Browsing Tag

writer’s block

20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Always Remember: Comparison is the Thief of Joy

comparison is the thief of joy

My jealous neck

 

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

I don’t know who said it and I’m not sure the Internet does either, but my friends at Vinca put these brilliant words on a necklace for me because they know I’m a insecure and jealous turd of a blog post I wrote regarding 10 Different Ways for Artists to Fight Doubt and Insecurity.

In the post, I listed “stop comparing yourself to others” in ten variations. That’s all you really need to remember to fight artistic doubt and insecurity. Oh, and that whiskey will get you through the cold months (and I don’t mean winter).

In the insta-fame society we now live in, it can be very difficult not to compare yourself to others. When hard-working musicians see talentless teenagers make the news rounds because of their atrocious Youtube hit, feelings of confusion and denial may blister. When driven writers see 12 year-old fashion bloggers inking multimillion dollar contracts with fashion lines, the want to drink oneself into oblivion (more…)

October 22, 2013 by
Austin, Hipstercrite Life, Pop Culture, Writing

The Art of Being a Lazy Blogger

I’ve been a lazy blogger over the past few weeks, but FUCK!, it was the holidays and the holidays are confusing and disorienting and make you want to live on the couch for a month while gorging yourself with White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles.

What I have not been is a lazy writer and somehow I’ve managed to stumble through my month-long writer’s block and spew out a bunch of stuff.

So, because I’m a lazy blogger this month, I’m going to be super-ass lame and share with you a couple of articles I wrote on other sites, but ones I’m particularly proud of. I hope you enjoy! Regular blogging will resume shortly and I think my first post will be about “moochetarians”, the title given to a person who is vegetarian except when someone gives them free food- then they will eat a pig’s entire face if they have to.

December 28, 2012 by
Hipstercrite Life

10 Ways For Artists to Fight Doubt and Insecurity

“You! You right there! You suck AT LIFE, mother fucker!”

For almost two years now, people have paid me to write for them. In the past year, I went strictly freelance and in doing so, my paid writing work picked up.

I feel very fortunate.

Actually, most of the time I feel completely bewildered.

Scared.

Confused.

Insecure.

Gassy.

Every day I envision a Russian totalitarian figure a la propagandic style standing tall amongst a backdrop of fire, pointing a giant forefinger at me and shouting, “YOU are obsolete! YOU have no idea what you are doing!”; a fleet of angular soldiers in perfect unison come to whisk me away and save humanity from the disease known as my poor prose.

I’m still not exactly sure where semicolons go and you will never see me use a word like “perfunctory” in a sentence. I’m not even sure what that means. Granted, I DON’T HAVE AN EDITOR TO FIX MY MISTAKES!

This is an insecurity I mostly keep to myself because, well, nothing is more unattractive (more…)

November 15, 2012 by
Hipstercrite Life

Uninspired work is the worst kind

Today I am to announce who won the “Everyone Loves Austin” t-shirt giveaway.

I will do that later.

Right now I don’t feel like writing at all. Not even that sentence.

In fact, these past 8 days have proven difficult in writing emails let alone blog posts. Sometimes I don’t even finish sentences while talking. I trail off, confused as to what I’m saying. I switch out words for other words. Left becomes right, north becomes south.

My brain is so cluttered with stuff, I can’t even tell if I’m writing this sentence correctly or not.

When I read these words aloud in my brain, a hundred other voices compete to make themselves known.

All these conversations battling for hierarchy in my head end up sounding like Peanut’s adult talk.

When I try to be creative, I feel my thoughts running immediately up against a brick wall. I start a sentence only to find it struck down by immovable and nonexistent brain matter. I can see the wall, but I can’t see the words. They are a dust (more…)

August 20, 2012 by
Hipstercrite Life, Writing

Anatomy of Writer’s Block

via Three Hundred Pages

Do you ever find yourself staring blankly at the computer screen with a large and heavy brick sitting smack dead in the middle of your right cerebral cortex?

