Thoughts and Inspiration from Dave Grohl’s The Storyteller

The urge came out of nowhere. Somehow, last year, I had the overwhelming desire to buy the new Foo Fighters album, Medicine at Midnight. That was odd considering I’d never purchased any of their albums up to that time. Heck, I knew only a handful of their songs and one main video, but buy the record I did and it became my favorite album of the year.

So when Dave Grohl, the founder and front man of the band, published his memoirs, The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, in the fall of 2021, I was primed and ready for it.

But I wasn’t ready for what it did to me.

A Parallel Life

With my newfound interest in all things Foo and Grohl, I learned Dave was only five weeks younger than I was. Back in 1991, when Nirvana released their seminal album “Nevermind” and set a dividing line in the history of rock music—there was a Before Nevermind and an After Nevermind—I probably knew that the trio were my age, but it didn’t register. Bands who made records I could buy were always older than me, right? Turns out, Dave was the youngest. He was like the younger brother of one of the two other guys in the band, brought along on account of his ferocious drumming style. I think we all know that Dave was at the right place at the right time, just before Nirvana blew away the general public with their sound.

But Dave was already a veteran of that scene. He had been intoxicated with the punk rock sound of Washington DC even though he was a suburban kid from Virginia. Even without a proper drum kit (he used pillows), the music flowed through him and he practiced and practiced the drums and well as strumming and picking out songs on his guitar.

Good fortune, luck, whatever you want to call it arrived one day when Dave, the seventeen-year-old struggling high school student, was given the chance to audition for the punk rock band Scream. He nailed the audition and, when invited to join the band, lead singer Peter Stahl finally thought to ask the young man his age. Naturally, Dave lied. “Twenty-one.” Peter and the other members of Virginia-based Scream accepted Dave’s word and Scream had a new drummer.

But Dave had one crucial thing to do, and even as I listened to Dave recount the story via the audiobook, fully knowing how it would turn out, it was a tense moment. Dave had to talk with his mother, a public school teacher, and convince her to let him drop out of school and tour with the band. Her words were surprising: “You’d better be good.”

As a listener to Dave’s journey, I found myself joining in his long days of traveling the country in a van, stretching out pennies per day on food, sleeping like sardines in said van, only to explode for an hour a day on stage. As a parent myself, however, I found Virginia Grohl’s faith in her son heart-warming yet also inspirational. The main job of a parent is to raise our children to be good, functioning, adults capable of holding down a job and making it on their own. She must have recognized that Dave was not going to be a typical nine-to-five kind of person and let him go. Even though my son is now twenty, I think back to when he was seventeen and ask myself if I could have let him go.

Turning it back on myself, however, I thought back to when I was seventeen. I was a junior in high school, just like Dave was. Could I have left the comfort of my suburban Houston home to tour with a rock band? Would my parents have let me? The answer to both is no.

That Guy From Nirvana

The four-year stretch when Dave toured America and Europe with Scream on less than a shoe-string budget helped forge his character into what he would become. His frugality he learned from his single mother, who raised Dave and his sister via her public school job and other jobs she took to make ends meet. He learned to make do with less and be happy about it. I found it telling that when he received his first check after joining Nirvana—an astounding-for-him $400—he blew it on a Nintendo and other assorted things he didn’t really need. Soon, he was back to scraping by, barely choking down the three-for-a-dollar corn dogs from a gas station. Still, he learned his lesson.

It’s common knowledge that Dave auditioned for Nirvana at a time when Scream was a slowly sinking ship. He joined the band with Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic and set to work on Nirvana’s sophomore album, Nevermind. It was great to hear Dave’s thoughts and memories about Kurt, especially how unprepared the trio was for the instant international fame they garnered with that fall 1991 album and, most importantly, the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video. Soon, the very people who poked fun of Dave in high school were now attending Nirvana shows. The alternative, punk rock mentality in which Dave and Kurt and Krist thrived was being co-opted by the mainstream. Dave struggled with it, but he managed to get through the deluge while Kurt did not.

I made the choice to listen to this book because Dave narrates his own story, and it is exactly the way to consume this book. You get Dave’s snide tonal shifts depending on if he’s talking about a funny memory, but you can also hear his somber voice as he talks about how Kurt’s death affected him. In interviews about this book, Dave mentioned he wrote the passages about Kurt last. I wonder if he recorded them last as well.

