4 Tips

Instead of finishing the project with a clever bang, Jack takes the occasion to briefly list the four most helpful things he learned to not give up during the course of the project.

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Writers Block. On the last day. What’s the point? I already know what I want to write about. I’m done with a large portion of it already. All nice and typed up. But what I was originally writing about felt fake. Instead I will share 4 lessons I’ve learned in the last 365 days of daily writing. They’ve helped me immensely and will continue to be used in all my other work.

 

1. There is no such thing as writers block. If you don’t know what to write about, write about that feeling. Or write an explanation of what you’d like to write about but can’t find the words for. Every time I used this trick, writers block literally became the subject of the work. It gave me a weird opportunity to psychoanalyse myself. Reflect.

2. Scheduling writing into every day way crucial. It only became easy to write daily once I’d planned it ahead of time. It’s like an imaginary deadline that has to be met. A level of imaginary stress builds up as the deadline arrives. Before I know it my brain jump starts the engine and begins to pump ideas in desperation. And poof. It happens. Ideas long before I reach the keyboard..

3. Ignore the audience. Write what you find interesting first. Then edit it to be understood by the audience. If you love what you’re writing it’ll write itself. If it feels like work it’ll be stressful and take a toll on you. In my experience this took the form of experimentation. I would try out various writing tricks or test my skills with entirely different forms or writing. Other times it would just be a reach into a topic others feel uncomfortable discussing. If readers don’t like it they don’t have to read it. Once editing I decide how to word it to best convey it to a reader.

4. Don’t worry about how it sounds on the first go. The existing text can be edited, but it must first be written. This is basically a take on “Write Bad.” In allowing myself to write poorly first, to exploit the general idea, I discovered much more time existed on the tail end of the session to make the work read the way I want. I could edit for as long as I wanted knowing if time runs out I’m always finished.

 

That’s it. No epic boom. No party. Nothing more. Just for tips that helped ease 365 days of original content.

Don’t know what’s next. Probably more of this.

At a pace I feel more comfortable with.

 

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Faded Patterns

It’s hard to deal with change. But it’s hard to deal with change only because we believe it’s hard to deal with change. Change is impossible..

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Troubled by freedom. The thought of it.

The cage opens and the creature, too scared to leave, quivers at the door.

Long within the bar box. The concept of walking the grass is nauseating.

Overwhelming to not know the other side of the hill.

Perhaps a storm lives there.

Although no phobia for water, there is fear of getting wet.

Never once does it occur to raise the half empty glass to the crying sky.

One of the paintings is crooked and I can’t stop looking.

Jekyll in the lab, but hide when there’s no distraction.

Rhythm was the meditation.

Songs no longer play with open eyes.

Abandoning systems to rise above.

The realization, that which was left was but a fraction of the picture.

Safe outside the cage. Just a bigger box out there.

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Five Sentences

An entire story summed up in the last paragraph. Only five sentences.

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“Next time a fairy wakes you to go on an adventure into the demon realm, call me,” Adam says playing with the pendant he brought back. Still it glows with the energy of the demon now trapped inside.

“Eliza will love it,” Ralf says. “She wouldn’t have been able to escape without your help. That’s all she cares about.”

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The Designer

The mind of a creator is a place where magic and tragedies are one and the same.
Whatever happens happens when they take their work seriously.
And the one’s that don’t get left behind.

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Much on the plate to eat. This and that. The want to eat it all while faced with the impossibility. Could take a bite of each thing just to get a taste, but not one thing would get finished.

Building glass towers…

Running out. The bomb is ticking and there is not time to sit and think of how to stop it. It’s time to act and make a move. To feel like something was attempted. So that if the bomb goes off it feels like at least the best was tried tried. In case one thing doesn’t defuse the it, it should all be considered. Lives are at risk and being helpless is not an option.

Sculpting away at the block…

This doesn’t belong here. Being capable of correcting this error makes it a duty. The weight of when it’s right or wrong to make a move is overwhelming. What if it’s the wrong call? What if the decisions have the capacity to…

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Poker Crown in School

Life is filled with ups and downs. Having the bravery and confidence to face all those moments equally will result in a fruitful future filled with learning and accomplishments.
Jack gives his thoughts in this poem.

