Late last week, Saturday, to be exact, I bought a cool little program called RapidBlog. It allows me to maintain my own blogsite while hanging it onto Blogger for comments. People dial in my new Blogger address: dvitola.blogspot.com and it will magically redirect them to Thomas Talks to Me. It worked great--for about two hours. That's how long it took for Google's spiders to go out and proclaim my site as blog spam. So, I had to put in a blog review request to prove I'm a living person and not a robot. They locked me down for four days until the underpaid drone managed to surf to my site to confirm that I was actually a person.

It is a sad thing indeed, when you must prove that you're a human. What if I said that I was a green, bug-eyed alien from Zeta Reticuli? Would they have approved me? Or perhaps I'm a time-traveler from the 99th Century. I have a ray gun and you guys are Googled meat.

Not that I had anything exciting to impart with my three loyal readers. It's just that as a writer, I abhor censorship. If you don't like what I'm saying, then for God's sake, don't read it; but whatever you do, don't try to shut me down. Yes, yes, I realize it's a spam problem. Yes, yes, I realize companies feel the need to curtail the evil progenies of capitalism gone bad. Yet, when it happens to a real person, someone not from Zeta Reticuli but from the good ol' US of A, it creates the shuddering willies. Visions of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, those crazy sonofabitches in North Korea, Iran and Venezuela--they all come to mind. I remember my history and how during the cold war in East Germany, all typewriters were registered. I remember the nightmarish reports trickling into the West of how the Stasi arrested dissidents for writing articles questioning the imposed Communist system. Most of all, though, I remember how the writers of the Eastern bloc countries risked their lives to publish their words and then disseminate the documents by passing them hand-to-hand in a process called samizdat.

I have no doubt that samizdat documents were composed of some of the tightest writing known to man. They would have to be. You can't very well carry around a boxed manuscript and go unnoticed by the secret police. You have to hand off the writing from breast pocket to breast pocket, purse to purse, all done with a gentle flick of the wrist and sheepish scanning of the area. And you would have to be very selective about whom you chose to pass samizdat, because the 'secret' in secret police meant they infiltrated the writing/reading networks. Those were hard times, impossible times, and you would think we've learned our lessons about censorship. Maybe. Maybe not.

One of the hardest things a writer has to do is summon up the courage to stare down a blank page. It's a bit like casting on 300 stitches to knit a shawl only to discover that your project is just too ambitious. You have all this beautiful yarn, expensive knitting needles, costly pattern, and no way to wrap your head around the time it will take to complete the shawl. It's like that everyday for a writer, but if you're a knitter, too, you can combine the two things to help you out a bit.

Writing, like knitting, is about ritual. We sit down, and have our cup of coffee or tea beside us. We go through the ritual of checking emails and rereading what we wrote the day before. Often, we'll play our favorite writing music (no vocals, please!) or burn incense in some attempt to reach the spiritual side of OM and rip off a masterpiece of stunning proportions. For me, I slip on a pair of knitted "writer's" mitts.

I always knit these mitts, usually out of merino sock yarn, my favorite being Fleece Artist Wool. I knit a knew pair for ever big writing project. When I'm done with the project, I pack up the wool mitts and give them to Goodwill. (They are, after all, still in great shape and will chase the chill for someone else. Plus they have great writing energy attached to them!)

The mitts above are my own design, featuring a center panel from an old Shetland pattern called "Gull." The colorway is called "Midnight."

So my ritual is as follows: Cup of coffee, Peruvian if I can get it, mood music and a drawn tarot card to spearhead my inspiration. I pull on my writer's mitts, luxuriate in the softness against my hand, set my little computer timer and write for ten minutes. By the end of that time, the mitts have warmed and so has my writing stamina. I can now face the blank page.

Why is it that you will find not one creative out there who creates just for the sheer joy of creating? People don't paint pictures because they feel inspired to bring beauty into the world. It's always shaded with thoughts of how well it might do in the 'marketplace.' It's the same with writing. Was there ever a time when people wrote for the thrill of putting words to paper, to experience the profound act of moving one's hand in a miraculous way that produced letters which produced words which produced sentences? When did people tell a story for the fun of it, not to see how much someone would be them for it?

I forgotten these humble beginnings. Looking back, I can't even recall writing without a sense of selling. Instead of asking: "Did you enjoy my story?" I ask: "Do you think someone will buy it? Do you think it will get good reviews, therefore, selling more copies?" Should I be asking: "Has this story healed you in some way? Have you had a pleasant time reading my words? Has it reminded you that love is the most important emotion we own?"

We seem to sell ourselves short when we don't do this and yet, it's the human condition to produce something of worth as seen through another's eyes. We can't find self-worth without outside validation and while this may, indeed, be a natural activity of the ego, we've taken it too far. Society has become so competitive that creatives are dashing to find the latest 'new thing' to exploit. Hollywood wants a blockbuster so badly that they churn out sequels to the sequels because there's no time to create something new. There's no time to develop a story from the bottom up; there's no time to worry about beauty or honesty or any deeper meaning. The independent people, those creatives who have no huge stake in society by the simple fact that piles of money are not being thrown upon their doorsteps, try to fill the gap. But soon, like the rest of us, the allure of out-competing the competition and the addicting feeling of a dirty dollar bill begins to overtake them.

