Creative Cloud

I’d say there’s a direct correlation between artistic and generalized productivity, but I’ve got no real hard science to back it up.

You’re just afraid of being normal…

artisticgrowth:

KVRX pledge drive happening now. Go donate some money to help save college radio. It’s a great station here in Austin putting out some great music all the time. There’s a lot of good kids involved doing shows and all that kind of stuff. My older brothers the station manager down there so I need to help him out a bit by spreading the word. 

Go donate Go listen 

Usually I don’t reblog these sort of donation things but I’ve got personal attachments to KVRX. Guys I can say from personal experience that KVRX is a wonderful station full of passionate people who all care about what they’re doing.

My older brother’s the station manager there, it’s a wonderful place that constantly has to justify its reason for existing. Hell student run radio stations across the country are all facing scrutiny as the power of the purse comes up. Stations like KVRX—student-run-stations offer more than just independent music, they over valuable insight, knowledge, and work-experience to dozens of individuals interested in the field. They’re a crucial part of our society that shouldn’t be cut due to lack of funding.

So donate to something that matters, and I believe there are all sorts of trinkets, merchandise, and incentives to donating, like their KVRX local live CDS which are just epic in all senses of the word.

Donate now.  

artisticgrowth:

I’ve tried to understand love like any teenage kid does. I’ve come across the idea that love is very hard to understand. It’s funny how you can love someone who shows you none. How we can be born with un-conditional love towards our parents and siblings. And how that love doesn’t always translate both ways. I’ve been lucky enough to grow up in a family with very strong love. 

I can’t say that I know what love is, or that I know anything about what it means to love. But to me love is simply saying I’ll always be there. No matter how tired and beaten I get I’ll be there for you. Love can be temporary I guess.

But love finds it’s way to you. I’ve always believed this.

I believe Love is the strongest emotion that exist. I believe that love can cure the world of it’s problems. I believe that love is not an ideal. I know when I rest in my grave i’ll be able to say I loved life. 

That’s what this life design series has been about. Understanding love and life.

(Also otters are cute)

<3

Charting a Story
For this one I’m charting my story in progress: Chaotically Beautiful

I’ve always ascertained that the difference between science and art is minimal at best or to put it another way: science and art influence each other in such strange astronomical ways that it becomes impossible to annex without it affecting the other. In that regard I’m a traditional writer who assumes that literature can be charted and placed upon an axis regardless of how convoluted and massively metaphorical or postmodern the piece of work is.

That being said I’ll attempt to explain my thought processes behind the traditional literature spectrum and how it pertains to my work-in-progress novel.

THE SECTS OF TIME

1. The Rise of the Hero: the rise of the hero is interpreted not only as the general rise of happiness a hero must face before he or she comes to terms with their first struggle but also as the introduction to that hero. In this sect of time the hero is explained and understood: we grow to love or hate the hero on their journey: it is in this section of time that writer’s must establish a relationship with the reader, after this it is far too gone for us to care. The reader must be attached to the character before the first struggle, as to feel punished and victimized when the character reaches that first struggle. The rise of the hero is not a straight shot, it can last for an extended period of time or a short period of time, either way it has to be a rise to the level of happiness that seems impossible to reach: our hero must find his way to the ultimate peaks of happiness; the kingdom of God itself before being pushed back down.
2. The First Struggle- Our hero must be faced with the realization that life is not able to be lived from the moment of happiness. In regards to Chaotically Beautiful the hero learns of his faith, of his alter-ego, and of his ultimate inability to keep his sanity in check and in turn falls from grace. The first Struggle can often be brought into the fall of the hero in which the hero falls from his position of glory and down into the dumps forcing him to find a way back to the top. During the First Struggle the hero must never maintain happiness levels above that of the first Point for longer than a second or two, he must fall from the ranks as if from a cliff: unattached and without a net. In doing this the hero and the reader are able to see how far the hero has fallen and we are given something worth achieving.
3. The Intermission- Unlike traditional play  format the intermission is often considered the main focus of literary work. The intermission is when the hero comes to terms with his fall and understands where he must go to. Chaotically Beautiful features an intermission that is somewhat different; the intermission recounts the past events that have lead up to the seeming insanity of the token character through an overarching metaphorical story of a ballerinas fall from grace which in turn represents the story arch that our hero must follow. The intermission can be short or long but is crucial to the development of the story; the intermission is where the character stretches their legs and begins to understand the workings of the beginning part of the play: without the intermission our hero is incapable of understanding and therefor incapable of change.
4. The Understanding/The Second Struggle- Our hero is pushed back down from grace one more time by a force after he seems to be going along smooth. Our character must feel the weight of the world and feel as if it is too much to handle, he must feel as if he’s incapable of reaching the summit again and he must also understand—during this time period—more about himself. This understanding should lead him to a conclusion that changes his world view or affects his happiness levels shooting him nearer to the top. He must reach the final point of happiness—the levels he was before and assume that he can maintain these levels.
5. The Finale/ The Last Struggle/ The Happy Ever After- the hero must fall from grace enough to maintain a realistic view. He must maintain a level of happiness that is certain to have challenges throughout his life. The hero must never be aloud to be completely content, nor must he ever be allowed to find an idealistic sense of happiness: his happiness should be a product of his understanding that he can never stay at the summit of the mountain: in traditional Buddhist fashion he must marvel at the top of the mountain and gain solace knowing the possibility of reaching it again.

