Haven't been super active on here, but have definitely been creative in the meantime. This summer, in addition to doing volunteer work and a couple classes, I've decided to focus on getting writing done and hopefully getting something published.
Made a bluesky to document it and build a "social media presence" for myself, so follow me there if you want to see me show my bare ass (metaphorically) and document the process
beginning a rewrite of one of my manuscripts (because that's what you do when it's past midnight) and because I've had so much trouble with keeping paragraphs to reasonable lengths I've resized the pages of the doc to be about the size of a paperback book page so I can actually see what it would look like and where approximately page breaks would be
this should also help with my tendency to make chapters unreasonably long
saw The Post That Pisses Me Off again so let me clear this up:
Notes does not equal audience. Notes equals audience who decided to directly interact. This is in no way comparable to actors who require an audience to make a living. Actors do perform for an audience, but not without significant effort to obtain that audience through their own effort and the efforts of a whole organization behind them. The main reason theatres care about audience (as someone who worked in theatre for 10 years) is to make back the money that was used to make the show (and pay out whoever is at the top if it's for-profit). This is not the same thing as notes on a post on the internet.
It has never been easier to gain an audience than in the age of the internet. This comes with a trade-off. In the past, artists had to actually go somewhere and get permission to put their art in a place where people would see it and even then they might not get an audience. However, being in a physical space means that what audience you get, you can see it. You can talk to them. Posting online means that you are not in a physical space and so cannot see your audience. This does not mean the audience isn't there. People who view your art and do not interact with it ARE STILL AUDIENCE and they do not owe you interaction just because you posted online.
"It is normal to want an audience" Yes. Correct. But you must also realize that audience is an uncontrollable entity that you cannot always see, and their interaction is at their own discretion. If you post your art and 10 people see it--not interact. See.--if 10 people see it then you are doing better than a lot of artists in physical spaces in terms of audience. And I'm not even going to get into the artists who make physical art and never show it to anyone ever.
And I'll say it one more time, as I've said many times before, if you are making art with the sole desire of receiving attention, you need to reassess if you are engaging with your art in a healthy way.
My creative writing prof has asked us to write our reflection for the course as a poem, so here is the poem I have written looking back on a course that focused on our relationships with nature and each other.
I've just called it Reflection
Beginning not with words, but with nature,
The fabulous green grasses and trees, flashing leaves in the Sun,
Bringing to me the untranslatable senses that must be put to page,
And I struggle under the weight of expectation and the poets that come before me.
First of the sweetest smells comes the creeping charlie,
Purple trumpet flowers blaring from the ground and threatening clover,
But the beauty disguises its hideous purposes and bids that children come collect it,
Distribute it across the park like the animals before them.
Vines running carpet across the ground as the birds sing overhead,
Cardinal and blue jay loud to one another and ignoring one another,
Bringing to this world the natural music of desire,
And I listen with ears open and heart open and eyes closed against the Sun.
Words now, to the page, to the eyes of my faceless fellows,
Awaiting examination and criticism, as I nitpick the words of others,
I wish they would be braver as I marvel at their creativity,
With a boldness I cannot express after a lifetime of creative stifling under threat of struck name.
But returning as always to the words of Whitman,
“Give me solitude, give me nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities,”
And I sit in the Leaves of Grass with heart open to the world around me,
Waiting for words to fill my page that will never come close to what I feel.
And that is all that communication tends to be is near misses,
As words can never encompass the entirety of experience,
Nor the babbling creek or singing cardinals, the sweetness of the bellflower,
And I copy these smells, sounds, sights to paper, wishing I were braver.
realized belatedly that by publishing this on tumblr, if my prof uses ai detection on my poem there is a higher chance it will get flagged but tbh i don't know if i care at this point
My creative writing prof has asked us to write our reflection for the course as a poem, so here is the poem I have written looking back on a course that focused on our relationships with nature and each other.
I've just called it Reflection
Beginning not with words, but with nature,
The fabulous green grasses and trees, flashing leaves in the Sun,
Bringing to me the untranslatable senses that must be put to page,
And I struggle under the weight of expectation and the poets that come before me.
First of the sweetest smells comes the creeping charlie,
Purple trumpet flowers blaring from the ground and threatening clover,
But the beauty disguises its hideous purposes and bids that children come collect it,
Distribute it across the park like the animals before them.
Vines running carpet across the ground as the birds sing overhead,
Cardinal and blue jay loud to one another and ignoring one another,
Bringing to this world the natural music of desire,
And I listen with ears open and heart open and eyes closed against the Sun.
Words now, to the page, to the eyes of my faceless fellows,
Awaiting examination and criticism, as I nitpick the words of others,
I wish they would be braver as I marvel at their creativity,
With a boldness I cannot express after a lifetime of creative stifling under threat of struck name.
But returning as always to the words of Whitman,
“Give me solitude, give me nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities,”
And I sit in the Leaves of Grass with heart open to the world around me,
Waiting for words to fill my page that will never come close to what I feel.
And that is all that communication tends to be is near misses,
As words can never encompass the entirety of experience,
Nor the babbling creek or singing cardinals, the sweetness of the bellflower,
And I copy these smells, sounds, sights to paper, wishing I were braver.
Haven't been super active on here, but have definitely been creative in the meantime. This summer, in addition to doing volunteer work and a couple classes, I've decided to focus on getting writing done and hopefully getting something published.
Made a bluesky to document it and build a "social media presence" for myself, so follow me there if you want to see me show my bare ass (metaphorically) and document the process
Triptych about brood parasitism featuring from left to right...
The cuckoo catfish with its host, a Shuja horei, the cuckoo bird with its host, a greater reed warbler, and a mountain Alcon blue butterfly grub with its host, a Myrmica ant
if you are a professional in the arts who, for whatever reason, have your entire platform based on Tumblr and the destruction of Tumblr would mean the destruction of your livelihood, please take the 18 hour update as a sign to diversify. Tumblr is already so treacherous with its seemingly random bans and unchecked auto-flagging, it is very important to have multiple platforms or at least an established backup, so that if it ever does truly become unusable you have somewhere to go without having to start all over again
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