Hanging Tough

Ok, so the tail end of 2014 kicked my creative butt.

You know how it goes: the bills roll in, the car breaks down, the kids need jail bonds, and you find that 9-5 job turns into 6-8.

But 2015 is a year to punch all that in the face. I'm looking at entering a new decade and by golly I think I'm a big boy now. Big enough to make a schedule that fits my wild and crazy creative exploits nicely alongside my worky-work money-making exploits.

(Work has been really good. My wife, looking over our bank account, asked me recently whether I had started cooking meth in the home office. "No," I said, "I just was really darn productive and got some new clients." Looking back I should have told her I'd become a professional bear wrestler.)

So, 2015. Let's do this.

To start this thing off right, we must look to an inspiring hero to really set the tone of butt-kicking to follow.

I give you: Bat-Viking.

When Procrastination is Good

Procrastination hits all of us.

It doesn't matter if you're a bohemian creative-type, or a motivated power-drive type... some days you end up burning hours on facebook, youtube, wikipedia, IMDB, or just pictures of cats.

Sure you may have learned something about the Lost Roman Legion (which bunny-trailed you to Military Use of Elephants, then to Efforts to Clone the Mammoth, then to Mitochondrial DNA), but DANGIT that really important thing you really know you ought to do didn't get done.

Whether it be that book you're writing, the songs you mean to write or record, or that shell of a car moldering in your garage (that you keep telling your spouse will someday resemble a motor vehicle with tires and engine and everything!) -- if you don't do it, it doesn't get done.

Easy, right?

And every minute you're NOT doing the thing that must be done, you beat yourself up and guilt out, then drown your guilt in a bowl of apathy-ice-cream.

Or is that just me?

But sometimes we gotta take a break to do something that is worth doing. Something that recharges you, rather than something that just eats up time.

Play with the kids. Read a book. A paper one. Remember those? Go to that durn park that's been nearby the whole time you've lived here but you've never been. Built a rocket. Learn to play ukulele.

For each of us there are different things that recharge you.

For me it's playing music. Ask my wife, I pretty much have a stringed instrument in my hands at all times.

And recently I've gotten into BUILDING guitars. Or at least modding and assembling guitars from random parts, trying out custom wiring tricks, etc, etc.

Here is my baby. It's a 1990 "Partscaster" an old blues surfer guy in Hawaii made and sold to me. It was my first real guitar. But somewhere several years ago the electronics failed. Sad times.

1990 Partscaster, rebuilt 2014

But if I had made one, my new year's resolution would be "Learn to fix and build guitars." Because no guitar should sit in a closet unplayed.

Sometimes you need to put off doing the thing that requires huge amounts of brain energy and creative mojo... if only to have recharge time.

What's something you do to recharge?

Friday Funny: Best Hamburger On Earth, Evarrrrr

Have you ever asked yourself: "Self, how can I tell the difference between a burger that is weak, and one that has strength?"

Well ask no more, because Daym breaks it down for you.



There is something so magnetic and delightful about this guy's profound enjoyment of his food. I personally think more people should get this excited about what some might call "mundane" and "everyday" things.

But maybe not THIS excited...



(Unless you're also riding a dinosaur while filming this rainbow)

A Motivational Speech (Plus Music Video)

Allow me to introduce you to my other band: Aurea Verba

Eric, Mason, Eli, Matt

See, that's me over there with a pained rock star look on my face. In my opinion, a constipated or wounded pout is the only real face one can make for band photos.

But I digress.

My other band is quite fun to be in. For starters I have too much music in my body to get it all out with just one band. So I need at least two full time bands with several other pick-up gigs thrown in on the side.

It's kind of like writing. I can't just write in one genre, nor am I content with just writing a few stories or novels "and then I'll be done." I'll never be done, I'll always create.

Do thousands upon thousands of people come to our shows? No (unless they are invisible, in which case I am kinda creeped out). But does that mean that somehow it's not worth it?

We do what we love doing because we love doing it--no, we NEED to do it. I can't help being creative, I couldn't stop myself from being creative.

So why would I ever let myself mope and have those useless thoughts of "not being really successful"?