POINTS ON THE GRAPH:

1. Represents the introduction of the foil character that in turn helps change the main character for the better. Chaotically Beautiful presents the central love interest at PT1—though the characters are unaware of this.
2. Represents the moment at which the character is faced with the assumption something bad will happen. Represented truly it would be spread out into a series of ups and downs in fractions of seconds expanding over days or month. In Chaotically Beautiful the character understands his alter-egos anger at him and chooses to ignore it.
3. Represents the peak happiness of the character. In Chaotically Beautiful the character’s central love interest it finally solidified and things seem fine. This is also the moment when the central conflict is put into focus: the backstory of the character comes into play and shocks the reader, allowing them to be confused and read on in hopes of understanding how things work together. The third point in Chaotically Beautiful represents confusion and uncertainty—a crucial aspect in understanding the central theme.
4. Represents the characters slow rise to happiness, his overcoming of his personal struggles and his re-visiting of past events through the guise of the present. In Chaotically Beautiful the main character revisits the death place of someone close to him and comes to terms with the problem he’s currently facing.
5. Represents the rise to the same level of happiness contained at PT.3. In Chaotically Beautiful our hero understands what has caused his problems and seeks to—and does—rectify them (or attempts to). This is the last struggle of the character and must incite fear, pity, and hope in the readers. At the end of PT.5 our hero must fall down due to his new world view and accept his current level of happiness (the last line that extends forward would be a series of ups and downs over a period of years that focuses mostly around the same happiness level, in true tragicomedy fashion.)

I feel like a lot of things are slipping through the cracks; cracks that I didn’t even know existed till now. I feel like everything around me is foreign and phony, cold and distant. Above all though I didn’t expect to feel this way even though I have before.

Sometimes it amazes me how you can be so oblivious.

I was ironically making this while listening to my brother bitch on the phone.
Enjoy this because I kind of like it. 

One of the things I’m most proud of on my blog is Visualized which is a project I started some months ago in August.

I describe Visualized as a sort of fictionalized journal or my day-to-day life. The point is to sort of skew the boundaries between reality and fiction to break the lines between the author and his subject and have them diverge into one singular entity. I am very much a part of each Visualized piece but at the same time I’m not. Each photo’s one of my own, each one contains an original kernel of thought I’ve had that expands into something more intense, and each one in some shape or form represents who I am, what I am, or where I am in my life.

Visualized is above all else an experiment and I intend on taking it in array of different directions both fictionalized and real and for the sake of the project I’ll hardly (if ever) discuss which parts about it or real. 

I recommend you check it out if you actually like my writing as I firmly believe that Visualized represents some of my most “honest writing” but then again you could just go back to doing other things and so I’ll leave you with one of my favorite lines from Visualized:

I’m going to bed tonight with the image that things are temporary and chaotic failing images of feigned confidence. I’m going in with the idea that the things we can no longer bear to keep chained in our souls are unleashed eventually to the world, free to roam around the globe and paint the skies and beautiful fearful colors. I’m going to bed with the idealism that people are free and ever-changing, that language will evolve and that all things in heaven and in Earth are interchangeable parts of the same constant mechanism. -August 24th