by Millie Ho Netflix’s Luke Cage was an entertaining series, and it also helped me understand how to write better symbolism. Here’s a summary of my talking points. AVOID USING SUPERFICIAL SYMBOLISM In school, I was taught to reference existing works or mythologies if I was writing symbolism. For example, a guy who […]
via How to Write More Meaningful Symbolism — A Writer’s Path
A very relatable and informative post from Kristen Lamb about the negative effects of stress on your cognitive and creative abilities.
Image courtesy of Eflon via Flickr Creative Commons
The past few years have been just brutal. My grandmother who raised me was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and it was just one crisis after another and it just never…freaking…let…up. I felt like I was in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu being crushed all the time, but not allowed to tap out. Then, on Independence Day (ironically) my grandmother finally passed away.
I really never appreciated how much her declining health was impacting me until she was gone. It was like I was wandering around in a fugue state only aware that my knees hurt. Then out of nowhere a hand lifted off the 500 pound gorilla and I could breathe again. I never noticed the gorilla, never noticed the lack of air, only the knee pain.
So now I am in the process of rebuilding. I plan on taking a couple days off to…
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A fun and fascinating post for fans of horror and the macabre via Parlor of Horror.
For conjuring, spells, invocations and summoning the dark powers and Demonic entities
Books for summoning dark powers, entities, and magicks are often called Grimoires. These Grimoires were often collections of incantations and spells that practitioners accumulated in their travels, rewritten in an orderly fashion. Some were more intensive studies by monks, Satanists and sorcerers interested in the dark arts and attempting to unlock the secrets of death and the great beyond. Here’s a brief look at some of the most powerful dark arts books in the world.
The Black Pullet – 1700s
This book from 18th century Rome gives instructions and guides on creating and using Talismans. The magic of the rings is known to bring forth a multitude of extraordinary powers of protection, healing, and spellbinding. One such ceremony concerns producing the Black Pullet, known as the…
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An interesting post from Michelle Rene Goodhew on how to strengthen your writing by transforming your thinking.
In this article, Jamie (@suddenlyjamie) discusses the role of writers during troubled times in the world. For example, Jamie notes that:
“As a writer, the act of writing helps us break free of the paralyzing forces of fear and doubt. Though the state of affairs in the world may leave us feeling helpless, putting words down helps us understand our feelings and – if we share our stories – helps others understand, too. Through writing, you can transform the pain and fear. Through the alchemy of story, you can turn the darkness of conflict, tragedy, sorrow, and anger into forces for good.”
And:
“Ultimately, stories – even the ones that reveal and teach – offer a momentary escape from the weight of the world. And, sometimes, this temporary reprieve from one’s problems is the greatest gift a story can give. The space created by a story gives us the chance to step back and take a broader view, to hear ourselves think, to connect the dots. Stories bring perspective and inspire us to think about our choices and actions in a different light. Whether we are writing them or reading them, stories help us step more fully into who we truly are.”
I highly recommend that you read the full article, it addresses concerns relevant to all of us, and is truly inspiring. ~ Flynn
When things get stormy, writing brings a light into the darkness.
I’ve been struggling with something lately. Though I intentionally minimize my news consumption (and try to restrict myself to the least sensationalist sources), I can’t help but notice that the world has gone a little mad. It’s scary out there. It’s as if the cruel and ridiculous worlds of satirical novelists like Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams have come to life; and suddenly the jokes aren’t so funny anymore. Global warming, economic collapse, war, terrorism, political corruption, religious intolerance, discrimination of all kinds – these are the living nightmares that keep so many of us up at night. These are Big Problems – global issues that affect all of humanity and very fate of this fragile planet.
My struggle is knowing what to do in the face of all this insanity.
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A great article by Deborah Bowman full of valuable advice for writers. ~ Flynn
We All Have to Start Somewhere!
Do you have thoughts and dreams you wish to express, but somehow they just get stuck in your mind? The only things that surface when you try to write are overused cliches and tired rhetoric. You’re not alone.
