Austin Kleon – Page 578

40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS

Thursday, May 18, 2006

inspired by our lovely weather…

here’s Lynda Barry’s interview where she talks about her process that i’m trying to rework…

This is the first in what I hope to be several exercises hatched under the influence of Lynda Barry. See, Lynda keeps a stack of index cards with different words on them, and every morning she gets up very early, gets her ink ready, dips her brush, and pulls out a word, and whatever that word is, she uses the image it conjures to start up a piece of writing. Whenever she can’t think of how to start out, she uses the words, “It was a time when…” and goes from there. And because she’s using the top of her brain to make the letters look neat with the brush, the bottom of her brain can work on the good stuff. Oh, and she can’t erase what she’s written. She wrote all of CRUDDY this way.

To try it out, I opened the dictionary, and the first word I looked at was “juice.” I started out with a big rectangular block of black, and started erasing…

…death to Microsoft Word!

DRAW YOURSELF A MAP

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

I was on the phone one day with my friend Brandon. Brandon’s a writer, been a serious one for a lot longer than I have, so whenever I get him in a conversation, I drop a little, “So what’re you working on?” question somewhere in the middle of things, a little bait, to see if maybe he’ll bite and spill the beans.

“Oh, I’m just reading, mostly.” The kind of answer that drives me nuts.

So I said, “Well, what are you reading?”

He told me he was picking out certain authors, and then reading everything that author had ever written. (I think at the time, he was tackling Flannery O’Connor, James Baldwin, and Ian McEwan.) I freaked out a little bit, and said, “Jesus, man, how disciplined of you! I can’t even finish a novel!”

So I hung up later, and got to thinking about his project. A few days earler, I’d read a line of advice from G.S.: “Find two or three writers that you’re really excited about. Follow their lineage back. Know everything about them. Immerse yourself in those writers.” This really clicked with me.

Since I started working in a library, I’ve been on book overload. I can get any book, anytime. No limits. Always a bad idea. So much to read. So little time. Really overwhelming. But this, this was a really great idea: Take it slow and steady. Saturate yourself with a writer’s work. Figure out who means the most to you right now, and then read who meant the most to them. No problem.

But how to begin? A list seemed too linear. What I needed was a map.

I’ve always been a nut about genealogy. When I was in undergrad, Brandon gave me a book of Carver stories. I fell in love with them. Then I found out our teacher had been taught by John Gardner, the same John Gardner who taught Ray Carver. I started building this goof-ball lineage in my mind…that I was somehow inheriting what had come before me.

A family tree!

So once in a while, when I’m feeling lost, feeling a little schizophrenic in my reading habits, I’ll draw a dorky map like the one above, who I’ve read, who I should read.

Where I am, where I should be going.

BRAND ME, PLEASE

Monday, May 15, 2006

“…with his third collection of stories, “In Persuasion Nation,” he’s peddling a line of signature goods. Expertly made, unmistakably his, they’ll be consumed with gusto by the loyal customers who enjoyed “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” and “Pastoralia.” It’s the kind of ironic twist he delights in: George Saunders, sworn enemy of commodification, is in danger of becoming a dependable brand name.”

* * *

Artists out there: there’s a lesson to be learned.

Name awareness. Identification. Purpose. Packaging. Marketing. Graphics. Image. Distribution. Quality assurance. Cumulative impressions. Remembrance. Relationship. Word of mouth. Lifelong customers.

If the customer has heard of us, we’ve done our job.

Is it okay to use the tools of the unholy for the holy? Or is the key to realize that there is no holy or unholy, only tools?

“Me and my wife are Buddhists,” Saunders has said, “and one of the things they teach is that it’s only your limited point of view that makes things holy or unholy.”

Brand-loyalty: isn’t it the dream of every artist?

* * *

UPDATE: Meg sent me this article later this morning, “Building A Brand With A Blog.”

WHOEVER GOD TOSSED YOU TO

Friday, May 12, 2006

“After all the things that happened, described and undescribed, if I told you I still loved the father would you understand it? How there was a wire of love running inside of me that I just could not find to pull? It was the side effect of being someone’s child, anyone’s child, whoever God tossed you to.”

—Lynda Barry’s CRUDDY, Chapter 24

“Birdseed” is turning into a tiny epic. As long as something makes Meg laugh, then I know I’m on the right track…

This morning she had to drive to Oberlin to consult a co-op about greening a house, so I went with her. In the bookstore, I read the first pages of Italo Calvino’s Six Memos For the New Millenium, his last lectures he wrote before he died, and Barry Hannah’s second novel, Ray. Both are authors I’ve set aside for studying. But where to begin?

I decided not to buy the bargains, and went into the coffee shop next door to read Cruddy. Then I spilt coffee all over. It might’ve been the caffeine, might’ve been the book.

On the way out of town, Meg and I talked about how we want to have a little house in a small college town, a highway trip away to a city with some culture.

One day. Happy weekend, everybody.