For nearly two decades I’ve sat with writers, poets, radio performers, musicians and dreamers’ who’ve developed an addictive liking to quitting more than giving chance a shot.
The most amazing things stop us from being us; a bleep, a blunder, a wishful thought; a swish, a swirl, the scent of a rainbow set free on a canvas once thought to be blizzard white. A guitar strum, an odd placement of your ring finger on an ivory key even a lyric that seems relating but would anyone truly want to sing with you?
Thanks to Google with its endless supply of memory…we continue to build paper card bridges to islands nicknamed, “Not ever, yeah right and who has time…” We expect a successful career to be handed to us the same way we give money to educational institutions; just slide the card and poof it’s sitting in someone’s pocket.
One of the most difficult tasks Mark Twain faced was the idea of having to live up to what fans of his writing wanted most; an autobiography. He couldn’t grasp onto the importance of what it might do after it leaves his fingerprints.
Mentally, Mark Twain had to convince his creative self to step away from personal fears and lack of interest and dine in the depths of what if. He was no different than a writer from today; that long haul of taking a thin thought that somehow becomes an incomplete sentence three pages long, evolving into a mission to edit the project into a landscape of curves and mountain tops. Which is where more creative’s call it quits, the process of editing murders originality.
In 1897 Mark created a plan dubbed Scraps and Extracts. Rather than aim his entire focus on the beginning, middle and end…a term I call word dumping acted as a writing guide to glide him through the silence.
Mr. Twain was forced to ask himself, “What do readers want most? Do they want to know about his life or the famous people he’s met along the way?”
This is extremely interesting because Andy Warhol’s daily writings speak of the same journey. Although each creative had attained a level of performance looked upon as being great…their personal lives were covered with the ingredients that have turned twenty first century writers, poets, musicians into blocked products.
John Lennon rode out a long and winding writers block by electing to never leave the Dakota. Johnny Reznick of the Goo Goo Dolls recognized his block as being nothing but a personal reminder that everything he did sucked.
Twain grabbed his reasons to quit and gave it a name Scraps and Extracts. Taking the words that bump into your brain during the midst of a thought and jotting it down. Collect enough of them and poof you’ve got a book. To someone living in 2010 where everything is downloaded inside two minutes or less that sounds long, boring and tedious and the creative ego feels it doesn’t deserve to be treated so badly.
Once down on paper Mark Twain instructed his editor to knock the lies out it and purify his grammar. To someone who paints on a canvas that’s no different than displaying a piece of your expression in an art gallery and putting a comment box below the frame. The majority of my art is extraordinarily thick due 100% to allowing outside influences control the final presentation. I would tape the backs of art paper over and over again to build a wall for the new coat of colors to seep into but not through. When you go back today I show the inquisitive mind my process of thought never being able to showcase the original idea because it’s so easy to convince a creative to walk a different path.
This is why Fall is fun to watch in the Carolina’s. Men with their toys reconstructing their summertime landscapes because something didn’t look or feel right and the only thing required is another weekend to rent a tractor and start an entirely new process. Give me ten minutes in your backyard and the artist in me will quickly uncover the areas where a great idea went silent.
Scraps and Extracts…
What if we stopped rushing to be perfect? Is it just another excuse to keep you from doing what you do? Twain’s fans wanted the autobiography not the man it would be written about. Canadians wanted Andy Warhol to attend their art festivals but would never buy the American Cultured art. The Bee Gee’s left Australia to gain fame in England where they were constantly compared to the Beatles. Freddie Mercury of Queen feverishly fought to preserve the drama he wrote into each lyric refusing to let directors and producers to change him and his style.
We were born to create and ultimately it’s our decision to turn it on and turn it off. If Robert Downey Jr. hadn’t kept reaching for his acting outlet while being stuffed into prisons and jail cells…which actor today would have the brilliance of Downey to play the part of Ironman?
Break the habit of creating a stopping point by introducing yourself to Scraps and Extracts. Biltmore Estate wasn’t a thirty day project. Nor were the Grand Tetons’ of central Wyoming. If you were in Master Harris’ Tae Kwon Do class he’d take your silence and show you how to teach. The best teachers are always the greatest students.
I will always believe in you first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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