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| The author/Publisher, Dane F. Baylis |
KUDOS TO THE EDITOR-IN- WIFE!
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Not only for the time she's provided to this blog, insuring my syntax is right, and putting up with the all of my pissing and moaning, but also for occasionally giving me that gentle nudge when the machinery seems bound up and I've no idea how to get things moving.
Tonight was one of those times. Here we are a couple of days away from closing out the 365 Days of Blogging and I had no idea what I was going to write about. She clipped the whole thing neatly together with one word. CREATIVITY.
In the last couple of days I've ordered a new easel (my last was a self-built H-Framed juggernaut that went bye-bye during a garage clean out), I've purchased a new supply of acrylic paint, pastel chalks, and several other things. I'm going through sketch books almost as fast as I do notebooks, and I see only an acceleration in this in the future. I've been asked to host another reading, to assist at the installation of Ventura County, California's first Poet Laureate, Mary K. Rummel, and I've been approached by a couple of other poets who were inquiring after the possibility of having their chapbooks produced under my imprint.
I'm writing like a fiend. Poetry, short and long fiction, commentary, not to mention this blog. My consumption of the written word is through the roof and spans everything from 21st Century American poetry, the Fiction of Flann O'Brien and Isaac Babel to the CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE, 16th Ed., and the English Standard Version of the Christian Bible. (No wonder I'm going blind as the proverbial bat.)
As you've probably noticed, I've begun posting a bit of my own photography and go hardly anywhere without a camera in my hand. I am partaking of museums and galleries, movies and music, travel, cooking, and just quenching the fire in my soul with all the world has to offer. When I think how foolishly I let the rigors and boredom of the everyday get in the way of all this, I could be sick.
The only thing that ever really stands in our way, when it comes to our own creativity, is our own doubts and sloth. You don't have to be killing yourself to mount a gallery exhibit or produce a three act play, all you have to do is sit down long enough with a pen, or brush, or pencil, or clay, or a musical instrument - or whatever your chosen medium is, and do something. You cannot make a finish unless you first make a start.
You might say, "Well, I'd like to try but..." and I would find myself reminding you of what Yoda said. "Try? There is no try. There is only do." You might think I'm being facetious, but it was that, combined with the past advice of my boxing coach, Fitzie, who was fond of reminding me, "The fight don't start until you step in the ring, and it ain't over until we cut the tape from your hands!", that finally got me moving again.
Sure, creativity has its element of inspiration. There's that flash of an idea or a new technique that starts the motor but, if you don't do the work, it all comes to nothing. In the end it may only serve as a small marker to prove your own existence, or something that served as an augment to your income. But that's a hell of a lot more than will be left of the vast majority of people crawling across the face of this globe. It all comes down to to words - CARPE DIEM!
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Meanwhile...live for it, love it for its wonder, and don't tell me about it - Show me!
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