my energy has been far greater than before in other areas as well, and I’ve managed to get some stuff done including several music projects, a short (micro fiction) story, and some blogging along the way as well. Plus I’m setting up several websites at the moment, and I managed to crash a couple of them after having the keys for less than 24 hours! Oops.
I’ve also gotten some of my other music down on paper, mostly just rough stuff on cheap software that isn’t at all ready for prime time although there is one piano piece I’m reasonably pleased with. I’m realizing day by day that all the projects I want to take on creatively will most likely require some collaboration, so my next objective as a recent non-procrastinator will have to be getting in touch with musicians and creative-types in an effort to bring my projects to life and take them to that next level.
In the meantime, music aside, one thing I can and have been able to do on my own is write. And I’ve been doing quite a lot of writing. I’m attempting to write at least 2,000 words a day (advice I read from none other than the grand master of horror and pop culture, Stephen King), although a lot of it is just brainstorming/stream of consciousness kind of stuff. I have managed to get a few stories off the ground, or onto the launch pad at least, and I’m in the beginning stages of actually making notes and developing a timeline for a novel I’m tentatively referring to as “the Preservation Project”, hopefully that will continue to become a reality. It’s a techno-thriller kinda piece, although when I think about my work it’s hard for me to consider what genre or area of expertise my writing falls under. I suppose that will all work itself out when I get more finished work under my belt.
In short, the would-be procrastinator vows to improve. Now that I’m writing this blog I’ve sort of put myself out there because people will actually be aware of the fact that I’m trying to get some creative efforts off the ground, and at some point people might expect to see some results. Or at least they might lose interest and stop reading my blog lol. I’ll use that as motivation for keeping up the effort and coming up with something hopefully decent to share with everyone. When that happens, you’ll most definitely be hearing about it here.