The Indie Spirit of Foo Fighters

In the immediate aftermath of Kurt’s death, Dave left music. He didn’t even listen to the radio. The very thing that pumped in his veins, that compelled him to become a high-school dropout was now the same thing he couldn’t endure. He wanted to distance himself from Nirvana, from Kurt, and, as he came to realize, from himself. After nearly picking up a hitchhiker in Ireland—the young man was wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt, the sight of which caused Dave to duck his head and pass by—Dave knew he must return to music.

As an indie author, I enjoy performing all aspects of writing and publishing myself. True, some tasks are more mundane than others, but that is the price I’m willing to pay. I knew about Foo Fighters back in 1995 but never bought the debut record. What I truly never understood, however, was that, save for a single guitar part in one song, Dave wrote and performed every bit of that twelve-song debut. And he did it all in six days in the studio. That astounded me, but what I really latched onto was how that creativity in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s suicide was Dave’s road out of his depression.

You see, I’ve been struggling with my own career as a writer, wondering if it is all worth it or if I should just hang it up. Why bother, I’d tell myself. No one cares if I write or don’t. In fact, those thoughts have so permeated my thinking that I actually have stopped. It’s been a month since I last wrote new words on anything other than blog posts.

But I have spent countless words on examining myself, and in this time of re-examining what kind of fiction writing career I want, I listened to Dave’s book. I hear him talk about his own struggles, his own doubts and fears, how he, even to this day, still struggles and wonders if he’s good enough.

Dave is a wonderful storyteller, weaving in and out of various tales from the road. All are remarkable and all had me questioning myself and my creative life choices. Late in the book, he described the feeling of being invited to perform—solo—at the Oscars. And it was the Beatles’ “Blackbird.” So, no pressure, right? He was scared, so scared that he nearly declined. But he and his daughter, Violet, had recently performed the song at her school talent show and she encouraged him to do the song. You see, she was scared to perform but she overcame her fears and knocked it out of the park. The child served as inspiration for the father.

In concluding this story, Dave wrote the following:

"Courage is the defining factor in the life of any artist. The courage to bare your innermost feelings, to reveal your true voice, or to stand in front of an audience and lay it all out there for the world to see. The emotional vulnerability that is often necessary to summon a great song can also work against you when you’re sharing your song for the world to hear. This is the paralyzing conflict of any sensitive artist, a feeling I’ve experienced with every lyric I’ve sung to someone other than myself. Will they like it? Am I good enough? It is the courage to be yourself that bridges those opposing emotions, and when it does, magic can happen."

Dave’s book arrived at the perfect time in my life and the inspirational journey he went on and continues to undertake hit me in the exact place I needed it: my creative spirit. It needed a jolt to get me out of the doldrums. My spirit needed to come around and be reminded that every single creative person—whether an indie writer, a rock star, or anyone in between—has moments of doubt. But if we just keep going and keep making our art, magic can happen.

It is remarkable to get an inside look at an established and famous rock star who is my age. The bass player, Nate Mendel, is four days older than me so I should have been a Foo Fighters fans from the jump. But I wasn’t. Instead, it took me twenty-seven years to come around.

Now, I’m there and not only am I on YouTube watching tons of videos but I’m rummaging through my wife’s CD collection and pulling every Foo Fighters album she has. The music is fantastic, but Dave Grohl’s message is even better.

Carving Up Your Hours and Meat Loaf’s Example for Creatives

You don’t find the time to write. You make time to write.

That’s an adage I’ve held onto for years. I firmly believe that if you truly want to write, you will make the time to write. Thus, the excuse of “I would love to write but I just don’t have the time” flies out the window.

But sometimes you have to carve up your time to find those pockets in which you can write. I did a little exercise this week that you might find instructive if you are wanting to find all those extra minutes in your week to get your fingers on the keyboard and your brain into its imagination.

I started a new day job this month and this is the end of week three. Naturally, I now have a new schedule, one that involves three days in the office and two at home. It felt like I had less time to write, so I broke down my days.

Every weekday, I wake at 5am. Yes, I am a proud member of the 5am Writing Club. Have been a morning writing for going on nine years now, and dedicated 5am-er for the past three or four. I find it liberating to have the house to myself, only a single light on over the kitchen table, and just a cup of coffee (two, actually) beside me as I write. Zero internet, zero TV, zero anything other than a psalm a day until the words are out of my head.

