Art

Make art, motherfucker! Make art!

Make art now! Make art here, in the moment! If you have something in you that needs out, let it out, make it art and put it in the world.

Now.

Seriously, get the fuck up from where you’re sitting, get out there and make art as hard as you can, do it today. Today.

Do not make art tomorrow!

I mean, make art tomorrow, obviously. Make art every day. But  make art tomorrow as part of a continual process of art that begins today, don’t put art off until tomorrow, is what I’m basically getting at.

I’m not kidding, people, make art immediately. Paint something, sculpt something, paint a sculpture. Your own sculpture, I mean, painting somebody else’s sculpture probably wouldn’t be cool, especially if you don’t have the original sculptor’s permission to do so, but if you have at some point made a sculpture and think it could use a little color, by all means, go for it!

Make a film, it’s never been easier to do so than at this moment in history. Night of the Living Dead could be remade over the course of a weekend with a cell-phone camera and a Facebook invite, don’t tell me you can’t make a film. If there’s a film in you, get it done!

Do you have personal pain? Channel it into poetry, or prose, or, if you lack personal pain, poetry and prose can just as easily channel joy! Write a short story, write a novella, write and mount a one-act, one-man show about growing up in a small prairie town, apply to the fringe festival, pick up a guitar, deliver an angry tirade peppered with the occasional self-referential joke, I do not care what art you create, just that you create the fuck out of some motherfucking art.

I am not joking. Get up off your computer, get away from the Internet and MAKE ART!

Or stay on the Internet, frankly. There’s an enormous amount of art on the Internet, add to it. Host a podcast, post to YouTube, join Deviantart, maintain a blog. Start an especially well-crafted parody Twitter account pretending to be a major corporation that kind of pisses you off and ruin their public image. I do not care what you do, only that you DO it.

Whatever art is inside you, why the fuck is it still inside you, rather than out in the world? There has never in the history of humankind been a civilization that afforded more opportunities to share creative work with an audience than our civilization affords us right now. You might not find a large audience for what you do. Who gives a shit, it doesn’t matter whether your audience is large or small, only that you give them the opportunity to see what it is that you’re capable. Do you not owe that opportunity to them? Do you not owe it to yourself?

Because life is so short, people, and it can end in death at any moment, like Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones. But it’s also more wonderful than you could possibly imagine, and it deserves to be celebrated.

Also like Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones.

But I’m getting off-track, here. My point is: ART, motherfucker! Art!

You are the only you that has ever existed, and the only you that will ever exist, and in one hundred years you will be gone and, most likely, forgotten.

If you have something within you that burns, no matter what it is, you have an obligation to share it with the world, otherwise what’s the point of any of the rest of your life?

If you have something within you that burns, that you need to share, share it. Make art. Make art as hard as you possibly can for as long as you can, and do not stop until you literally cannot art any more.

And if you don’t?

Well in that event, carry on, I guess, with whatever it was you were doing, and I hope it brings you meaning…

Weekly Prompt Story: Always

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26546

On Motivation

By Christopher Munroe

Kids, I have something to tell you.

You won’t like it.

I don’t care.

You’ve been told, mostly by parents, that if you apply yourself you can accomplish anything. I’m here to say, you can’t.

Parents have to lie, sometimes, to keep you from harsh truths about the world.

You’ll accomplish many things, true, but Anything? No.

There are things that, however hard you try, you will fail at, and it’d be a good idea to prepare yourself for that.

Because it’s true of everyone, and the sooner you learn to be okay with it the better off you’ll be…

Forced Focus (NaNoWriMo part IV)

I’ve been chained to my computer most of the month.

Like, literally chained.

Police-grade handcuffs link me to it, and I’ve given away the key. It will be returned to me once I’m finished NaNoWriMo, but until then wherever I go, my laptop must go too.

Do I want to eat out? Why not? So long as I bring the laptop and work while I do.

A walk? Sure! But the laptop comes, just in case I sit down for even a moment.

Some wild, “House Party” style house party? I’m not sure, I may have to opt out. My laptop might get damaged.

It’s been an interesting method, so far, of staying focused, and I’ll admit, I’ve learned a lot over the course of the experiment.

For example: Police-grade handcuffs are a lot more expensive than you might think…

…best investment I’ve ever made.

Motivation (NaNoWriMo Pt. III)

…and then, one day, you’ll hit the wall.

Maybe you’ve hit it already, at some point in your creative life. It’s likely that you have, everyone does sooner or later. If you haven’t, congratulations, you’ve got something uniquely horrible to look forward to.

The words will dry up, your mind will empty, and you’ll stagger to the nearest mirror to take a good, hard look at yourself and ask “Who the fuck do you think you’re kidding?”

The reflection will have no good answer for you. It is, after all, merely a reflection.

You’ll be tempted, in that moment, to collapse into self-pity, and when that temptation comes, by all means, succumb if you want.

It’s your Self, after all, if you want to pity it that’s your prerogative. I’d never tell you what to do in your darker moments.

That’s private time. And I’m not the boss of you.

If a moment of self-pity is something you feel, deep within yourself, that you need, then take that moment. Collapse into a well of doubt, and fear, and misery, and let negativity wash over you like a river, dragging you under and out to sea.

Take your moment. You’ve hit the wall, it’s not like the time was going to be spent productively anyway. Feel small, and stupid, and worthless, like you’ll never accomplish anything.

But only for a moment.

And once that moment’s done, pull yourself back together, go back to your novel, and get the fuck back to work.

Self-Improvement

In my experience, while everyone is capable of the most bestial, monstrous acts imaginable, not many people make full use of that capability.

Humans are selfish, and self-serving, and they live at the expense of those around them, but only to the degree that they can rationalize it and still convince themselves they’re good people. Past that point some vestigial conscience kicks in, and to go beyond a certain line, a line which does change from person to person but which nonetheless does exist for everyone, would be to paralyze themselves with guilt, to trap themselves under the immensity of the realization of all that they’ve done, the impact they’ve had on the world around them, the people they’ve hurt.

So they go to that line and they live there, terrified to pass over it but unwilling just the same to back even inches away. And that’s where the vast majority of people spend their lives.

Inflicting the maximum amount of damage on the world in which they live that they can without being forced to take a good long look at themselves and the choices they’ve made.

And most people are happy there.

But I can’t help but think that, in some way, their potential as human beings is being squandered. We’re capable of so much evil and to use that capacity on such trifling little things as we do doesn’t live up to the gift, the capability that we’ve been given!

Fortunately, I’ve come up with an easy way to work around the issue, to bypass conscience and cross whatever self-imposed boundaries you may have placed upon yourself. To stretch out, break free, and finally become the selfish sack of shit you’ve long had it in yourself to be.

It’s really quite simple, once you’ve got the knack for it.

Every time you think, “I want to do it,” instead substitute “it had to be done, there was nothing else I could do.”

And then take what you want.

It’s as simple as that.