March has come and gone, and personally it’s been a bit of a whirlwind. I think it’s time to readjust strategies, so I’m going to start with the plan then do the updates

The Plan: Focus on Inspiration

This next month I’m going to be traveling, continuing with the medical situation from before, and generally being much busier with things outside of my projects than I expect, (because of course). I’ve spent some time working on the book and the EP, and I’ve realized I’ve not left much time for myself to recharge my creative tank with inspiration, so to speak. In this case, that means consuming the creativity of other and of the world, and generally finding my inspiration.

This month I’m going to try and mindfully and consciously live in the world, listening to music and reading books both within and (perhaps more importantly) outside my wheelhouse. I’ll still be working on them, but I’m pretty much going in with no output goals and instead I’m going to try to mindfully practice on a regular basis, writing 100 words or 30 seconds of music (Taking inspiration from the 100-Word Writing Habit).

As a sidenote related to finding inspiration, I’ve gotten back into video games recently, and played two of the best games I’ve ever played: Myst and Stray. If there is somehow someone who is reading this and hasn’t played one or the other, I highly encourage you to not look up anything else about them and go play them. If you play Myst I suggest getting the most recent version on Steam. It’s a remake that’s more in line with the original vision of the devs.

Updates

The Creativity Book

Over a few sessions and drafts of fragments I’ve written about 1,500 words, and with them I’ve gained a bit of focus about what I want the book to be. In short, I want to lay out a model of the creative process in the hopes better understanding how I can do so on a more consistent basis.

I know I just said I have no expectations for output this month, but I’m hoping I can have a summary of the model I’m thinking of and maybe a table of contents. I sat down and did a mind map of what I have so far, and I’m a little urked how well something so…hokey-feeling worked. I honestly feel a little silly, but that’s ok. It taught me a few lessons.

EP

Unfortunately not much to say here. I started in on a few other little improvisations that could become song, but none have jumped out yet. I did a demo of a second song, but unfortunately couldn’t really keep it. At least now I have a better feel for the groove and tone. I think the real difficulty is going to be in trying to not have the songs sound the same.

Photography

I’ve added to my set up for film scanning, and hopefully I’ll find the energy some time this month to scan some frames and talk about them here. I really enjoy the process and it’s one of my least shared hobbies.

TikTok

So…how about that RESTRICT Act? I try not to get too political around there, but as a internet person and professional in the tech space, RESTRICT is absolutely insane.

Anywho…The TikTok is going well. I think the style and non-committal nature of the platform suit me well. I really want to start working on other platforms (especially YouTube) but the amount of work on the back end to get things up to snuff is a real issue for me. Hopefully I can work on it.

Conclusion?

Do I really need one of these? I don’t know. If you want, drop me a line. Once in a blue moon I get an email from a reader and it really does feel wonderful to know someone is reading. I should learn how to promote this blog more, or even figure out readership level. I’ve got goaccess and logs set up, but I’m not great with this kind of analytics info and I’m really not sure how reliable the info is, especially with RSS feed getting most of the traffic. If anyone wants to help me out, let me know.

Peace