Of course you do. You’re a writer and writer’s block happens all the time.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck ass any less.

The way writer’s block occurs is different from person to person. When many writers find inspiration from any upheaval in their life, I want to retreat into my head and turn away from anything that resembles a blank computer screen or pen and paper. I need structure and normalcy in my life to feel creative, though out of both those things comes nothing remotely interesting to write about. Only in living life do we truly have fodder worth writing.

Having been interested in creating “stuff” my entire life, I randomly find myself in creative ruts from time to time. It often seems that there is no rhyme or reason to the blockages, but I know that is not true. It takes a lot of (more…)

June 25, 2012 by
Hipstercrite Life

Creative Block or Fodder? When Life’s Challenges Affect Your Writing

Ah, writer’s block.

You never know when it’s going to hit.

The current writer’s block that reared its ugly head last week after a homeless man tried getting into my house while I was taking a shower, was actually a long time coming.

I wish I could pin it entirely on the homeless man, but in reality, he’s maybe only 50% of the blockage traveling through my creative vein right now.

The homeless man has preoccupied my thoughts.

Though he is not a danger, at least I keep telling myself, his presence has recharged any already existing fear I’ve had living on the eastside. With my fear comes the frustration that I should not live in fear in this neighborhood I love so dearly. I try to remind myself that living in a big city comes with its “character”, but within the past year, I’ve seen more sketchy shit than I have in my entire life. When I lived in Los Angeles I was shielded from the grit and grime because I lived in an apartment. In Austin, I live in a house and I’ve never (more…)

February 21, 2012 by
Writing

When Are You Most Creative?

source

Some days you have it and some days you don’t.

It’s a total mystery as to the why either one happens.

As a friend pointed out when we had a discussion about this over the weekend, Steve Martin once said something along the lines of, “Forcing creativity is like trying to force a shit. You just can’t do it. You have to let it flow naturally.” Now, I tried Googling this quote for verification, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere which leads me to think that my friend is full of shit. However, I did find two OTHER delightful quotes from Steven Martin on creativity:

“Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.”

and

“Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naivete, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do.”

(I beg to differ Martin’s claim of “a lack of natural ability”- he seems (more…)

August 22, 2011 by
Writing

How to Come up With Fresh Crap for Your Blog

source

The biggest obstacle I face with blogging is coming up with fresh content.
And not swearing.
Swearing may be my largest obstacle.

Mom told me that when I moved to Los Angeles I turned into a “raging swearing jerk” that she “no longer recognized”. After LA, I dropped the jerky part, but kept the swearing. It has not only become a problem with my blog and social media profiles (my 92 year-old grandmother de-friended me on Facebook because of “my language”), but also in real life where I often find myself dropping little tiny F turds every now and then at work or in meetings. But my swearing is not the point of this post. I’m not even going to “accidentally” place a “fucking” or “shit” anywhere in that past sentence to try and be humorous.

The number one problemo I have with the bane of my existence, er, blog, is coming up with shit that doesn’t bore people to tears. Ideas I don’t feel like I’ve rehashed, don’t give a crap about, or know that others could (more…)

May 26, 2011 by
Writing

Inspire Me: 5 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block

obligatory cheesy stock photo….ha, like people still use pen and paper

I just can’t do it.
There is nothing to come out of me. The experiences that I drew inspiration from have been over-talked, over-analyzed and are simply dried up.
I don’t dream of Los Angeles anymore. I don’t lament in my twenty-something confusion anymore.
I simply live a normal and happy life in Austin, Texas.
This should be something that one can take inspiration from, right? A well-adjusted, healthy, and drama-free life?
Then why do I have writer’s block?

When these sort of times occur in my life, I try to recall a number of steps that help me get out of my rut. Though simple, the exercises below are sure-fire ways to help…and I probably won’t do any of them.

1.) Travel– From the act of getting somewhere to the people and places you see along the way, traveling is always a great way to inspire creativity. Not only do I feel mentally and physically better after getting out of my daily (more…)

March 30, 2011 by