I work in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That means I have a hard stop at 6am so I can get ready for work, jump in the car with the daily smoothie, and drive to work, usually listening to an audiobook (most recently finished Carol Burnett’s memoir).

So, accounting for the waking, exercising, Bible-reading time, I’m left with approximately 45 mins in the morning to write, give or take. Doing the math, 45 x 3 = 135 mins. Since I work from home on Mondays and Fridays, I allow myself an extra 30 minutes. 75 x 2 = 150 mins. That’s 285 mins, or 4.75 hours per week in the mornings to write. Not bad at all.

Side note: I don’t write during Family Time at night.

Then there are the lunch hours at the day job. Accounting for regular meetings going long and, you know, eating, I estimate I have 45 minutes I can spend writing on my Chromebook. That’s another 135 minutes, which bring us up to about 7 hours per week that I have to myself and I can write.

I have more time on Saturdays. I tend to wake at 7am, get the dogs, head out to Shipley’s for do-nuts, come home, cook and eat breakfast. Generally, I get to writing around 8am and the family leaves me alone. On Saturdays in which there are few things to do, I can get two hours easy. Then, it’s Family Time (or Chore Time) so the writing is off the table. Now I’m up to 9 hours, more or less.

Sundays are a tad different. I still wake at 7, but I have a hard stop around 9:30 or so to get ready for church. So let’s call it a good 90 minutes. Now I’m up to 10.5 hours of writing time per week.

All it took was for me to analyze my schedule and see what time I have available. There’s a lot I can do in 10.5 hours. I knocked out NaNoWriMo’s 1,667-word threshold in any of those given time frames, but if it’s slow going, I can get 800 words in any one of those writing sessions (although my daily goal is 1,000).

Here’s where the math is magical. If I can average a 1,000 words an hour, that means I can write approximately 10,000 new words of fiction per week. With a day job. With Family and Chore Time factored in.

And all I basically ever do is wake up earlier than my family and write. Makes me really happy, productive, and helps start the day on a good note.

Now, how does your week break down?

Meat Loaf’s Example and His Challenge

The news broke Friday morning that Meat Loaf passed away. I have an unabashed love for his soaring, Broadway-like anthems. In particular, there is a late-career gem I wrote about back in 2016 that was the first song I went to upon hearing the news. Then I listened it again before playing all the songs I have on my Mac.

In the various comments from folks yesterday, more than one commented on Meat Loaf’s improbably resurgence in the early 1990s. In an era of grunge and rap and early hip-hop, here was Meat Loaf singing about the things he would and would not do for love. The song was over the top, the video was even more over the top, but people ate it up. I know I did. There he was, wearing makeup to give him the appearance of a beast, starring in a mini-movie. Were it anyone else, they would have been laughed at.

But not Meat Loaf. He knew who he was, what his talents were, what kind of music he liked and performed well, and just did all that. He was himself no matter what. Sure, he had some down times, but he kept to his talents. When it worked, it soared. When it didn’t, he kept going.

From the last part of the tweet that announced his death came this challenge: “From his heart to your souls…don’t ever stop rocking!”

That’s his challenge to every creative: Don’t ever stop [making your art].

Routines Gives Covid Days Structure and Builds Anticipation

It’s not often when the day job and the fiction job intersect, but they did this week.

On the day job front, we had our weekly team meeting yesterday. We’ve got a team of about 25 folks and, ever since 16 March, we’ve been working from home. Fridays are our Zoom calls and we get to see each other’s faces and enjoy an hour of camaraderie.

Yesterday, the grandboss asked how we were doing. And not in a flippant way, but an honest deep dive into how we were coping with the new paradigm of remote working. How were we feeling? How are we getting along with our families? The discussion was good with a few of my team members relating the sameness of our day-to-day lives. One of us commented that she sometimes realized that she needed to just get up out of her chair and walk outside to break up the monotony of her home office.

On the internet and Facebook this week, a few of my fellow writers voiced their frustration with the inability to write ever since the Coronavirus descended over all of us. When we’re all stuck at home with few prospects of getting out to typical places like movie theaters, theme parks, or seemingly every other summer tradition, how the heck can we harness the creativity to write?