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Patience is being tested
Straight aces on the table
Royal flush out of multiple choices
Pure crowned blood
Feeling able to take all the chips
4.0 mil stashed in the castle
Freshly dipped and gold plated
Playing the game is not a hassle
Cards in my hands
No class clown telling jokes to jesters now
Passing grade A performance
The brightest of Knights
Strokes of the lance questioned
Ready to fight once mentioned
Giving my…

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Why?

Feeling closed inside but unable to stop the strive.
This lyrical poem shows Jack’s fight and what he might do given the try.

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Do I feel weak?

Is it I refuse to speak of how my thoughts are bleak
Shriek inside, seek relief, heart dry dead mounted on a cross, I’m so fucking lost
But I refuse to think ‘cause I’ll sink into a slump and shrink
Lumps stuck in my throat, I’ll begin to choke, start feeling cold
Reckless and out of control but I won’t let go ‘cause there’s no telling where this car’ll go
It’s nowhere any of us would want to know
Obsessed with little regrets, don’t believe in hope
Lie to myself, “I’m the best,” “Not a mess,” “I can do this, though.”
Infest my mind with screaming voices testing me
Deafening noises
Definite poison
Stay poised when the moment is pointing three fingers back as I fade to black
In the middle of a heart attack that…

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Self-Taught

Jack rambles about not believing in writers block and explains why.

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Once in a while I draw blanks when attempting to come up with something new to write. But I don’t quit. I’m well trained. Disciplined enough to know just by writing my thoughts down I’ll get somewhere.

I’ve taught myself to expand on seemingly any amount of writing through nothing but will power. I’ve stopped believing writers block is anything more than a state of mind the inexperienced go through. It’s become too easy to turn nothing into something.

See, one of the main lessons about writing is to understand that what one means when they say ‘being a writer’ what they really mean is being a self-editor. Understanding how to twist and turn your own words into something greater than they were on the first round.

Take the first few sentences of this very aimless rant, for example. I can simply change the perspective to third person and pretend I’m telling you the story of a struggling writer. One who is about to force through his writers block and come to the conclusion that anything is possible with a little effort. But in reality this started as nothing more than a mental exercise. Nothing more than my writing to myself about not knowing what to write. Yet, that turns out…

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Spit Wit Like a Trickflip

In this piece Jack is talking smack as thought this blog were a rap.

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The mind of a maker
Keeping up a grind ‘till I take it
Trickflip the shit quick with the sick wit
Acrobatic causing havoc when I’m at it ‘cause I’ve had it
Hot when I rock steaming glass shatters not
I’m a dick all outta shits
Won’t pull out
Clean staying mean, butt won’t cool down
Been around tried a couple of different sounds
Hearing the bitch screaming “don’t stop now”
That’s the voice in the background
Extra, Extra, Extra, going mad now
And I won’t back down
And I won’t stand down
And I won’t blackout
And I won’t quite shout
I slither when I whispers sneaking
Measure with whiskers fiending
Cat and mouse
You stumbled into the wrong house
No way out now
The claws behind these paws will cause a loss
Time and cost developed the sight which caught the tiny critters behind my bars
Inside my mirror I…

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Determined

A simple rap by Jack taking jabs at the way the masses live.

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I’m a wit mess that leave no witness when I pen with quickness
My words are my vest
I invest in morphing into the best by tossing all of my stress into the canvas

Shots fired
The effort will go admired, but maybe it’s time you retire
Understand I am the man with the skill you wish you had

Hi, I’m Will
Here’s the way out
Follow it
We’ll all be proud you’ll no longer be around getting loud about all the stacks your raps catch
Yet, somehow tomorrow at work, you’ll be right back
9 - 5, your life is like that

I’m not, mines not, It won’t
I won’t be caught
I said the pen would put food on the table
I haven’t been hungry enough to eat my words yet
Although I’m able
This shopping list is long and I’m…

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Notebooks

Jack reflects on his old relationship with notebooks versus his new one with the laptop.