What happens then? We become creatively blocked. By looking at the end result, instead of enjoying the journey, we can't seem to put one foot in front of the other. We thrash around to find anything we can use just so we can 'get something out there.' After a few days of this, we suddenly decide we need a creativity coach. Surely, if we pay someone to lead us by the hand and tell us what we already know, the floodgates will open. New ideas will be ours! Of course, we have to pay the coach, so what we create must be salable.

So I call to you to recreate your mission and to escape the cycle of dependence that mars your birthright. Go ahead! Create just for the hell of it!

Recently, I attended the Oklahoma Writer's Federation Annual Conference as a presenter. I gave two workshops: Audio for Authors and World Building 101. Both were a rollicking good time, especially World Building. That presentation is interactive; we create a wonderful world from the 'sun up.' It's always a blast and it's always different because I never know what my attendees will create.

This last time they formulated a world with two suns--one red and one blue. The day lasted 60 hours and the world was a desert. The creatures who inhabited this place were silicon-based. (In other words, they were rocks.) These writers invented methods for procreation, communication, and motivation. The bigger rocks were the rulers and the smaller rocks were the doers. There was a conflict, a hero and many, many possibilities for an outrageous story that works!

To say I'm amazed by sci-fi/fantasy writers is an understatement. They are the most stunningly creative folks on the planet (on any planet, for that matter). These folks inspire others; give away ideas; and freely share their ideals. This is writing at its best. This is what writing is all about.

It's been a while, no? I've been so engaged in projects that I haven't come up for air. Some have been fun, some have been enlightening, but some have been making me think that I need a little more. So, it's time to get my virtual art studio back online. I need to get some short stories written, some digital art done, some knitting designed. Like anyone else, I can get lost in the day-to-day. Having fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue makes some days more day-to-day than I'd like, but if I set some goals, I can get masterpieces accomplished. I call them masterpieces in a general way. Anything we create is a masterpiece. It doesn't matter about the criticism of others because art is subjective. Anything that pops from our psyche is a masterpiece, a spark of creation, akin to the spark of the Universe.

I'm a storyteller. In my past lives, I was a storyteller. It's so ingrained in me that I sieve the world through my personal story strainer. Is there a story in that fancy, glass building? Is there a story over there under that rock? Is there a story hanging off your bottom lip?

My stories tend to dribble onto my shirt. When I finally notice them, I think they're stains and try to clean them, but then I realize they're drops of masterpieces waiting to be rubbed off their backing material.

I've fitfully started and stopped lately. Not good for possibilities. Not good for masterpieces. Not good for nosy angels called Thomas!

Denny is off working hard on a new writing project, so she asked me to guest host the blog today. I'm a muse of information as well as writing, and my big thing is to make sure folks know stuff. To that end, I'd like to tell you about some Internet links that you're sure to find interesting and helpful.

Nina Bagley is the author of Ornamental, a blog devoted to her search for authenticity. She features her artwork in the forms of photos, writing and handmade 'narrative' jewelry. (We angels like bling. Archangel Gabriel wears too much, though. He looks like a Christmas tree with wings.)

Check out Jane Thornley's blog. Jane pushes 'free-range knitting,' a way to fashion designs that allow the knitter to hit the max on creativity and to come up with unique, inspired art wear. (We angels like original clothing, too. I am, personally, partial to scarves.)

Denny loves scents and especially scents with themes. She found Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, a perfumer who specializes in Gothic/Steampunk/Horror fragrances. These are uniquely blended oils, reasonably priced and very cool. (And yes, angels prefer an evocative bouquet. Except for 'you know who.' Brimstone only smells nice when you buy it from BPAL.)

Hope this gets your week going in a creative way. Denny promises to be back soon.

Make sure to eat a lot of candy,
Thomas

"Let your freak flag fly, and if someone doesn't get you, move on."
- Drew Barrymore

I think this kid has said it all--especially where art and critique meet. There are many reasons to be creative and each reason presents a way. We've become so practical as a society. I really believe we had more opportunity to express our creativity a hundred years ago than we do now. Yes, the critiques, though just a spurious, seemed to be more tempered. They didn't matter as much to the artist or the writer. We've lost the ability a hundred years on to create for creation's sake because we are constantly looking to please society. There's always going to be one mad dog in the bunch who is a maniacal troll, or at the very least, has an infected ego dripping the green pus of envy. He likes to hear his own snarling and thinks everyone else likes it too. Unfortunately, we justify his existence and occasionally, we are him.

Andrew Juniper claims, "if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi."

I understand this. I especially understand the serene melancholy so identified by the sense of transience and impermanence. That is a Buddhist concept, one that reveals to me the essence of 'being a writer.' Words are impermanent. You can't own them, even if you have all the copyrights in the world. How could you? Words, by their very nature, express inner vision and thought. Once a thought is written down, the words become like dark tracks in the snow. You can never reprise that exquisite moment of calculation when the thought sparked into being, touched one neuron to the next, exploded in the brain and finally fell, dripping with amniotic fluid onto the page.

Living wabi-sabi is not about living in the moment, as so many metaphysical writers would have us believe. It's about living in the non-moment, that point between now and then. Words for a writer are wabi-sabi. They suspend us, so the 'now,' with all its gelatinous angst, is held at a distance. The now is given its own point of view and that pov is third person--the narrator is protected by the words wrapping 'round the now. I can write sensibly about the events of every second and the words don't gain their power until 'after.' For words to be effective, a person must come along and read the letters, one by one, and impress them upon his thoughts. That non-moment of now and then is a bridge of serene melancholy. It lasts no longer than a god-second.