My version of Steal like an Artist: Point 8

Be Nice: The World Is A Small Town. 

"Quit picking fights and go make something." I am a person that wants to fix everyone. I drop whatever I can to help and sometimes I need to stop. I need to pick my battles and the battles I don't pick I need to use the inspiration I had from them and focus it on something I can do. If a friend is in an abuse relationship, I can't fix that. I can help to the best of my abilities but what I can do? What I can really do is write a pick-me-up, write a story where she isn't alone, write a lesson that maybe the next person will learn from so they don't end up in the same shoes. If a friend is depressed I can't fix that. I can write about butterflies and rainbows, I can be silly, I can hope that I make a smile turn the edges of his lips that day. But I can't fix it. So why try? Why not use the energy I have been dealt and create something beautiful with it. 

Also in this point was to keep a praise file. I do this with teaching, I should do this with writing. "Write a book" " I get the first copy" the words I enjoy hearing, when people love my writing, I should have for the days that I can't think of a nice thing to say about it myself. The same is true for teaching. Have a praise folder. Of your favorite works of art from students and work that reminds you of where they were and what they learned and more importantly how they view you. These things can be praiseless acts but its important to hold onto the praise you do get.  

My version of Steal like an Artist: Point 7

Geography is No Longer Our Master. 

This is something I know very well. The internet is the reason I have friends all around the world. I am able to maintain friendships maybe not perfectly, but I am able to connect. 

Maybe I need to start networking with other writers. Learn from other examples. I have thought of this. I am on every creative writing group on Facebook actually. Well, all the ones that appealed to me one day. However, I don't go on them. I don't care to. Because I am not good enough to share yet. But I think it could be important to get inspired by others. 

I think the things I want to get inspired by the most is poetry. I don't write 19th century poems, I don't write awful-Ashley-used-to-always-rhyme-gross poems, I tend to paint a picture with words in poetry. I like to do this because what lesson you learn from poetry might not be the lesson I intended, but the point isn't whether you learn my lesson or your own.

That's one way I think teachers really mess up "theme" in school. Who cares what the overall lesson is. Love Conquers All. Family Matters. If its a lesson you already know it isn't the lesson you learned. The theme of the book should be personal, what lesson did you walk away with. Why was it important to you. 

I always hated theme. I could never figure out the lesson the teacher wanted. I was too busy finding the lesson that could change my life for the better.

Also I need to learn to embrace my captivity. To find a way to be bored and be okay being bored. Too often do I fill in the void of time just to fill it. I used to fill it in a productive way and now its more like candy for the brain. It does nothing for me. It just satisfies the itch. 

My version of Steal like an Artist: Point 6

The Secret: Do Good Work And Share It With People. 

There are two parts to this tip. First, strive for what is good. Don't share everything. Just share what you are proud of. Right now, I don't do good work. So I don't share it with people. I noticed I don't share because I am not proud of it. The ones I am proud of, I openly share. The ones I am not hide away in the darkness of my blog where no one reads it but I have it in a collection in case I ever want to. But once I get good again, I can share it with the world. My world anyway. It doesn't need to be for everyone. But it can be, and I'd lie if I said I didn't want it to one day. 

So I need to force myself to do good work. And that means writing. Writing with the intention of writing. Writing with the intention of success. Writing so that one day I can be proud of the good work I do. 

My version of Steal like an Artist: Point 5

Side Projects And Hobbies Are Important.

In this case, writing is my hobby. And I crave it when I don't do it. In the book, the author explains how without your projects you will feel a phantom limb. And I have been for years. I have been ignoring it. I have been satisfying the craving from time to time but not indulging. Without working for the time being, I will be able to reawaken this part of me and it may be the spark I needed in my life. 

When I procrastinate I somehow lose hours a day in front of my computer screen. This needs to stop. I need to turn those unused hours into learning, into dreaming, into writing. Not into Facebook and twiddling thumbs. 

Boredom is good for you. It allows your mind to create, to explore, to wonder what else could be going on. We live in a world where boredom equals death when it should equal peace. We fill that time with meaningless banter and the media and stories that have already been written. Instead we need to write our own. 

My version of Steal like an Artist: Point 4

This point was a lesson I just learned recently. Use Your Hands. I have found that writing is coming to life a bit more by actually writing. Not typing (although I do that too) but by finding the connection from my mind to my fingertips. "You need to find a way to bring your body into your work." And that's what I had lost. I spend so much time on the computer that I am putting a screen in front of my creativity. And that doesn't mean that I can't write something amazing on the computer, but sometimes you need to connect with yourself before starting on this sort of journey. 

Being one with your writing makes everything unfold and its good to see the mistakes. That is one thing writing does for you. On the computer its so easy to just erase it. But on a piece of paper its still there. Maybe you start over maybe you scrap the idea to come back to, maybe you fix it as you go. But the original is there. And you can see it and watch it blossom in front of your eyes. 

My version of Steal like an Artist: Point 3

Write The Book You Want To Read. 

A lot of people will tell us to write what we know. Well I don't know what I know. But I know what I like. So why not write about it? All of my writing is advice. Advice I have learned, advice people need to learn, a lesson inside of a story waiting to strike for a person. 