Hot diggety-dawg, I put my pen onto a blank page and a story comes out. I put my fingers onto a contraption made of steel and rosewood and music happens!

That's the fountainhead of it all. I don't need adulation or hordes of fans (though it'd be nice, sometimes), I just need to keep creating.

So I leave you with a music video as I go off and get some writing done. Or maybe I'll go play some guitar...

Creativity Myth #1: Waiting for Inspiration to Strike

Ok.

But if you ever find yourself sitting around waiting for inspiration, here's a little tip: you'll do more waiting than
writing.

Which brings me to the first myth about creativity: Waiting for inspiration to strike.

Waiting for inspiration to strike is a little like waiting for lightning to strike.

Sure it happens--but if you want to make it as a professional writer you can't bank on waiting for it.

Boy, when inspiration strikes, all bets are off. Pen goes to paper and you feel as if you've touched live electric wire. (or fingers go to keyboards, or paintbrush to canvas, or hands to guitar neck... you get the idea)


But what about all the other days when inspiration seems far away?

One trick you hear about is to seek out things that inspire you. Sure, this works sometimes. There's nothing wrong with trying to induce creativity by shaking things up or listening to Sigur Ros or Florence + the Machine. You don't wait in one spot for lightning to strike. You go out and chase storms.

But, there is something deeper than just scouring Youtube for creative videos to spark your imagination (besides, time spent online is time spent NOT writing).
Why not make inspiration a habit?

"What do you mean, Mason? What is this secret of which you speak?"

Ok, so no real secret. Making writing a habit makes inspiration a habit.

As you learn to express yourself more clearly, with less affectation or bad writing habits, the easier it is for any glimmer of inspiration to be seized and nurtured and developed.

You become a clearer conduit for your muse. You learn to fan into flame that little spark, instead of stifling it.

I love my critique group (The infamous Illiterati) because they always tell me when I'm clouding up the waters. And they challenge me to go farther, deeper, and swim in dangerous waters where inspiration lurks like a sea serpent coiling just under the surface.

But let me make one thing clear: You have to be able to write under duress.

Life doesn't slow down. Life doesn't pause or go on vacation for you to write.
You do it in spite of life sometimes.

Anyone who has children under 5 and who's written anything coherent recently can attest to that.

But now let's hear from you.
What things inspire you? Music, videos, blogs, people, thingamabobs?

~mason

So to spark some inspiration here's Florence + the Machine tearing your face off under extreme duress (outdoor festivals, electric instruments and rain = no bueno)

In Which My Writers Group is Extolled (and compared to Voltron)

So last night The Illiterati got together to talk writing and critique stuff. We also played video games.

Having a good group of writers to bounce things off of is amazing. A-mazing. You could sit in class and learn all the deft little rules about writing, but does anyone still believe that learning the rules is what makes you write compelling and meaningful words?

In a group, you're not just speaking words into an empty chamber, you are immersed together.
Their eyes and their hearts are the litmus tests for the power of your words.

Plus they tell you when you wrapped up a story too quickly. Or when you used too many adverbs. *slash!
But taking critique is hard. We feel defensive about our writing.. and honestly sometimes a member of a critique group just doesn't "get" something we wrote.

But when you LOVE the people in your group... well, that's beyond awesome. Your words are in a safe place under their editorial red pens, their critiques are meaningful--even if you don't always agree--because you know that they believe in your work, want to see you at the top of your game, and are pushing you ahead with all their editorial might along the writer's journey.

Of course, The Illiterati have one other advantage: together we form Voltron.

In short, get thee to a critique group/writers group!

A good group is worth its weight in some form of precious commodity.

Also, check out Mercedes breakdown of last night's fury: http://abrokenlaptop.com/2010/11/10/in-which-our-group-plays-silent-hill-2/

Need help starting or finding a group?

Contact me!

P.s. I almost added "fulsomely" to the title of this blog post until I recalled that the word means offensively and insincerely flattering. What a strange morphology. Sounds like an innocuous word, but nooooooo, it's a tricksie negative. Like calling someone who talks too much a macrologist.

Writers: Don’t Sign Your Short Story Rights Away With a Bad Contract!