I can’t answer these questions, but I can answer them with techniques I use that gets me through each day and each week.

Routine and Built-in Anticipation

Some of y’all will read this and chuckle. You may even give me a hard time. Don’t worry about it: my family gives me a hard time about it, too, but I still carry on.

Maybe it’s a sign of my age (51) but I seek out routine and thrive in it.

On the creative side of things, I hold one rule steadfast: write first thing in the morning. No internet. No email. Nothing other than a cup of coffee, a Bible reading, and the immediate opening of the laptop to work on a story. For the past month, it’s been edits and revision to my next book. Soon it’ll be a return to new stories, but, above all else, I carve out the time to be creative when the world is still dark and I’m the only one in the house awake. It was a routine I needed to create, but now that I have, it’s one of my favorite parts of the day.

This routine paid for itself on Monday of this week when, after I had a productive session, I logged into my bank to pay bills and discovered one of our checks had been stolen and forged. Yes, money had also been stolen. It’s resolved now, but the point is this: had I not already done my creative work, I did not have the mindset to be creative after that discovery. So, write in the morning before the day gets to you.

Building Anticipation

How good is a tuna fish sandwich? How valuable is movie night? How do these things relate to each other?

I love tuna fish sandwiches. It’s one of my favorite things to each for lunch. I branch out and try different recipes, often with salads, but the good, old-fashioned tuna fish sandwich is one of my favorite comfort foods.

But ever since I started working from home, I limit the traditional tuna fish sandwich to my Friday lunches. Why? To build anticipation. I’ll admit I look forward to lunches everyday because not only does my entire family of three eat together, but my wife and I play three games each of backgammon and Yahtzee. But I only eat tuna fish sandwiches on Fridays. Now, my family gently ribs me about this, but I can’t tell you how good that tuna sandwich tastes after a week of anticipation. Yesterday’s sandwich was particularly good. It’s something I look forward to all week long.

Ditto the Friday Night Movies. In the summer of 2020 when Covid has robbed us of a typical summer movie blockbuster season, I invented one. I’ve been revisiting summer movies from the past with even-numbered anniversaries (i.e., years ending in 0 or 5) and it’s been fun. But my point is that Fridays are movie nights. The other six days, sure we can watch a movie (we rarely do; the wife and I watch TV shows every night), but the special day is Friday.

Just like the tuna fish sandwich, I look forward to movie nights all week long. I build the anticipation, and that makes the sometimes monotonous days go by faster. And it makes Fridays all the more special.

Saturday mornings are do-nuts from Shipley’s, a cartoon (currently Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated) and every episode of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Saturday nights feature the Texas Music Scene TV show. Sunday mornings are online church. Every night at 9pm is our TV show time (about to start season 6 of Bosch). Friday night (lots of Friday things) is also cocktail night. Thursday is often take-out food night.

Yes, there are times when the wife makes tuna fish on a Tuesday and I’ll opt out. Yeah, really. It’s to keep those Friday lunches special. It’s to build anticipation.

So that’s a glimpse into how I’m coping with working from home and maintaining my creativity.

How are you doing?

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 32 AKA "What's the Point?"

You ever have one of those weeks in which you mutter to yourself, "What the hell's the point of all this?"

The Funk

Usually, I don't get those moments, but somehow, some way, I got stuck in that rut. Been trying to analyze why.

Last weekend, I did the grunt work associated with re-publishing my westerns from my pen name "S. D. Parker" to my full name: "Scott Dennis Parker." Updated the website, too. Have to admit it was nice seeing all the stories in one place in a location other than my website. So that was a good thing.

The new book's not going as swimmingly as when it started. That's an expected thing. Beginnings are always flush with excitement. Endings are barreling to the big conclusion. It's the vast middle where you have to keep up your game. And with this new book being unlike any of the others, the self-doubt crept into my head. "Hey, buddy, you know you can write mysteries, westerns, and thrillers. Why are you even bothering with this other thing?"

