Category: Lichtenbergianism book

Lichtenbergianism: Good idea or the best idea?

Posted on by Dale

Today let’s look at one of the basic premises of writing a book and getting it published: do I have a good enough idea for a book?  We will pretend that we do not already know that this is the best book idea ever and explore the main questions as listed in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published [hereinafter EGGYBP].

Audience. Who would be interested in reading a book about procrastinating and how to use that to become more creative?

Excellent question. As we’ll see when we go check out the competition, people really want to be more creative.  They are under the impression that reading a book will help with this—and who am I to disagree?  The current craze for adult coloring books, for example, feeds off this basic urge to MAKE THE THING THAT IS NOT. [1] I talk about the genesis of this book in Chapter One as springing from a seminar I did at the Governor’s Honors Program in 2013—if the students’ response to the Nine Precepts is anywhere close to representative of a populace hungry for permission to create, then I think the audience will be solid.

Who knows?  This could be a niche book that only my friends and family will plow through, or it could become one of those freakish trends: “Become more creative by not doing anything!!”

Competition. If we go and look for books on creativity, there is no dearth of available titles.  Why add this one?

Leave it to an independent bookseller (hi, Janet!) to immediately link to a book about the benefits of procrastination, apparently also written in an entertainingly humorous style.  Missed that one in doing my research.  However, in the overall philosophy of Lichtenbergianism procrastination is really just kind of a gimmick to hook the reader’s attention.  There are eight additional Precepts that form a framework for getting your work done.

Also, most of the other books on the creative process are focused on specific fields: drawing, painting, writing, etc.  Lichtenbergianism is a concept that is usable in every field—and not just in artistic ones.  You can increase your productivity through TASK AVOIDANCE no matter what your job, hobby, or avocation is.

We’ll put off Marketability, Authority, and Salability until tomorrow.

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[1] In the book, I intend to set all our Precepts and Key Concepts in small caps.  Since my blog doesn’t do that, I’ll put them in ALL CAPS.  Ugh.  Bear with me.

And now, for something completely different

Posted on by Dale

Liberal rants are fun and all, but I want to refocus my efforts here on the original purpose of this blog: whining about my creative efforts.  (Don’t worry—the liberal rants will continue.  How could they not, with so much to rant about?)

To that end, I’m starting a series of posts about the book I’ve been working on, Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.  You get to suffer along with me.

This series will be a combination of excerpts from the book, moanings about my progress, and meditations on the advice offered in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, which I picked up last weekend in Athens in my old friend Janet Geddis’ marvelous bookstore, Avid Bookshop.  Really and truly, if you live in the Athens area, you need to make her bookstore a regular stop on your route, because it’s lovely.  (There’s also a surprise about that purchase that I didn’t discover until I got the book home and started reading it; more about that later, much later.)

For those joining us from Facebook, please feel free to leave comments here rather than over there.  Your first one has to be approved, but after that it’s clear sailing.

I would start with some background, but since that’s Chapter 1, I’ll hold off.  So let’s start with the Introduction.

(For the record, this is a very scary thing for me.)

Cover.

(I just spent 20 minutes futzing with this image in order to avoid publishing this post. See how it works?)

Title page.

Copyright page.

Table of Contents:

  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Chapter One: Introduction to Lichtenbergianism
  • Chapter Two: Framework
  • Chapter Three: 1–Task Avoidance
  • Chapter Four: 2–Abortive Attempts
  • Chapter Five: 3–Successive Approximation
  • Chapter Six: 4–Waste Books
  • Chapter Seven: 5–Ritual
  • Chapter Eight: 6–Steal from the Best
  • Chapter Nine: 7–Gestalt
  • Chapter Ten: 8–Audience
  • Chapter Eleven: 9–Abandonment
  • Chapter Twelve: 10–The Tenth Precept
  • Conclusion
  • Appendices
  • Bibliography
  • Index

Introduction

 

Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Dale Lyles.  I am, for lack of a better word, retired.

Before that, I was an educator for 37 years.  Most of that time I was a media specialist, teaching kids how to find and use information both at the high school and the elementary level.  For my last two years, I was the director of the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, a summer high school gifted program where I had worked for most of the 30 summers before that, about half of them as assistant director.

During all that time I was the artistic director of the Newnan Community Theatre Company for 20+ years.  I directed, designed and built sets and costumes, and acted with more than 100 shows there.

I was a choir director for more than ten years.

I sing and I dance.

I paint and I draw.

I compose.

I write.

I design.

I program.  (Yes, I can build and program a FileMaker Pro™ database to do amazing things.)

Overall, therefore, I think it’s fair to say that I am a creative kind of guy.  (I also create cocktails, one of which—the Quarter Moon—ought to be in every bar in America.)

None of this is to say that I’m any good at any of the above (except for the Quarter Moon—it’s really really good, you guys) [1], but that’s not the point.  The point is that I have spent my life both creating and guiding others through the creative process, and I’ve learned a few things.

A lot things, actually.  I’ve learned a lot of things, and all of them point to my main idea here: you can do this too.

