It must be Tuesday
Q: Dear Ty,Ty: Good question and an even better observation, A-Fan. Ahhh, the process! How it is done. How we do what we do up in this here joint. Magic formulas and magic bullets. How the magic happens! Magic Johnson. Court vision. Visionary. Guru Styley. Blah-blah-blah....
You're such a prolific writer and I have a question for you. How do you write? I mean, what is your process? How do you conceive of a topic and then how do you actually get it all written down? Do you need total quiet or can you work with noise? Are you disciplined or do you sort of write freeform?
I struggle to finish my stuff sometimes, even if I'm really interested in it. How do you do it?
Sincerely,
A fan
Admire the confidence andWell, first of all I do not consider myself a prolific writer. Nor do I consider myself a prolific photographer. Nor prolific musician, mentor, Etc. I cannot go there. I do recognize that I have maintained a somewhat steady period of productivity. As an artist, I accept and feel the blessings of heroes and gods, I really do. Diamonds from G-d rain upon my shoulders. But productivity is mostly driven by the FEAR that it will all go away; the inspiration, the motivation, the ideas, and the opportunity. *POOF!* Just. Like. That. Like TGA (I thought that was "it"). I'm always running skured (that's the Maryland dialect for "scared"). So anything I can complete I take one-second's satisfaction before the FEAR pounces upon me like Kanye West on Taylor Swift. Big, black, and so high!
brazen demand
for attention
to
one's unique
and irreplaceable genius.
-KHE
Since my "process" is not about writing, exclusively, I'll try to provide some information about how the I do some things, A-Fan. But what the hell do I know? (nothin', that's what!)
What is my process? I do stuff then I sleep. If I didn't have a family I'd do it 25/8/366 and die an early death. So thank you family for providing me with balance. Thank you friends for helping with the inspiration and idea side. My process: pure fucking luck!How Does Ty Work?
How a topic is conceived - Luck. Opportunity. I read. I listen. I travel. I talk. I think. People send me emails. I have backings and forthings. People ask me questions. I never know when, where, or how a topic may enter the mind/queue.
Some topics are immediately actionable. Other topics or ideas get jotted down for future consideration. Some ideas are discarded after a while for lack of freshness or just being a weak concept. Believe me, I do feel pains of the work at hand and I feel the pain of others. Hell, Sean just posted this Friday:
"I spend a ridiculous amount of my time throughout the day constructing things that never get completed. Sentence fragments hang in the air like a mist, only to evaporate by the time I actually get home to try and spend time nurturing them and bringing them to life. I sit at my desk at The Job daydreaming."This happens to me too. I'm sure to all of us. It's as frustrating as it gets but I have the comfort of the notebook safety-net. If you can call it "comfort." Because that too can run dry.
- Sean H. Doyle
Sometimes a "topic" is purely image driven (with or without design embellishments). I will review my photographic backlog and see what strikes me. Some things are easily posted as-is and the guilt comes from a feeling of not achieving. Others fall into natural 3-5 image categories. I see some that fit into already developed categories. Some begin categories anew. Some of the best images you'll never see because most of the material developed for clients is never posted. Cold storage.
Image-driven topics are often easier to produce/publish for me and typically get moved to the top of the Daily Objectives queue.
How to write things down - I typically carry two notebooks in my bag: a composition book and a tiny Moleskine journal. The Moleskine is a place for bullets and brief notes: the ideas. The composition book is a place to begin to develop these or independent ideas: a working book.
I also have a Google Docs account where there are currently 50 pieces in various states of development. Often these are pulled down into a Web log editor and further developed there. A published Web logged piece may represent a more finalized draft of the Google Docs pieces. So most of the Docs pieces forever exist in the drudgery of incompleteness. So sad. Colin-left parenthesis.
Sometimes I just start writing. And I suck at editing. I am often told about typos and edit needs when my wife reads the pieces. But I just go. Like here. Sorry.
A music project, on the other hand, will typically begin with a pining. This deep pining will become full-blown appendicitis-like pain. That is, my mind/body leaves me no choice but to do it. Like an exorcism. I become fully obsessed with project fulfillment and music projects are the very worst. Not only the pain before, but the pain during the process of creating a music project is nearly unbearable. It takes time off of my life. But, just as the pining so suddenly begins, at some point during a music project, it all goes just away and I know it's time to finish. Weird, huh?
Is quiet necessary? - No, quiet is not required, in fact far from total quiet, I listen to my radio friends Elliot In The Morning every morning from 8:00 until ten. I've been listening to these kooks since 2000 or 2001 or whenever they started. Love 'em. And not just because they sent me to Raconteurs and Dead Weather all VIP style. That has nothing to do with it.
Weekly I will load up Tom Scharpling's The Best Show On WFMU after Elliot. Three hours of mirth and mayhem and whatever. Other than that (and here's a big key to productivity) I'm listening to music on headphones. I do not want quiet. My brain needs to be doing multiple things.
Sometimes I'm here in the kitchen (down in the studio only if I'm printing, making music, video, or the like - or in the darkness of winter) and sometimes at one of the coffee shops. So you can probably deduce that I require sound while I work. Always with the headphones.
Audio/music projects require absolute silence during the project, however. The ears require a lot of TLC during a music project.
Discipline vs. Freeform - I do not know. I guess there is some of both: discipline to follow-up on urges and fulfill a thing or two. But there is a free form element that is both relieving and wholly madness-inducing. Which is why I continue to search and create so many constructs and definitions to make the work fit (force the work) into places where they make some sense. To me!
I just do my work. I love to do my work. But I never know where my work will take me. And, again, that's the frightening part. Maybe I'm just on a lucky streak?
How To Finish - One must push oneself to finish what they have begun. To not fulfill something started is to demonstrate a lack of discipline and a slack mind. Sure there are the so-called "non-starters." I have a million ideas that get nowhere. And a million others that get well into development and have to be, as Rich says, "Burned down in order to start over." And there are others that should have been burned down or just shot before sunrise.
All of it is about deconstruction-reconstruction. Middlespaces. Pitter-patter, the world shatters, nothing matters.
You finish projects because what separates artists from hobbists. And do not every let anyone tell you the definition of "artist" is based on selling shit. Ever been to a craft show? Please! Artists have an ability to somehow complete. A smart, creative, genius talent who is full of ideas and never makes a damn thing is nothing. A smart, creative, talent who is full of ideas and helps others fulfill is a producer. A dog with a Sharpie who cannot stop making things and the only reason is "because that's what I do" is good in my book.
Don't try. Do. That's what Ralph told me in 1985.
Not enough information, A-Fan? Well, queue up and fill out a complaint form (the complaint form I designed, by the way--and I trademarked it too).
Just a guess,
-ty
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