I touched on this a little bit on my last post and I thought about going over it further there, but then decided that it would be too distracting. So it get's it's own post. Yipee.
What drives artists?
I was at work the other day, making panini and chopping onions. It's a typical day at the Italian restaurant and my coworker who works up front pops back into the kitchen for a bit. We talk and she finds out that I'm a writer and then she asks the dreaded question.
"So what is your book about?"
I don't think I've mentioned the street smarts you learn on the sidelines of the writing circles. Pro-tip, never, ever, EVER, ask a writer to tell you about their book because this is not a simple question. You are getting way too close to the tiger's cage, my friend. You are risking things you didn't even know you were risking by asking an author to share with you what is essentially their unborn child. Therefore, do not ask unless you are prepared for one these three responses.
1.) "Why? Who do you work for? Are you going to steal my ideas, gasp, you are after my ideas aren't you!"
2.) Oh ok first blah blah blah...oh, but before that you need to understand blah blah blah... but you see it's all hidden intricately in the fact that blah blah blah...because you see ten years ago blah blah blah...(3 hours later) but I can't tell you the ending, it'll give too much away.
3.) A very simple bare sketch of the plot. Too little details to steal, just enough to test interest. Five minutes max.
All writers can have elements of these three in their responses, but writer number three is very, very rare.
If you don't want to be staring into the depths that is an authors never ending creative workroom of scattered nuts and bolts, mention that you would just like the dust jacket version. If you value your life, clarify that you are not also a writer or at least, feign disinterest because you write different genres anyway. Bless the third writer because they are socially aware enough to not suspect you or take up your time.
Anyways...
Because I am self aware, I gave her the dust jacket version and she seemed kinda interested then leaves to go back to work. There was no large indication of any real,"oh I will totally read that someday," interest.
About a week later, she asks how the book is going and I realize that I haven't even touched it since I'd first told her about it. I was flattered she asked, because it at least meant the book had some hook. Then she asked again the next week...and the week after that.
Now, I'm starting to get uncomfortable.
My inner writer number one was starting to peek around the corner while sharpening an Alice in Wonderland style clever. I put that idea to sleep quickly because my coworker is not, in fact, a writer.
Or is she?
Hmm...(snick, snick)
This encounter did get me thinking though. I put writing on hold in college because of stress and I was again putting it on hold because of full time work and school.
Was this all that was holding me back though?
As busy as I am, I can still fin the odd two hours or so in my week. Then I realized something.
As a kid, writing was my escape. A lot of creatives probably relate to this, but I was really lonely growing up and writing gave me some release. It was fun. It didn't really have rules. I could do whatever I wanted, be whoever I wanted and I always knew how the story would end.
Fast-forward to now and most of my writing is bogged down in publishing concerns before it even has a chance to grow into anything.
So I ask you, what drives you? What sparks your creative muse? For me, it seems to be a certain something: desire, a type of music, another artist, the desire to tell a good story. How do you spark your muse?
Sunday, June 12, 2016
The Creative Itch
Being creative is wonderful...and it can also be completely stressful.
Creative beasts are wonderful and they take you for rides that can last for hours. One nonsense idea bleeding into the next until a story is born. In college, my inner creative beast was systematically starved and then trained into a literary warhorse. It was like a boot camp for the brain as I did push ups with Milton and squats with Hawthorne. So. Many. Squats! No, really, all of my teachers were in love with his short stories and, I won't lie, they are pretty good.
Now that my brain is a sharp tool for genius, I often find myself stuck between one creative storm and the next. There is a giant wall that sits right between the two storms called "the critic" that won't allow me to pass until I've justified my previous storms right to exist. I'm grateful that my teachers opened my eyes to this skill because I know it makes me a better writer, but sometimes, I wish I could go back to my untrained days.
I'm always asking the "right" questions:
Does this make sense?
Would anyone get it if you left things like that?
Too much? Too little?