Who’s telling you can’t?  Let me give you a piece of advice right up front.  I call it the Lyles Eternal Truth About Actors, and I give this advice to any uncooperative or fearful actor: “There’s no such thing as an actor who can’t, only an actor who won’t.”

So if you want to write a symphony,  who’s going to stop you?  Getting it performed is another thing entirely and is outside the scope of this book, but no one can stop you from writing it.

No one can stop you from writing that novel, or forming a band, or creating a cocktail better than the Quarter Moon. [2] No one can stop you from blogging or taking photographs or painting or landscaping or whatever it is you would love to do but have been to afraid to start.

And the good news is you don’t have to do it today.  Or even tomorrow.  Procrastination is your friend.

By the way, it’s pronounced lish-ten-BERG-eeanism.

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[1] The Quarter Moon Cocktail: 1.5 oz bourbon, 1 oz Tuaca, .5 oz Averna Amaro.  Stir over ice, strain into old-fashioned glass over ice with orange peel garnish.  (You may also do it straight up in a martini glass.) The orange peel is essential.

[2] As if.

 

A find

Posted on by Dale

Recently we traveled to Virginia to visit with the in-laws and to continue to help tidy up the old homestead in preparation for an eventual move, maybe perhaps.  One task this trip was clearing out the antique secretary in the living room (not to be confused with the antique plantation desk in the den), which meant looking through the collection of antique books contained therein.  I got an old edition of A Christmas Carol, and this:

What is it, you ask?  It is an actual field notebook, you guys!

For those of you just joining us, I am a huge fan of the Field Notes Brand notebooks, even going so far as to subscribe to their Colors quarterly special editions.  They are just the coolest ever; the recent Winter edition has a pure white cover that turns blue in the sunlight.  (I’ve written about them here and here and here.)

The company tells you on their website that they are paying homage to the old field notebooks given to farmers by one supplier or another as advertising, so when I opened my new find, I knew exactly what I had.

It has a leather cover, and I presume the front was stamped in gold which has faded.  The interior is fabric, cotton or linen, and you can see the stitching near the spine: that’s a pocket, both front and back covers.

The front pages are ads for Richmond Guano Co’s wares (fertilizers), followed by all kinds of helpful and inspirational platitudes.

The back pages are useful tables of yields and prices.  And the center…

…is the grid paper I’ve come to know and love as one of the papers used by Field Notes!  So cool, you guys!

It is unused, except for the top of that page on the left in the above photo and part of the last page of grid paper being torn out.  And finally…

It’s 115 years old.  Awesome.

Lichtenbergianism: an update

Posted on by Dale

When last we checked in on my progress, I hadn’t actually posted about my progress in writing Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.

So here’s your first real progress report.

If we posit a length of about 30,000 words—not a very long book—then I’m more than halfway there, having scribbled about 19,000 words.

The structure of the book is as follows:

  1. Introduction to Lichtenbergianism
  2. Framework
  3. Precept 1: Task Avoidance
  4. Precept 2: Abortive Attempts
  5. Precept 3: Successive Approximation
  6. Precept 4: Waste Books
  7. Precept 5: Ritual
  8. Precept 6: Steal from the Best
  9. Precept 7: Gestalt
  10. Precept 8: Audience
  11. Precept 9: Abandonment
  12. The 10th Precept
  13. Conclusion
  14. Appendices
    1. The Lyles Scale of Compositional Agony
    2. The Arts Speech
    3. The Invocation
    4. SUN TRUE FIRE

Also, I have begun and have almost finished an actual book proposal to start submitting to publishers, although first I’m going to run it by a friend who’s an editor with one of them fancy New York publishing houses to prevent self-embarrassmentation.

Having said that, though, I have to say that when I started looking at what I’ve written so far in terms of submitting sample chapters, a lot of it is still misshapen and raw.  Like the chapter on STEAL FROM THE BEST, what is that even about, Kenneth?  I’m thinking that I’ve passed that first gush of creativity and am now starting to hack my way into the real part of writing, i.e., psychic pain.  Physical pain.  Will the Lyles Scale of Compositional Agony apply to writing?  Stay tuned.

Lichtenbergianism: the Nine Precepts

Posted on by Dale

Since I just realized that I have never actually blogged about the Nine Precepts of Lichtenbergianism, I shall do that now. (I have mentioned them once, but gave no explanation of them.)

As I explain in the upcoming Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy, these Precepts spring from a seminar some fellow Lichtenbergians and I gave at GHP in 2013.  In preparing to sit in what turned out to be a crowded room and to discuss how putting off doing any work had actually made us more successful creators, I boiled down our experience to nine keywords.  In the seminar, we simply threw each term up on the screen and then all shared how they affected us as artists/teachers/programmers/veterinarians.

Here are the Nine Precepts:

  1. Task Avoidance: Obviously. Cras melior est.
  2. Abortive Attempts: Give yourself permission to create crap.  Lots of crap.
  3. Successive Approximation: Give yourself permission to change what you’ve done.
  4. Waste Books: Create a system to record your ideas willy-nilly.  Sort them out later.
  5. Ritual: Find ways to make your work flow.
  6. Steal from the Best: Pay attention to the past, learn from it, then run with it.
  7. Gestalt: Look at your work and see what’s there and what’s not there, what needs to be there and what needs to be not there.
  8. Audience: Have someone in mind.
  9. Abandonment: Give up.

