Over the years, I’ve put out a lot of creative work: three books, five business ventures, a PhD dissertation, tons of paintings and digital art, university courses, countless articles, interviews, websites, blog posts, etc. On and on. Yet despite this output, I’ve been plagued with a question for as long as I can remember. It’s […]
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I cracked the psychology of a character in my forthcoming novella Clickbait today. This guy, Bryan, has been just kind of sitting there, nestled in between the book’s other 5 characters, being a bit of a bore. He wasn’t really on my radar because his story just kind of fit with everything else without being […]
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Last week I interviewed Murat Pak, the creator of @Archillect, an artificial (or synthetic) intelligence that curates online images. As people’s reactions started to pour in, one pattern above all caught my eye. Certain people were stunned when they realized for the first time that their favourite curator of beautiful, inspiring images was not, in […]
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Each day Archillect peruses her favourite sites for new images that she thinks her 160K followers will appreciate, and the sheer size of her fan base suggests she’s very good at what she does. A quick glance at her Twitter or Facebook feeds shows a keen eye for stark, striking images and a remarkable breadth […]
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While I currently have two books in the works that I’m readying for release, I started working on an idea for my next one several months ago. I use that word “working” pretty loosely. All I did was watch a bunch of movies on a theme and start keeping my eyes open for interesting and […]
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Michelangelo famously described the sculpting process like this: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry described the writing process this way: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” What a fascinating resonance […]
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Often, a specific panic sets in when I feel like I’m not making good use of my time. Suddenly, I start to experience my work as a race against death. Every second wasted not making something that will go into the world is a waste of the tiny amount of life I’ve been allotted. I […]
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Some coffee shops are forgettable: standard music, generic art, mediocre coffee, cold baristas, clientele who hold no interest to you. Some, on the other hand, are bohemian bliss: Edgy wall art complements sublime indie tunes. You overhear snippets of conversations about politics, philosophy, urban life, cool projects. The baristas are open and willing to take […]
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As a person who spends a lot of time in the creative zone, there are two main kinds of work I do: quiet work and work with beats. Quiet work is idea stuff. It’s pre-idea. It’s conceptualizing and visioning. Work with beats is what follows. It’s “cranking it out.” It’s making it happen. I do […]
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“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they […]
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