I am a teacher by heart and in my writing that still remains the case. The point of The Bionic Girl (http://www.electricminded.blogspot.it/20…/…/bionic-girl.html) is to not worry about the possibilities and know there are people that will also be on your side. That's the point I gave it but maybe it means something else to you. Maybe it means you aren't the only one, maybe it means that there is more to someone than their cons. Maybe it is the reason you want to be a teacher. Three Ways to Follow a Path taught me that there are roads for everyone and sometimes you have to create your own.Yet it might teach you a story of heartbreak. It might teach you that type of road you wish to go on.

I teach what I love and what I love is to learn. And I can share it all through writing.

My version of Steal like an Artist: Point 2

Don't Wait Until You Know Who You Are To Get Started. 

This is one I have never struggled with. If anything writing has helped me figure out who I am, figure out the world around me. I don't need an idea to write, an idea sparks while I write. Now, that being said ideas SHOULD spark all over your life and for me, they have stopped. So what I need to do is write and continue to write until ideas spark and then continue to write until ideas spark all over. I don't need to be an author to write, I need to write until I become an author. Fake it until you make it. The more we interpret things on our own, the more we copy and create and spark ideas, the more it becomes less of a copy and more of our own creation. 

One thing I do struggle with that is near this but is not this is that I sometimes run into the issue of feeling like I need to know what I am writing about to write. I feel like I should already have an idea to begin with and what I need to remember is that I need to write to get the idea and then write some more to make it come to life. I used to always do this. Just write utter nonsense. I always had a notebook on me or found a way to write. whether it was my notepad on my computer, on my phone or one I held a pen too. I would write and sometimes those sputterings would come to life. Other times they would die out. 

So my take away from this point is to write. To scribble. To continue. In order to do that, I need to just try. And once in a while, it will come to life and then I can write what I thought I wanted to write all along. 

My version of Steal like an Artist: Point 1

So speaking of the museum, I am reading a book that I found there that I have had my eyes of for a while. Waiting for the right time to dive into it. When I found the title, I had no idea that it was a pun off of Picasso. I just thought it was a catchy thought. It's called "Steal like an Artist: 10 things nobody told you about being creative". A lot of what I have so far read in the book is pretty basic and a new way to think of an old perception. I'd like to consider the points I have read so far. 
1) Steal like an Artist. Nothing is original. At first, that sounds a bit depressing. In the past, I have viewed it as depressing. What is the point of creating if its already been created before? Every story stems from another, every story has already been told, every lesson was already once written. Avatar is Disney's Pocahontas but with blue aliens and technology instead of Native Americans and farming. AI is Pinocchio where things come to life. A Bug's Life is based off of Seven Samurai which is based off of historical events. So, why create? This thought has plagued me. It has stolen from my innocence and left me alone in the dark world.

I didn't have the answers, until now. First, I need to. I have this thirst to write so I had better quench it. I miss the way I feel on top of the world after finding a new way of understanding. I miss having my own mind blown and finding the ordinary extraordinary. The other answer is a quote from Andre Gide, a French writer, "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again." You know what bored me to death in high school reading books that I couldn't relate to. Reading such old stories that I felt like I was learning to read again, not enjoying the stories in front of me. And absolutely not learning the lesson. If you want me to read Romeo and Juliet, give me West Side Story. And for the next generation, they will need their own. Don't focus on what used to be. People don't read it. Those that do, might not understand the lesson. 

So we create. We reinvent the wheel so that we can use it. If not, we'd still be carving rocks to roll onto our cars.

Steal Like an Arist

Pablo Picasso: We all know the name. About a month ago I went to one of his museums while I was in Barcelona. I'm going to say something from what I knew about Pablo before the museum: I didn't like his art. So he can stretch a face, make people look weird, draw weird ears. Cool. So not my thing.

But I went to the museum anyway and I found that he really did have quite a lot of artistic talent (moreso what I consider artistic talent) and he was able to dabble in it all. Some realism, some landscapes, some pottery, some weird sugar burning painting thing. He did the weird stuff, the side we all know of him. But he did so much more too. He copied others styles. Then he stole parts of them and made his own. I have learned to appreciate his art a lot more now looking at his life's work as a whole.

When I think back to when I felt best about writing, it was when I was student teaching. I was using a writing program called Being a Writer. And I loved it. I would sit down and join the kids. It had all these picture books with a little background on certain authors and some guiding parameters to write with. And you had to take a part of the story and make it your own. We read "The true story of the three little pigs" and had to write twisted fairytales of our own. We read "My Rotten Redhead Older Brother" where we had to write a story from our childhood just like the author did. We took a concept and we twisted it into our own. We need to use the art that is already around us until we find something that makes sense to us. Until then we dabble in our own creativities. I try poetry, realistic stories, fantasy stories, past stories, biographical stories, non fiction stories. Because if you dabble enough you may find the parts that you want to hold onto that make it your own.

Fingertips on my soul

This speaks to me today. To me creativity is a matter of getting lost in the moment. Of finding some truth about the world, some truth about yourself and opening the door wide open and embracing it. I want to listen, I want to understand, and I want to create.

I have been looking at a lot of quotes lately and one spoke to me:
"Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.-Henry Miller"

I want to dare to imagine as much as I can with the time that I have on Earth. And all I have to do, to do that is push myself.

Creativity is fingertips on my soul and the collective soul of the human race.