mix and match, don't miss the magic...
i did have an idea, once, of using my cemetery girl photographs as the basis for writing children stories with. or at least writing stories in a children's story book-like format; picture story books... if you will. not that the stories would need to be fit for children, but that the allure may be in the stories being fairy-tale like... or the appearance of the books being appealing in an innocent style that might make them more attractive to buyers.
and see? this is where i fail as a social creature. i do not have the ability to attract anyone to sit down next to me to have a conversation with to talk about this idea and say, "hey! wanna collaborate? i have this idea but i'm not sure how to do it just right. and i'm willing to let you work on this with me, share making this a creation between the two of us." it's partly because i don't know anyone well enough. the people i do know all think i am just a do-it-by-yourself-kinda-guy and they never suspect that i'd ever be open to this kind of idea. and the other people, new people, i scare them all off. anyone new i meet are all overwhelmed by my rambunctiousness and over-excitedness. yeah, it just doesn't work. whenever i tell someone about my ideas they are like, "yeah, you should do that."
but this idea, this one needs the spirit of gentleness and kindness of another type of soul's touch that i don't have. i'll write a fairy tale tinged with darkness. and i want to infuse some light into this... ugh, hmm, dang i guess i have to go back, somehow to invoking the spirit of Francesca's muse. how does she do all of her writing on her own? she had her mother, for one source of balance... a touchstone. i'd go to my father before i'd openly go to my own mother. not out of cruelty but just out of there being a lack of an open flow of communicative energy.
and this all pushes me deeper into my malaise of not understanding how to do all the things that i want to do. i do not want to stop doing my photography. my photography is the only thing that gives me a connection with beauty in this world. i think that maybe by going this pathway of keeping my new work private, which so far has not been all that difficult to do - i edited some new photographs over the past few days and they were definitely worthy of displaying but i felt strongly that i did NOT want to show them.
what happened this afternoon was this "poetry thing", where i sit down and look at one of my photographs of my cemetery girls, and sink into feeling a connection with the spirit, the mood, the character embodied inside of her... it's a bit of a push, but to me it seems to work. i guess once i get this new publication released and hear some feedback i'll have a better idea of it's even worth doing (any more).
back to the idea at the top about collaborating with someone... maybe it's just truly getting in touch with the spirit of the muse in my fucking life, so that i am feeling good about myself, so that my body feels good, so that i sleep good at night, so that i wake up feeling good, so that i get through a day fully in connection with my inspiration and not feeling out of sync - wondering what to do next, having the power to do all the things that i have ideas to do. it is the feeling of dissatisfaction from NOT completing my ideas that is where my discontent comes from. -- so in this paragraph, i was going to talk about a project that's idea was born on a September morning in 2010...
i was in my cemetery in Oakland with one of my most inspiring ever muses. and together we came up with a scenario for a complete story to be told with the images we created in just one hour's time. the story was to be about a woman named Katya that lived near the cemetery. she was a fortune teller type and she came to the cemetery after she had insightful dreams to conjure the memories of the lives of women that had lived before her time. the day of the shoot i did with "her", she had come to conjure the spirit/memory of Julia Morgan... it was the seed of a rather elaborate story. and i still know it in some detail. i just have never sat down to write it yet. i have not had the good feelings in my body or mind or spirit to be able to become quiet enough to concentrate on fully imagining it, finishing it.
and see? right now, in a split second flash i just had two thoughts/ideas. finish the short story book in child story picture book fashion. OR do next month's Nanowrimo JUST on this one story! see where this one seed idea can lead for the whole 50,000 word novel you will write next month would go. that is a crazy idea but maybe it is a good idea to get your mind off of what you have been mired in for so long with this old story that you've gotten so depressed from before.
because i tell you that if i go back into writing more of what i wrote last year, pulling from the same places that i wrote it from, i'm going to be a freaking basket case of depression on December 1st and i don't know what i'll be capable of doing with myself after that. and here is the thing. i could go either way. i could go full on into the depression-bound story and make it black as hell. but that energy, that mood mixing up with what i'm already feeling and thinking is only going to create a powder keg for me to make some poor decisions about what i'll do in my personal life. if i were to write something new and fresh, despite it being a dark story, it could revamp my whole attitude about creative projects for 2012. i really do not want to stop doing photography. like i said earlier, and many other times in this blog, it brings me too much joy.
