Some Taoism for You

"Manifest the simple, embrace the primitive, reduce selfishness, have few desires." - Lao-Tzu

Some Sufism for You

“Know that since God created human beings and brought them out of nothingness into existence, they have not stopped being travellers.” - Ibn al’Arabi

Priorities

I had a minor dilemma this weekend that highlighted the tension I am feeling between work and play. The bulk of my time is divided between work that pays most of the bills and work that I love, writing my books and music, which I also consider play, probably the best kind that there is. Those two activites take up literally almost every waking minute that I have, and the remainder of my time gets eaten up by household chores and errands. The area of my life that has suffered as a result is socializing and entertainment. I spend most of my leisure time at home, either reading or on the computer working on my writing projects, social networking to build a base or working on my Etsy shop. When I do go out, it's usually to cover something I've been assigned to review, like a concert or film. I haven't had any freelance assignments lately because the economy is so dire, and there is very little work to be had, so I've really seen almost nothing and been almost nowhere. I've been feeling socially deprived lately because of that, and I let myself cut loose more during the holidays, when there were a lot of parties, but have been getting back into the work groove since then. The reason I am so motivated now is that when I was really young, I constantly ran around here and there, and while I had fun and learned many useful things, I also wasted a whole lot of time. I wish I could have some of that time back to put to better use making art, which is why I work so hard now. It really is rewarding to create things, and while I still have to do other work to cover bills, I'd honestly rather spend most of my time writing or working on music and art than doing much of anything else. I spent a lot of this past weekend on research and book edits, but several of my housemates kept asking me if I wanted to attend the Edwardian Ball on Saturday, a costume event which always happens in San Francisco, but came to Los Angeles for the first time this year. Here is the website:

http://edwardianball.com/

I really wanted to go, and I also really wanted to use the evening to get work done on my book. The event also had a large cover charge ($30.00) and I am saving money for my Apple laptop, so I was thinking about the money aspect, too. However, my housemate Dena especially pushed me to go, because as she quite rightly said, artists need creative stimulation and this was certainly going to provide it. I waffled back and forth all day, and did not decide until the last minute whether to go or not; the only thing that convinced me was when my housemates Evonne and Brent came downstairs ready to go, and they looked amazing. So, I gave in and went. I pulled together a costume in about twenty minutes, which says something about my closet - I wore a long black poufy skirt, a Victorian blouse, a big gold locket, a capelet I bought in London, a huge black vintage handbag, crocheted gloves, a flower thing in my hair and carried a long stick umbrella. I went with my other housemates Ryan and Elizabeth and their friend Beverly, who also all looked fantastic. The ball was at the Tower Theater in downtown L.A., which was a perfect setting for it, with ornate wood and crumbling paint. Half of the Los Angeles creative community was there, and everyone was decked out. I saw someone with a Chinese lantern on their head, a lady with a wolf's head hat (it did not appear to be an actual wolf's head), wings, bustles, top hats, corsets and a stilt-walker. There was an aerial act (the Vau de Vire Society) and the local Cirque Berzerk. We took in the show until the ballroom dancing started, and we stayed until about 1 am, which was plenty long enough. The tickets turned out to only be $25, score, and I ran into a lot of people I know. I also felt very much at home. I don't want to club anymore really, only on rare occasions, but this was nightlife with value added. I was in bed by 2 am, and while I wasn't very productive the next day, I am still glad I went. I contemplated this whole thing a lot over the weekend, because while it seems sad that I have had to sacrifice a lot of social context during the last few years in order to get my own stuff done, I've made amazing progress and it's been worth it to me. I had a lot of fun when I was really young, and now I want a flourishing career and I am willing to do the work that that requires. I am at a different stage of my life now, a more inner-directed and focused one. It's not just a function of being older, either. I've never had endless energy. In an analysis of my past socializing, I realized something important: at the height of my social activity, when I was in college, if I went out a lot, something else always suffered, and that was usually school. If I ran around all weekend, sometimes I would have to skip a few classes the following week because I was wiped out. That's why I am so careful now. I know there will be consequences if I waste too much time and energy. Being the breadwinner changes everything, too. I haven't had student loans to fall back on for years. After I buy the laptop I still need to shell out more for a keyboard, microphone and software. I've had to put off these purchases for so long for various reasons that I don't want them to get pushed back anymore. Once they're paid for, I have other things to save up for, but I can cut loose a little more, too. My art is the meaning of my life for me, but it has to be said that it was also a lot of fun to dress up like a big china doll and go to a costume ball. It's not like that happens every day.

Book Stuff

I deployed my new Acer netbook computer this past week so I can get more book editing done during the day. I am averaging three pages of edits every morning when I use the netbook on my commute, which is not bad, and it's making it much easier for me to reach my goal of at least ten pages a day. I work on it over my lunch hour and in the evenings, too, as much as I can stand. Some days I really enjoy getting into it, re-reading what I wrote and polishing it to make it as beautiful and perfect as I can, and some days, when I am tired, it feels like climbing Mt. Everest over and over again while small rocks continually slip out from underneath my feet. That's when I know I need a break for a day or two, and just give up and read someone else's book rather than making my own.