What comes from your brain first are memories and what is constantly repeated by yourself, by others around you, on the TV or Internet, even in your choice of reading material. You want to come up with something original, unique, extraordinary! You want to reach out and touch the hearts and minds of others, write about your feelings, impart information that has never been shared before. Where do you begin?
Over time, communication has changed drastically. We don’t pick up the phone and talk in person or pen eloquent letters very often anymore … we text, we email, we send canned pictures that demonstrate our feelings…
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A great article on supporting other writers by providing feedback, which includes an inspiring Ted Talk video on the importance of positive feedback. ~ Flynn
I recently wrote a post about having a complete crisis of confidence, and how to overcome self-doubt.
It seemed to be a natural progression to consider the idea of finding the courage to live your passion.*
On the surface, it seems simple enough. Who doesn’t want to spend their lives doing what they love? Even better if you can get paid for it.
The problem arose for me when I realised that my passion is also closely tied into my sense of self-worth, as it is for many creative people. Living your passion opens you up to criticism, rejection and failure, and this is where that paralysing self-doubt raises its ugly head.
This is also where courage comes into the equation.
Living your passion sounds great. Awesome. There are quotes and slogans everywhere telling us why we should be doing just that. “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Self help books everywhere are encouraging us to find our true purpose, to follow our passion, to embrace our own unique life path.
Which is all great. It really is. But what happens when you find your passion/purpose/life path, embrace it completely, and realise just how crushing it would be if you fail.
These are your ultimate dreams we are considering, dreams that you most likely will be, or already are, sacrificing a great deal for. Dreams that you have probably been told time and again to abandon and “get a real job/career/study something useful”. Dreams that you have defended against everything.
And then, after the initial buoyant feeling of triumph for following your passion, the reality sets in that you might fail. That maybe the naysayers were right and you should have followed that soul-destroying career in accounting. (This was the career choice I was informed that I should pursue, as I apparently had an aptitude towards it. Despite the fact that I despised it with a fiery passion and would have hurled myself out of the window of my nice high-rise, corner-office window within half a decade. But I digress.)
So now what?
This is where the courage part really comes in. But you don’t have to do it alone, and you don’t have to feel your way blindly in the dark. Here are some tips:
Courage is the antidote to self-doubt. Have the courage to believe in yourself and your dreams, and you are are least giving yourself the chance to succeed, rather than shooting yourself in the foot before you even begin.
And on a final note, some words of inspiration from Theodore Roosevelt:
*It’s starting to occur to me that I might have missed my calling a motivational speaker 😉
** Many of the courage and creativity quotes featured in this post were found at Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/creativity-courage-30-quotes-that-will-change-your-life/
I am participating in the Writing Contest: Writers Crushing Doubt. Hosted by Positive Writer. – See more at: http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-2016/
I came across this writing contest as I was already halfway through writing this post, and it just seemed like kismet.
You see, I have been paralysed with doubt lately, unable to write a single word. My fiction writing has ground to a halt, ideas for blog posts remain elusive, and everything that I do write is immediately picked to pieces and dismissed as rubbish by an implacable internal critic.
You may have noticed that my original blog posts have been largely non-existent lately, while I choose instead to feature the wonderful posts of other bloggers. My fiction writing has suffered even more.
Ideas are out of reach, and it’s impossible to start anything new or finish anything in progress. And the worst part is that the longer it continues, the longer that you don’t write, the worse the doubt gets. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You doubt you can write anything of quality, that you are a writer at all. This doubt paralyses you, and you stop writing. This confirms your fears that you can’t write. And around the merry-go-round goes.
So how to get off this endless treadmill of self-doubt?
Well, I’m writing this post. By putting it out there, into words, and giving form to the beast. By sharing the experience. All of these things lessen the grip of this paralysing doubt.
And hey look, I’m writing stuff. It may not be perfect. There are probably errors in here somewhere. I might just be talking to myself because no one else wants to read about my little personal crisis. It is pretty self-absorbed after all.