Really, all of the doubt infused writer's block really boils down to is:
Is it worth spending the time on something that may never pay off?
This, is a common thought for many starving artists. Is my dream worth it? Will it all be for nothing? That fear is completely cripples the creative beast. Hanging your drive on money and success kills the passion you had for your art.
However, doing nothing about your dream pretty much guarantees its failure. I haven't given up per se, I just have let a lot of old excuses creep up like time, school, and other commitments.
Lately, its been the skill excuse because I would love to be able to draw comics for some of my ideas, but my drawing is very, very untrained and unpracticed. I also don't have the patience for it, but I would still like to try it...just a little.
One of my coworkers found out that I am a writer and she gushes about it. Every time I see her she asks how the book is going. The truth is I haven't even touched it since the last time she asked me. Full-time school and work does put pressure on the writer for time. I keep saying that I'll start it up again once school is done and I'm working a job that will give me that kind of time, but will I?
Also, one of my facebook friends has been posting all about his publishing journey and just released his first book. I'm not jealous, I think its incredible and its the closest I've ever been to a published author. (pst: He is a pretty awesome guy to. You can get his book on Amazon, :The Shattering of Chains by Joshua Patrick Smith. https://www.amazon.com/Shattering-Chains-Light-Stars-Fire-ebook/dp/B01GDSIHPC?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc )
I mean if he could do it, I could totally do it, right?
Lately, the itch has been creeping up on me. I have my big massage test coming up and only twelve weeks left of school. My creative beast wants to come and play NOW though. I mean, I spent so much time on just building the world for my Slayers book and it's just sitting there, taunting me with it promise of demons storms and mislaid spells.
So, in other words, this is just a really long way to relieve some of the pressure. After I pass the mBLEX (positive thoughts) there will be more time for blogs and Slayers.
Thanks for the moment.
Creative beasts are wonderful and they take you for rides that can last for hours. One nonsense idea bleeding into the next until a story is born. In college, my inner creative beast was systematically starved and then trained into a literary warhorse. It was like a boot camp for the brain as I did push ups with Milton and squats with Hawthorne. So. Many. Squats! No, really, all of my teachers were in love with his short stories and, I won't lie, they are pretty good.
Now that my brain is a sharp tool for genius, I often find myself stuck between one creative storm and the next. There is a giant wall that sits right between the two storms called "the critic" that won't allow me to pass until I've justified my previous storms right to exist. I'm grateful that my teachers opened my eyes to this skill because I know it makes me a better writer, but sometimes, I wish I could go back to my untrained days.
I'm always asking the "right" questions:
Does this make sense?
Would anyone get it if you left things like that?
Too much? Too little?
Really, all of the doubt infused writer's block really boils down to is:
Is it worth spending the time on something that may never pay off?
This, is a common thought for many starving artists. Is my dream worth it? Will it all be for nothing? That fear is completely cripples the creative beast. Hanging your drive on money and success kills the passion you had for your art.
However, doing nothing about your dream pretty much guarantees its failure. I haven't given up per se, I just have let a lot of old excuses creep up like time, school, and other commitments.
Lately, its been the skill excuse because I would love to be able to draw comics for some of my ideas, but my drawing is very, very untrained and unpracticed. I also don't have the patience for it, but I would still like to try it...just a little.
One of my coworkers found out that I am a writer and she gushes about it. Every time I see her she asks how the book is going. The truth is I haven't even touched it since the last time she asked me. Full-time school and work does put pressure on the writer for time. I keep saying that I'll start it up again once school is done and I'm working a job that will give me that kind of time, but will I?
Also, one of my facebook friends has been posting all about his publishing journey and just released his first book. I'm not jealous, I think its incredible and its the closest I've ever been to a published author. (pst: He is a pretty awesome guy to. You can get his book on Amazon, :The Shattering of Chains by Joshua Patrick Smith. https://www.amazon.com/Shattering-Chains-Light-Stars-Fire-ebook/dp/B01GDSIHPC?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc )
I mean if he could do it, I could totally do it, right?
