TWKM Blog

With the wide-spread adoption of the Internet artistic creation is at an amazing high. New art-forms and pieces emerge every day fueled by the accessibility and mass exposure the Internet allows. Is true art being diluted by the garbage being presented as art on the Internet? (more…)

I want to start this post by clarifying something.

This is not about Creation vs. Evolution.

It actually has nothing to do with the beginning of any species. This is a post about creativity. Now that we have established this, let’s move on…

I just finished watching Iron Man and I can’t express how badly I want one of those suits, probably the silver one. I walked away from the movie thinking, “That movie was amazing!”…

More importantly though, and more on-topic, I was thinking about how far these comic book movies have come. When my brother and I were younger we were marginally intrigued by comic books — I think he was, and continues to be, more interested than me. We read comics, we drew comics, we set up a small studio in the basement replete with two desks and work lamps so we could draw until our mom told us it was time for bed.

You Don’t Need to Invent It

I always made my brother mad. I have always been a writer, but fairly proficient at drawing as well. He had the best ideas, he would scribble down a simple character and the stories and history behind his character were always so much cooler than mine. My characters had big muscles and fancy shading, but his characters had real depth and personality.

So I started refining his characters on paper. He felt I was trying to one-up him, but I wasn’t. I just loved what he had started with and wanted to see where I could go with it. His creation inspired me to create my own, similar — but as I always told him — very different creation.

Stop Thinking It Needs to Be Original

Creativity is not always original. I think it is a mistake to call anything “original” because everything is based on something else. We take from the recesses of our memories and experiences and create something based on what we know. It would be impossible for us to create anything truly original, because in order for anything to come from us, it at some point had to come to us. (more…)

I feel as if I’m now on the cusp of something big. As if all my life this great focus or achievement has been building up as I was busy elsewhere.

When I returned, there it was, looking no different that it had before, although it now seems so much more attractive and exciting.

The world seems somehow fresh now, waiting to be explored and documented. Whether it’s by fountain pen and Moleskine or computer and Internet access, it cries out, waiting for someone to make it concrete.

I am still waiting on some inspiration for my first mass-marketed literary achievement. I’m sure that somewhere down the line the first will seem very trivial and I’ll have a good laugh at it. But right now it seems like the first rough stepping-stone towards highways paved with marble.

Now I’m excited. O words, how you do get me going.

I realized the other day, and I can’t remember why, but I realized that I have not been doing what I love for quite a long time. Sorry, now I realize why.

I was reading a blog I came across (linked to from a Twitter friend’s blog) and it is titled, “StreetRag – An Urban Notebook”. It seems really quite pointless in the best sense of the word, but the author Michael Gravel chronicles his journeys through Edmonton. It isn’t a journal or a diary though, it looks like it’s practice. He takes what he experiences and then describes them to death. His writing is introspective and thoughtful.

I really enjoyed reading his March 8th post, “The Guy With Slippery Eyes“. It reads like a short story almost and it just really made me remember that I love writing, I love reading, and that both have played a very important part in my life. I foolishly thought that their part was already played and that it was no longer a necessity. (more…)