There’s a lot more complexity to these ideas, of course.  I discuss that in the book.  Reserve your copy today.  Or tomorrow.

An interesting IP scenario

Posted on by Dale

In our topic today, ‘IP’ stands for ‘intellectual property,’ i.e., copyrights, patents, all those kinds of things that are not physical property but which are protected by various laws and lawyers.

Mostly lawyers.  Have you ever tried using a Disney character for some purpose of your own?  Try it sometime.  Leave the number of cease & desist letters you get in comments.  (For a saucy explanation of copyright protection and fair use of copyrighted materials, see: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo

So here’s my interesting scenario.  I’m working on Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy, and I’m clipping right along at about 1,000 words per day thank you very much.

As I work, I’m collecting examples, images, quotes that support the Nine Precepts.1 As I do so, I am quite aware of whether or not I will have to seek permission from a copyright holder in order to use those items in the book.  (I am aware mostly because Dianne Mize, in a letter describing her progress with her editor/publisher for Finding the Freedom to Create, described several roadblocks in finding a translation of the Tao Te Ching that she was allowed to quote from in her book.)

For the most part, I’ve used materials that are either in the public domain or have a Creative Commons license.  Direct quotes are cited fully in footnotes and bibliography and so fall under fair use.3

But today, in discussing the precept Steal from the Best, I directed the reader’s attention to Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and explained how a good artist would “copy” the African masks which inspired part of Picasso’s painting (leaving them and our world unchanged), while Picasso, a great artist, “stole” the masks, changing both them and our world in the process.

I know for a fact that there are usage restrictions with the Museum of Modern Art’s image, because their website says so, right there on the painting’s webpage along with a link to the company that handles licensing for MOMA.  For such a small scale work as Lichtenbergianism is bound to be, I figure it cannot be worth even a small sum to secure the rights to the painting’s use.

So I’ve linked to it in a footnote.  The reader who is unfamiliar with the work can put that URL into the browser and see the painting immediately.

Will I have violated copyright law by doing so?  This is an interesting question to me.  I haven’t reprinted their image without permission.  I have referenced it, and I’ve provided the information for my reader to find it, and in fact I’ve benefited MOMA by driving traffic to their website.  But it could be argued (in court…) that I have used Picasso’s Demoiselles as an illustration in my book: the reader simply opens up the webpage and then reads along in Lichtenbergianism with the painting there before him.

updated to add: Moreover, it could be argued that I intended to illustrate my book with MOMA’s image, that if it were public domain or CCC-licensed, or if I had had the funds to license it, I would have included the image. (Why am I contributing to the unraveling of the Commons here by doing their lawyers’ work for them??)

The floor is now open for comments.

—————

1 It occurs to me that I have not blogged specifically about the Precepts of Lichtenbergianism.  Tomorrow, perhaps.2

2 That was a joke.

3 The biggie is the book of Lichtenbergian aphorisms from which I pull quotes.  My use of them exceeds fair use, and the translation I’m using is definitely copyrighted.  So I see a couple of exchanges with R. J. Hollingdale in my future…

Lichtenbergianism: some progress

Posted on by Dale

I have been surprised at my assiduity in writing Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.

Here you can see that I have all that I need:

  • computer
  • coffee
  • reference works1
  • Assistive Feline™
  • new agey Pandora station (not shown)

Thus girded, I have written and written and written.  If I have a goal of 25,000 words total, I am 370 words short of being halfway there.

I know this because Scrivener, the authoring software I’m using, allows me to track my progress.  I’ve set a putative deadline of April 12, 2016, which is totally arbitrary of course, but the fun thing is that if I click the little “calculate session goal from deadline” thingie, then I only have to write like 130 words a day.  Pfft.  After allowing myself to revel in the idea that this is a really doable goal even for a Lichtenbergian, I turned it off and went back to a still-modest 500 words/day.

Still, today I knocked out more than 800 words, and that’s not bad at all.  I may be up to 1,000 by the end of the day, should I decide to keep writing rather than making cookies for Fuzzy Labyrinth holiday sales.  Or reading more on The Gift, an influential piece of work on my thoughts about creativity.

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1 I begin to realize the daunting task ahead of me in obtaining permission, even in a research setting, to use other people’s work in mine, particularly Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s aphorisms as translated by R. J. Hollingdale.

Lichtenbergianism: oy.

Posted on by Dale

While on the Lichtenbergian Retreat last weekend, I may or may not have started writing Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.

The stone is Fancy Jasper; its woo apparently “encourages not to procrastinate, helps make positive plans for the future, stimulates creativity and self-discipline.” So I have that going for me.

I’m using a piece of software that I’ve owned for quite a while but have never used for anything, Scrivener.  Apparently while I wasn’t paying attention, it’s become a major player in the “let’s write a book” arena.  So far, I have really enjoyed using it to transcribe all my notes from my Waste Book, and now as I begin to flesh the text out, I find that it’s performing exactly as advertised for keeping everything organized.

If I come up with anything worth sharing, I’ll let you know.