Lately, the itch has been creeping up on me. I have my big massage test coming up and only twelve weeks left of school. My creative beast wants to come and play NOW though. I mean, I spent so much time on just building the world for my Slayers book and it's just sitting there, taunting me with it promise of demons storms and mislaid spells.
So, in other words, this is just a really long way to relieve some of the pressure. After I pass the mBLEX (positive thoughts) there will be more time for blogs and Slayers.
Thanks for the moment.
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Protien Fallacy
There are a lot of public fallacies concerning personal health, but today, I am only going to cover the topic of nutritional health because it's the one that is familiar to most people and also the one I even feel the least bit qualified to discuss from my memories of my nutrition class and personal research.
Here's the deal. Your body is amazing. We can last three days without water and three weeks without food. Our bodies heal, we can create other humans, we can literally explore the world with just a thumb! We can even eat a wider variety of foods than most animals on the planet.
Guys, we can eat fake food and survive. Mind blown.
Yet, all we as a nation seem to care about is how fat we are and how to get rid of it.
We're so desperate for answers and scapegoats that we're willing to jump on any wagon that sounds halfway scientific.
I'm looking at you protein.
When I first heard the whole protein thing I instantly went into a rant that involved a lot of dramatic, "No!" and, "Are you kidding me?"
What nobody probably told you amid all the protein hype is that while it is essential to building muscle, too much of it actually does become fat, aka, it does the exact opposite of what people are telling you because you and I both know that the average joe is just going to ingest and continue on with their regular lives hoping for the better without really changing anything.
It works like this. In the broad classification of food science most foods fall into three macronutrients: carbs, fat, and protein. Of these three groups, your body will burn fat first, then carbs, then protein. When effort extends long enough, fat will still outpace the others in terms of ratio. You may be wondering how that makes sense when we are in an obesity epidemic. I thought the same thing when my professor at BYU-I told me this information. He said that the reason is simple, we consume so much more than we need that it almost doesn't matter which element burns first, anything not used will be stored as fat.
Ok, but why hate on protein then? This only seems to strengthen the Atkins argument even more. Answer, your body burns protein last because it has the hardest time burning it at all. People who take protein supplements, but then eat normally or don't work out at a high enough rate will gain fat, not muscle. The protein powder will just replace what the food was doing already and if the intake or energy output doesn't change then where is the excess supposed to go? Straight to your fat zones. However, that being said, protein supplements combined with fitness and a dietary regimen will increase the likelihood that you will lose fat mass because they do help with energy and muscle rebuilding. Which if you did that, you could argue that change would happen anyway without the extra fake protein, if at a slower rate.
Then there's the ketone problem. If you aren't eating carbs and relying on protein for your energy, your body undergoes a change. It will turn from a glucose (carbs) burning machine to a ketone (protein) burning machine. Your body will adapt at the cellular level in order to survive. Science has yet to say if this is a good or a bad thing, but the prospects are not looking good as traditional high protein diets that involve excessive meat have shown negative consequences for your heart. No word yet on whether or not this is also true for whole food, plant based proteins.
You probably never heard anyone put this information out quite like that. You may even argue with me and say if this was true, why has no one told you. If this is old news, then why is the new news touting protein as the next magic bullet for the obesity epidemic?
Answer, did you see how long it took me to explain all of that?
In the effort to make health science digestible to people whose last health class was maybe never, a lot gets lost in translation. Mostly, the context and other very important variables. It's easier for commercials and media to shout a quick, "Eat more protein, lose fat!" in the 30 seconds they have of your attention span. They're not wrong, they are just lacking in a lot of important details. It's like taking a drivers ed course for your body when the only thing you learned is to stop at the stop light. What about turn signals? What about yield signs and crosswalks? You kinda need a little more information than what the big red octagon means.