huh.
and see? this is where i fail as a social creature. i do not have the ability to attract anyone to sit down next to me to have a conversation with to talk about this idea and say, "hey! wanna collaborate? i have this idea but i'm not sure how to do it just right. and i'm willing to let you work on this with me, share making this a creation between the two of us." it's partly because i don't know anyone well enough. the people i do know all think i am just a do-it-by-yourself-kinda-guy and they never suspect that i'd ever be open to this kind of idea. and the other people, new people, i scare them all off. anyone new i meet are all overwhelmed by my rambunctiousness and over-excitedness. yeah, it just doesn't work. whenever i tell someone about my ideas they are like, "yeah, you should do that."
but this idea, this one needs the spirit of gentleness and kindness of another type of soul's touch that i don't have. i'll write a fairy tale tinged with darkness. and i want to infuse some light into this... ugh, hmm, dang i guess i have to go back, somehow to invoking the spirit of Francesca's muse. how does she do all of her writing on her own? she had her mother, for one source of balance... a touchstone. i'd go to my father before i'd openly go to my own mother. not out of cruelty but just out of there being a lack of an open flow of communicative energy.
and this all pushes me deeper into my malaise of not understanding how to do all the things that i want to do. i do not want to stop doing my photography. my photography is the only thing that gives me a connection with beauty in this world. i think that maybe by going this pathway of keeping my new work private, which so far has not been all that difficult to do - i edited some new photographs over the past few days and they were definitely worthy of displaying but i felt strongly that i did NOT want to show them.
what happened this afternoon was this "poetry thing", where i sit down and look at one of my photographs of my cemetery girls, and sink into feeling a connection with the spirit, the mood, the character embodied inside of her... it's a bit of a push, but to me it seems to work. i guess once i get this new publication released and hear some feedback i'll have a better idea of it's even worth doing (any more).
back to the idea at the top about collaborating with someone... maybe it's just truly getting in touch with the spirit of the muse in my fucking life, so that i am feeling good about myself, so that my body feels good, so that i sleep good at night, so that i wake up feeling good, so that i get through a day fully in connection with my inspiration and not feeling out of sync - wondering what to do next, having the power to do all the things that i have ideas to do. it is the feeling of dissatisfaction from NOT completing my ideas that is where my discontent comes from. -- so in this paragraph, i was going to talk about a project that's idea was born on a September morning in 2010...
i was in my cemetery in Oakland with one of my most inspiring ever muses. and together we came up with a scenario for a complete story to be told with the images we created in just one hour's time. the story was to be about a woman named Katya that lived near the cemetery. she was a fortune teller type and she came to the cemetery after she had insightful dreams to conjure the memories of the lives of women that had lived before her time. the day of the shoot i did with "her", she had come to conjure the spirit/memory of Julia Morgan... it was the seed of a rather elaborate story. and i still know it in some detail. i just have never sat down to write it yet. i have not had the good feelings in my body or mind or spirit to be able to become quiet enough to concentrate on fully imagining it, finishing it.
and see? right now, in a split second flash i just had two thoughts/ideas. finish the short story book in child story picture book fashion. OR do next month's Nanowrimo JUST on this one story! see where this one seed idea can lead for the whole 50,000 word novel you will write next month would go. that is a crazy idea but maybe it is a good idea to get your mind off of what you have been mired in for so long with this old story that you've gotten so depressed from before.
because i tell you that if i go back into writing more of what i wrote last year, pulling from the same places that i wrote it from, i'm going to be a freaking basket case of depression on December 1st and i don't know what i'll be capable of doing with myself after that. and here is the thing. i could go either way. i could go full on into the depression-bound story and make it black as hell. but that energy, that mood mixing up with what i'm already feeling and thinking is only going to create a powder keg for me to make some poor decisions about what i'll do in my personal life. if i were to write something new and fresh, despite it being a dark story, it could revamp my whole attitude about creative projects for 2012. i really do not want to stop doing photography. like i said earlier, and many other times in this blog, it brings me too much joy.
huh.
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