I read something a little depressing the other day in media news, regarding self publishing. In addition to the terrible economy and the challenging media landscape, there are simply far more books now than potential customers for them, because print-on-demand has made it so much easier for anyone to create and sell a book. You really have to do a lot now to make your book stand out in order to attract customers for it. Publishing success seems to get exponentially harder every day. On one hand, it's awesome that creating things is no longer such an elite activity. On the other hand, the very accessibility that makes it easier to craft and release work has led to a media glut of untold proportions. I don't know about anyone else, but some days I feel so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data I am expected to process that I just shut down. I have never had much luck getting past the gatekeepers of traditional media, and I know that many worthy artists have had the same experience. Even Harry Potter and Star Trek almost never got content deals, which tells you indisputably that the old model was just ridiculous. Imagine how much money would have been missed out on if those had never gotten distribution, let alone the enjoyment they've provided, and who knows what awesome stuff is out there that never did get disseminated? A lot of what is in the public sphere now isn't very good, it has to be said, but I say yea to anyone who wants to make art and show it to people. It's just a little daunting to contemplate the effort it's going to take to get attention for my own worthy project. That's why I am writing this blog and Twittering and undertaking all of my social networking activities - like anyone else with something to say, I want to raise my profile because I want people to find me, and read what I have written and to take something useful away from it. Like any artist, I want people to know that I am alive, and to learn what I am about. I know I am taking the right steps, and I am glad to do the work - I love to write, I love to make things and design things, and to put all of that energy in service to my own art is my dream, so I am truly living it right now, by writing this account of my own creative process. That's the whole point of life, no matter how much attention you get, and you should never write for acclaim, anyway. The only way to go about this art thing is to write the best and most honest thing that you can, do what you can to shepherd it and hope for the best.

Arts and Crafts Movement

I buckled down this weekend and took photographs of all of the new merchandise I have for my vintage and crafts shop on Etsy. I got behind on that project because of my near-move and subsequent residential space re-design late last year and then due to the holidays. I wanted to get the new stuff up online for Christmas, but I was just too tired and busy. I've also been demoralized by this wretched economy. Honestly, I've only sold a handful of items from Etsy since Thanksgiving and I lost my will around it. I've got some really pretty stuff, though, and I think if I price it low enough, it might move. I had a lot of fun taking the pictures. I used the warehouse art space where I live, and I set up the portable closet storage that I got as a gift over the holidays, so organizing the stuff to shoot and ship it is much easier now. My housemate Robb, the video artist, was working out there, too, and played some chill ambient music the whole time, which made it more like play than work. I'm going to discount some of my older stuff into a clearance section, too, and I am rethinking ways to package some of my craft projects. I plan to make some toys and jewelry soon, too, which will also be fun. I've been working for so long and so hard on my books that I think I do need to mix it up a little more with other creative outlets. I cannot WAIT to get my Apple laptop and MIDI; I think this year is going to be fun no matter what.

The Holy Grail of Book Editing

My new little Acer netbook is a gem (literally, it's sapphire blue). I used it on my commute for the first time this morning and got six pages of edits done. I finished my first edit draft of Parsifal last night (via hard copy markup - that's by hand on a printed manuscript, which is why this whole process is taking me so long) and now I'm going back and transcribing the changes I made into the master file. I still need to print it out after every draft and read it as it appears on the printed page because sometimes you catch things that you miss on a computer screen, but this is still going to be a lot better with the netbook. I'll save on paper and printing and I'll save time and energy.

Higher Education

I've been looking at some educational programs to fulfill professional and creative aspirations that I have for the future. I found a publishing arts certificate program at Antioch College near Los Angeles that sounds interesting, but I just discovered that it is prohibitively expensive - $12,000 total. That's more than I want to invest in an industry that is undergoing what may well be the death throes of its prior business model. Honestly, I just want to gain the skills to release my own content, books and music, and at this point I think I will be better off for the most part investing in equipment and training myself to use it. I do think I want to pursue the music production certificate at ULCA - that fits well with what I actually hope to accomplish and it's only $6,000 total, payable a few hundred bucks at a time as you register for each short-term class. I had looked at a similar program at Musician's Institute a few years ago, but it was over $20,000 and they had no night school program, so if you were a grown-up and had a day job, you were out of luck. This UCLA one is much better in that regard, and I think it's just a better program overall. It's more geared toward the real world, and teaches all the Logic Pro applications and also music business material. I've learned some of that stuff piecemeal over my time in and out of the music industry but I'd appreciate a refresher course on some of it, and an intro to everything I don't know. My first priority at this point is to get the MacBook Pro and an upgraded MIDI set up, and then I'll register for the program, hopefully in the fall. That sounds doable.