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There’s a safe comfort which comes from writing in notebooks. The keyboard feels cold and uninspired. A lot of effort goes into coming up with fresh ideas. But here in the notebooks it’s liberated and easy. Even emotional displays come as second nature when hand written. The skills acquired for expression as a child were developed in notebooks from the start. it’s home.

Losing sight of the simpler things in life that matter the most happens to all. Forgetting that joy and satisfaction come from the things loved occurs often.

I’m guilty of forgetting where I come from. That writing is what ultimately matters. That there is no right or wrong way to do it so long as it gets done.

I have to remember, when I struggle, that the notebooks always welcome me.

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Writer with Excuses

A Rant on writing, writer’s block and writing excuses.

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Running out of ideas. Time to gather new ideas seems short, slippery. When visualizing time I’m looking at the wrong things, seeing it in reference to life instead of the moment. But how useful is a long life spent working and collecting money, never having enjoyed life before death?
Priorities need to be better aligned. To consume as much as is made. As it is, I have more output than input and the tank is headed towards empty. As all the juice is squeezed out of the same withering thoughts, they become abstract and raw. Emotionless information. They’re dissected beyond purpose. They’re just parts. A car brought down to its basic components.
With organization it should be possible to compensate. I have to get over myself. Too much, “I’m too good for this,” or “I’m too busy for that,” going on. If there is time to waste there is time to spend. I need to bring the courage to settle my mind and make drastic changes without dreading the adaption process. The period of change where one feels lost. I should be chasing that feeling as if it were the guiding force. That feel of unfamiliarity is important to inspire and it’s the muse I’ve been missing.
I get too comfortable in my ways and methods. Although they work, there should be new material as often as there is new method and craft developed.
Sometimes a story needs to be told. I need to paint a picture. What good is having shiny freshly sharpened tools if they never get put to use? Hanging out in the tool shed polishing and sharpening, but never using? All this talk of purpose and meaning, yet, here I am avoiding change that’ll supply stories with purpose and meaning to share filtered through my lenses.
I need to get my shit together and be the goddamn writer I pretend to be.

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Jaded Creator

Poetry on the addiction of creation while feeling uninspired.

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I’m jaded
There’s no meaning
I hate it
Stuck in a slump
Yet, I don’t give a fuck
I can’t give up
Scratch at the wall
Claw away at it all
It’s madness
The choice to struggle
Wage war on the mirror
Sink in a dark place
Let the thoughts get unclear
But that’s the point, I think
When I conquer the monster
With my moves and dancing
When the battlefield is a shrapnel infested graveyard of failed ideas
Scars
To hone the new skills learned
Laws
Squeezed the wisdom from the stone brought home
Analyze the flaws
The sculpture left behind
Proof that I came out the other side the victor
To the crazy
To the mirror
That I faced myself
When I quivered I pushed through
And delivered
Nothing stood in my way
I can say “I’m still here,”
It remains true
Introspection
A writer writes
I find a way and stop whining
There’s always a way

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Learn to Create

A thought on creativity.

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Neither Skill nor Talent contain the capacity of Wisdom afforded with time and effort.
Understanding breeds method and method affords freedom.
Freedom then fuels creativity.

Do to learn.
Learn to understand.
Understand to improve.
Improve to perfect.
Create.

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The Philosophy of Creation

...their uninspired craft? Well, no. That’s not the way to go. Because skill and method overcomes any amount of inspiration. The trick is to develop a form to bypass the unexpected inspiration with measurable and expected steps which produce a perfect replica of said inspiration.

The best advice is simply “Do the Work.” Just get the thing done at all costs. Whether it ends up a fantastic work of art or gets shelved in shame. The experience is what the creator should seek. That is where the lesson is hidden. Method hides behind obligation and force, not random blessings.

Skill is a knife carved out of wood, inspiration is someone handing over the wooden knife. The difference is when forced to replicate it, bits and piece of the process are understood versus being given a wooden knife and having zero clue where or how it was created. Understanding is...

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