Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts
Inspiration
I’m prepared now to use the wonderful word confluence, which of itself exists as a reality and a symbol in one. It is the only kind of symbol that for me as a writer has any weight, testifying to the pattern, one of the chief patterns, of human experience.—
Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings
My Quest For Beauty
The word “symbol” comes from two Greek words syn and ballein meaning to “draw together.” The antonym of “symbolic”…is “diabolic.” This word comes from the Greek dia plus ballein, and means to “tear apart, to confuse, to throw into discord.” —Rolly May, My Quest for Beauty
My Quest For Beauty
Schiller’s central idea—and inspiration, as I would call it—is that beauty is born in play.
When I first read this I thought it a frivolous idea; but I then recalled that we speak of Mozart and Beethoven as playing the piano, the very opposite of superficiality. And we refer to Shakespeare’s plays; and I agree that such “playing” describes the most profound and humanizing of all human activities.
Play is the one activity where the fusion of inner vision and objective facts is achieved. Out of this comes the living form that is beauty. This living form is vital, alive, dynamic; and at the same time gives serenity and repose, as for example in music.
Play unites the inner world of our personal reverie with the outer world of people and nature.—Rollo May, My Quest for Beauty
“Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.”
Joseph Campbell
Creative People
Have you ever noticed that creative people seem to be happiest with a mess around them? That’s not quite accurate. They live in a perpetual cycle: they create a mess, then they straighten it out. But they don’t live “straight” very long. Something makes them throw the papers around, toss the clothes on the nearest chair, leave all the doors open. They need to create the mess in order to create order. Maybe it’s what Friedrich Nietzsche meant when he said, “One must have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.” The mess finally results in a published book, a produced film, a concert, a painting, a photograph, a great performance. The ultimate organization is accomplishment.
Inspiration
"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men."
~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
CREATING CONTENT & GETTING PUBLISHED IN A SPINNING PARADIGM
They say insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Sometimes I feel that I’m insane trying to publish new authors in the world of “traditional publishing” focused almost entirely on brands. As a story merchant who’s repeatedly found ways of getting new voices noticed, I used to pride myself on being called someone who “thinks outside the box.”
Today I’m not sure there IS a box. Or if there is, it’s rapidly changing shape.
The paradigm of getting published is not only SHIFTING, it’s SPINNING.
The ONLY CONSTANT today is the continuing and accelerating need for CREATIVE CONTENT. The best kind of property to create is intellectual property. If you had a choice, wouldn’t you rather be Bill Gates than Donald Trump?
Given this situation, what to do?
(1) Be massively proactive. Every minute of every day is an opportunity for you to use or to waste. Energy creates even more opportunity, and opportunity is the yellow brick road to success.
(2) Invest in yourself. Clarify your dream, believe in it, and use all your resources to make it happen.
(3) Think big. The bigger you think, the smaller the competition and the more you’ll be heard. Don’t be afraid of your biggest dreams. They may very well be the easiest ones to turn into reality. They’re the ones that will attract the most potent allies.
Of course my companies continue to work for CONTENT PROVIDERS “inside the box” in all media, as witness the sales of Gerald Blaine's The Kennedy Detail and Clint Hill's Mrs Kennedy and Me and the continuing progress of Paramount’s “Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not!” with Jim Carrey starring, Chris Columbus (“Harry Potter”) directing, and Eric Roth (“Incredibly Close And Extremely Loud, Benjamin Buttons”) writing the production script.
But, following my own advice for once, in the last twelve months we’ve also created new paradigms “outside the box”:
1) My partner Chi-Li led us to form a new Reality TV division in joint venture with Renegade (“Blind Date”). We’re already developing three shows! Bring us high-concept ideas attached to big colorful personalities.
2) Working with AEI client Michael Simpson at Informant Media, we’ve formed a new low-budget division, now having equity funding for a slate of 6-8 $3mm-$6mm films. Looking for eleveated genre thrillers, Horror, action, family with directors or cast or supplemental financing attached.
The important thing for all of us is to continue seeing the opportunities around us, worrying not about the economy, as Nik Halik says, but your economy. Trust in the power of your own imagination to find a way through the darkness toward the light.
Nurturing The Creative Spark
I spend a lot of my time on a daily basis re-inspiring and coaching clients. Thought I might share the wisdom I come across on the blog.
Here’s one from Kim Wright Wiley I saw in Selling Power
1. You always have a choice.
2. If you choose to complain, you’ll feel worse.
3. If you choose a positive outlook, your world will be full of possibility.
My advice: Put your moods aside and go back to work. Put your thoughts aside and go back to work. Put your feelings aside and go back to work. Put your sleeplessness aside and get up and go back to work! Creative work makes you feel better, act better, cope better, deal with your allies better!
As Shakespeare said, “Action is eloquence.”
Inspiration
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to live what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.
Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
—Steve Jobs
[via John Robert Marlow]
Something Ehren Kruger (Transformers, etc.) told me in an interview, which I thought I'd pass along...
I try my best to have a thick skin. Everyone at every opportunity will have a reason to not
make your script, to not believe in your story. They'll gladly tell you why it's not quite
good enough, or it feels a little familiar, or they're just not making that genre right now.
It's easy to beat yourself up and go crazy about that, which a lot of writers do. I just try to
shrug it off.
I've sold six scripts that I've written on spec, and not once did I have multiple financiers
wanting to buy the script. It was always one place making an offer, and fourteen other
places saying, "No, it's not good enough," or "It's not right for us," "Not interested," or
what-have-you.
"You can look at that and say, "Wow, one out of fifteen places thought my script was
worth investing in; that's pretty bad." Or you can be realistic about the business and say,
"One is all I need."
I think most working writers who are not terribly embittered share the philosophy that "I
believe these stories are worth telling, and I believe I'll find people who agree with me.
I'm going to hear "No" most of the time, but that's okay—because every now and then,
I'm going to hear "Yes.""
Inspiration
Jonathan Livingston Seagull will never make it as a paperback.—James Galton, refusing to bid on paperback rights (Avon books sold nearly 10 million copies).
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