But on the other hand, it might actually help someone out there who’s feeling the same way.
Just put one word in front of the other. Vent your frustration. Throw idealistic notions of perfection out the window. Stop trying to force the ideas. Give yourself permission to write utter nonsense. But don’t give up.
Self doubt is the bane of the creative community. It is creativity turned against itself, creative energy devoting itself to negativity and generating an endless stream of reasons why you and your work will never be good enough. Why you should give up and stop trying.
Once you realise this, you have the power to break the cycle. Your creativity hasn’t vanished. It is the very thing that is holding you prisoner to your self doubt.
So take a deep breath. Have a rant (trust me, it makes you feel better). Take a holiday from writing, and give yourself permission not to write.
The doubt won’t go away overnight. It will probably never go away completely. It is the flip side of the creative coin. But the ideas will start trickling back in again slowly. The desire to write will gradually re-awaken. And that creative force that drives you will become more constructive again, rather than devoting itself to destroying your confidence in yourself and everything you create.
And if all else fails, get drunk 🙂
Have a great weekend everyone, and best of luck on your writing adventures.
Short Biography:
Charles Baudelaire (1821 – 1867) was a French poet, essayist and art critic whose work was largely concerned with modernity, urbanisation, human vices and the complexities of morality. He was strongly influenced by the earlier movement of Romanticism, as well as by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which he translated into French. Baudelaire had much in common with Poe, including a preoccupation with the macabre and supernatural imagery.
In the 1919 English translation of Baudelaire’s works by James Huneker, Baudelaire’s influences and similarities with/differences from Poe are discussed in the introduction:
“George Saintsbury thus sums up the differences between Poe and Baudelaire: “Both authors—Poe and De Quincey—fell short of Baudelaire himself as regards depth and fulness of passion, but both have a superficial likeness to him in eccentricity of temperament and affection for a certain peculiar mixture of grotesque and horror.” Poe is without passion, except a passion for the macabre; what Huysmans calls “The October of the sensations”; whereas, there is a gulf of despair and terror and humanity in Baudelaire, which shakes your nerves, yet stimulates the imagination. However, profounder as a poet, he was no match for Poe in what might be termed intellectual prestidigitation. The mathematical Poe, the Poe of the ingenious detective tales, tales extraordinary, the Poe of the swift flights into the cosmic blue, the Poe the prophet and mystic—in these the American was more versatile than his French translator… He was the last of the Romanticists; Sainte-Beuve called him the Kamchatka of Romanticism; its remotest hyperborean peak. Romanticism is dead to-day, as dead as Naturalism; but Baudelaire is alive, and read.”
Huneker’s translations are freely available online from the Gutenberg Project: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36287/36287-h/36287-h.htm
Famous Works
Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), 1857, Poetry – view online at: http://fleursdumal.org/1861-table-of-contents (French and English)
La Fanfarlo, 1847, Novella
Le Spleen de Paris (Paris Spleen or “Little Poems in Prose”), 1860, Prose Poetry – view English translation:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36287/36287-h/36287-h.htm
Quotes
“Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“The insatiable thirst for everything which lies beyond, and which life reveals, is the most living proof of our immortality.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“Always be a poet, even in prose.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.” – Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays
“The beautiful is always bizarre.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.”
― Charles Baudelaire
“There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.” ― Charles Baudelaire
“What can an eternity of damnation matter to someone who has felt, if only for a second, the infinity of delight?” ― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen
“Even when she walks one would believe that she dances.” ― Charles Baudelaire
“We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. ”
― Charles Baudelaire
“The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without stopping! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”
– Charles Baudelaire
“There are moments of existence when time and space are more profound, and the awareness of existence is immensely heightened.” – Charles Baudelaire
I hope you enjoyed these quotes from Charles Baudelaire, and are inspired to investigate his writing further. Most of the English translations are freely available at the links above.
Flynn Gray 