Going crazy, time to sketch...

I think it's just been too long since I've put pen or pencil to sketch paper or bristol board or rag paper or...anything! So, until I de-crazify, I think some sketching is in order. No agenda intended. Here's the first two minutes of my efforts (the 80s music station is playing in the background in the other room).

mm, food

I've been having a wonderful day off from work - just a day off for writing and drawing and relaxing...a little birthday present to myself.

So it was getting on 6 o'clock, and I'd done a little of this and a little of that. I'd had a pretty low key, awesome day.
But I felt like crap.

How could this be? This could be because, ridiculously, I had forgotten to eat any food beyond my breakfast tea and egg.

I had no other food in the house and no cash in my wallet, so I stumbled to the nearest takeout place that would accept credit cards and, armed with my debit card, purchased some soup and stir fried asparagus, etc...
And as soon as I ate, I felt ten times better, sorta like a human again.

The moral of this story? Don't forget to eat, kids.

Late Bloomers

I've been in a bit of a creative funk lately. Creative block, maybe? Creative hiatus? Creative laziness?

In any case, I haven't been making things like I've wanted to (this includes music, writing, art, etc), and I've been worried that I'm spinning my wheels yet again, succumbing to the mild depression that has reared its head in my life ever since high school.

Today I got a nice creative kick in the butt by having tea with one of my ex-professors-turned-friends. Just getting out of the house and talking to someone who has taught me about art and who still believes in my ability to do something significant was pretty inspiring.

So I went right out and purchased myself a mic stand, which I've been meaning to do for months, went home and recorded rough demos of two songs I wrote in August. It's amazing how much easier my life feels all of a sudden with a cheap $40 boom microphone stand.
Sometimes, you just gotta spend a few bucks and do something simple to get the ball rolling.
I now feel like I am prepared to record new ideas anytime they come to me, which is very liberating.

And just to seal my improved outlook this evening...I received the latest issue of New Yorker magazine in my mailbox today, and in the issue was an article called "Late Bloomers (Why do we equate genius with precocity?)," which I just finished reading.

Malcolm Gladwell, the article's author, presents a theory on creative people that was developed by David Galenson, an economist at the University of Chicago. Galenson had come to the conclusion, through his research, that creative people can be divided into two types:
1) prodigies, who produce their best work early in their career and tend to be "conceptual"
2) late bloomers, who are "experimental" and produce their best work only after years and maybe decades of work

Anyhoo... it was liberating to read this article, and somehow made me feel a bit less like I've been flailing around for the past ten years, somehow wasting my time.
I have a lot of work to do, creatively, but I feel hopeful, which is an important step towards moving forward.
I highly recommend the article.