Additionally, markets who see the increase in demand may not necessarily check all of their science before selling to customers what they demand. After all, the customer is always right, even the ones who don't check their facts.
References
Proteins
https://ast-ss.com/creatine-fat-loss/
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=creatine+no+workout
Because this was interesting
http://thescienceofeating.com/food-combining-how-it-works/calories-fat-carbs-protein-per-day/
Here's the deal. Your body is amazing. We can last three days without water and three weeks without food. Our bodies heal, we can create other humans, we can literally explore the world with just a thumb! We can even eat a wider variety of foods than most animals on the planet.
Guys, we can eat fake food and survive. Mind blown.
Yet, all we as a nation seem to care about is how fat we are and how to get rid of it.
We're so desperate for answers and scapegoats that we're willing to jump on any wagon that sounds halfway scientific.
I'm looking at you protein.
When I first heard the whole protein thing I instantly went into a rant that involved a lot of dramatic, "No!" and, "Are you kidding me?"
What nobody probably told you amid all the protein hype is that while it is essential to building muscle, too much of it actually does become fat, aka, it does the exact opposite of what people are telling you because you and I both know that the average joe is just going to ingest and continue on with their regular lives hoping for the better without really changing anything.
It works like this. In the broad classification of food science most foods fall into three macronutrients: carbs, fat, and protein. Of these three groups, your body will burn fat first, then carbs, then protein. When effort extends long enough, fat will still outpace the others in terms of ratio. You may be wondering how that makes sense when we are in an obesity epidemic. I thought the same thing when my professor at BYU-I told me this information. He said that the reason is simple, we consume so much more than we need that it almost doesn't matter which element burns first, anything not used will be stored as fat.
Ok, but why hate on protein then? This only seems to strengthen the Atkins argument even more. Answer, your body burns protein last because it has the hardest time burning it at all. People who take protein supplements, but then eat normally or don't work out at a high enough rate will gain fat, not muscle. The protein powder will just replace what the food was doing already and if the intake or energy output doesn't change then where is the excess supposed to go? Straight to your fat zones. However, that being said, protein supplements combined with fitness and a dietary regimen will increase the likelihood that you will lose fat mass because they do help with energy and muscle rebuilding. Which if you did that, you could argue that change would happen anyway without the extra fake protein, if at a slower rate.
Then there's the ketone problem. If you aren't eating carbs and relying on protein for your energy, your body undergoes a change. It will turn from a glucose (carbs) burning machine to a ketone (protein) burning machine. Your body will adapt at the cellular level in order to survive. Science has yet to say if this is a good or a bad thing, but the prospects are not looking good as traditional high protein diets that involve excessive meat have shown negative consequences for your heart. No word yet on whether or not this is also true for whole food, plant based proteins.
You probably never heard anyone put this information out quite like that. You may even argue with me and say if this was true, why has no one told you. If this is old news, then why is the new news touting protein as the next magic bullet for the obesity epidemic?
Answer, did you see how long it took me to explain all of that?
In the effort to make health science digestible to people whose last health class was maybe never, a lot gets lost in translation. Mostly, the context and other very important variables. It's easier for commercials and media to shout a quick, "Eat more protein, lose fat!" in the 30 seconds they have of your attention span. They're not wrong, they are just lacking in a lot of important details. It's like taking a drivers ed course for your body when the only thing you learned is to stop at the stop light. What about turn signals? What about yield signs and crosswalks? You kinda need a little more information than what the big red octagon means.
Additionally, markets who see the increase in demand may not necessarily check all of their science before selling to customers what they demand. After all, the customer is always right, even the ones who don't check their facts.
References
Proteins
https://ast-ss.com/creatine-fat-loss/
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=creatine+no+workout
Because this was interesting
http://thescienceofeating.com/food-combining-how-it-works/calories-fat-carbs-protein-per-day/
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