You know that exciting feeling when you get that acceptance letter for the story you sent out months ago on a wing and a prayer? Excitement! You prepare your awards ceremony speech as you glance at the contract and sign it with a flourish before—wait a second! You mean you didn’t read it?

“Well Mason,” you say, “Those contracts are all pretty standard, don’t you know.”
Really?

I recently had a short story accepted by a publisher, but when I got the contract I quickly saw that it would not be in my best interests to sign it.

(As it is, I'm hoping the publisher will negotiate. It never hurts to ask, right?)

The publisher asks for exclusive publishing rights to my work for the full term of copyright.

Not content with just that, the publisher also asks for exclusive rights for the full term of copyright for every known conceivable media form. But I’d only submitted my work for a print anthology.

Like most short story writers I’d like to sell my work as a reprint to some other market one day. But in case I didn’t understand it the first time, there’s a line way down in the copyright infringement section (hidden on purpose?) that tells me that “THE AUTHOR WILL NOT SUBMIT WORK TO BE INCLUDED AND/OR PRINTED IN ANY OTHER PUBLICATION.”

I don't think they wrote an author-unfriendly contract on purpose. But contracts are naturally weighted in favor of the one with leverage.

“You want to get published, right? Sign here.”

But the contract is the final act of negotiation. It sets boundaries that protect the parties involved as they engage in business together. Just like the rest of the negotiation process, a contract can be modified until each party gets the rights, terms and conditions that best serve their interests.

And not all publishers are out to get you. Some have really fair contracts. Some contracts are simply overreaching. But there are some which are exploitative, yet are signed because writers don’t know any better!

Literary agents are great because a huge part of their job is to negotiate the best, most author-friendly contract in the universe. But agents don’t deal with the short fiction market, so us writers are left on our own.
So what’s a more author-friendly rights-granting clause?

What about granting exclusive first North American printing rights [world for stuff being published online] for a set term length? Exclusivity begins with the signing of this contract and lasts for 90 days [or 6 months, or 1 year] after the date of first publication.

Hey look, now you can resell the story as a reprint! And you’re not signing the exclusive copyright over to some little magazine forever! Wow!

But what about if the publisher wants to reprint the story in a “Best Of” compilation? Well, ideally you get paid a reprint fee. Or if you’re feeling generous you can grant them a non-exclusive right to reprint. It can be for however long you want, but I’d rather limit it to a term, say 5 years. Since it’s non-exclusive you still can sell it to other markets as a reprint and your rights aren’t bound up in the publisher who first printed the story.
Another thing to look out for are contract clauses that contradict or effect others in an author-unfriendly way—whether intentional or not.

For example, the contract I got with all the “exclusive rights forever” stuff has one little line buried way down in Article 8 that says (very casually): “ALL WORK SHALL REVERT BACK TO THE AUTHOR ONE YEAR AFTER PUBLICATION OF BOOK”

Well it seems that my fears were unfounded, they say the work shall revert after a year. But what about all the “exclusive” and “for the full term of the copyright” language contained in the Rights Granted section? Do we just throw that out? Can we safely forget about it because this one little line exists?

But take a careful look at the wording. The Work shall revert? Or the rights to the work? And why isn’t this clause part of the Rights Granted section? Not to mention that it contradicts the rights already specified.

Again, I don't think there is any malicious or sneaky intent on the publisher's part. It's just a clunky contract. Lawyers make millions on parties squabbling over such contradictory and weakly worded contracts.

So, WRITER BEWARE! Read your contracts. Know what kind of rights you are willing to grant, otherwise you’ll lose’em.

Here’s a helpful copyright and contract clause website for writers and content creators: http://www.keepyourcopyrights.org/ also check out WRITER BEWARE

* Hey! Before you get all clicky on those links, why don’t you leave a comment?

Atmosphere and Sonic Explosions

Making music has some interesting similarities to writing fiction.

Particularly: "Where do your ideas come from?"

Honestly it's as if they came straight from the aether without preamble or consideration. You can sense the imminence of it all, the crackle of electricity in the air.

You pick up the guitar or open the notebook. The page is still blank, the notes are still hidden. But they are right there, waiting.

The shiver of purpose and meaning gaining momentum like a pressure from the air around you and suddenly you make something like this.