For most of this week, my answer was "I don't know." "Who the hell am I fooling" swept in and out of my brain this week. There's a writing assignment with a fast approaching deadline that I kept struggling with. I almost emailed the editor to back out. Heck, I even chastised myself for not bowing out of Do Some Damage with last week's column (seeing as how we're celebrating our decade anniversary and with me being the only original left, it's soft code for everyone else figuring out something different to do). It would have been a nice, even number. Ten years to the month.  Holly's post from last week, "Writer, Know Thyself," struck home with this mentality. If I'm having second thoughts on the validity of keeping the DSD streak going, well, then...

What the hell is the point?

The Beginning of the Turnaround

Here's irony for you. A large bulk of this feeling coincided with the beginning of August. This month marks my twenty-year wedding anniversary, so that's an awesome thing. But August almost marks the beginning of the end of summer. Around mid May, I am so excited for the summer mentality that I can't wait for the end of May, Memorial Day, and the early days of June. Early summer is such a welcome thing. The boy's not in school. I don't have to get up at 4:30 am to write. The weather is wonderfully hot. The movies, books, and TV are all geared to the summer mentality.

Now, in August, the summer's at an end. CBS's Blood and Treasure finished its wonderful freshman season this week. American Ninja Warrior is nearing its season finale. Elementary airs its series finale this coming week. Man, am I going to miss that show.

And school starts. Back to 4:30 am writing times. That's not a huge deal because I've been getting up at 4:45 to 5:00 am this summer, but still.

What August also means is that the 97-day writing cycle I touted back on Memorial Day was mostly for naught (in terms of fiction).  I let time slip away from me and didn't get nearly the amount of work I wanted to complete done. It almost seems like a waste.

But not totally.

The New Project: Watching Kevin Smith Films

From the end of June all the way to this week, I've been working on watching and reviewing all twelve of Kevin Smith's films before the new movie, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, debuts this October. My goal was to watch them all before I started publishing them so that I could have my own thoughts on all his films without anyone going "Boy, his movies really took a dive after [fill in the blank]." I wanted nothing coloring my own opinions.

But that meant I had to sit on all these reviews. No more. My Introduction and first review for Clerks is now out. The Mallrats review comes out this coming week, so I finally get to share what I've been doing. I've seen and written reviews for eight of his films now. All those reviews are already in the can, waiting to be let out in the coming weeks. Now, I can talk about what I've been doing this summer.

The Posts at DSD

It turned out to be great timing for the return of veteran DSDers to the blog. Three of them--Jay Stringer, Dave White, and Russel McLean--all wrote about the crap time they've faced and with which I've been struggling. Dave's post about the joy of blogging brought a smile to my face. But it was something Jay wrote that, yet again, struck home.

1. Find a thing you love doing
2. Put in the work to get good at it
3. Draw your self-worth from doing it, not from what you think you'll get from having done it. 

You see that third point? I've preached that for a long time. I call it "Control the Controllables." Some when this summer, I lost sight of  it. When people are shocked that I get up at 4:30 am, I tell them it's a blast because I get to tell myself stories! How awesome is that? Well, I forgot how awesome it is.

And then I remembered. I'm a storyteller.

Is it the best job in the world? Probably not, but it's a damn good one.

Am I out of the funk completely? Not yet. But the light is there.

We creatives all go through times like these where the urge to just throw in the towel is so dang strong. It would be so, so easy to just give up. And no one would notice. Well, we would. And we'd like feel like crap.

Fight through those tough times. Persevere. Keep going.

Why? Back to Jay's first item: because you love it.

That's the point.

Control the Controllables Part 2 - Are you having fun yet?

Yesterday, I wrote about controlling the controllables. That is, don’t fret about those things over which you have zero control. I listed all the things we have direct control over, but wanted to expand on one phrase today: “…The prose of the book itself.”

To be precise, the prose of the book are the actual words we choose. Yes, I get that and it’s 100% accurate. But how many of us actually have fun writing our stories? How many of us have a grin on our faces when we write a certain passage, or tears streaming down our cheeks, or actual pulse-quickening moments when our heroes are in peril? Perhaps of all the things over which we exert control, isn’t this the top?

Why do we write? Well, for some of us, it’s because we’re not good at anything else. But for many of us, isn’t it the thrill of the story? Isn’t it to escape?

I’ll tell you a little secret about myself: I escape in my writing. I have a good life and I’m immeasurably blessed. I have a day job that takes care of everything, but it would be really nice to write fiction for a living. I’m not there yet. Might not ever get there. And while I enjoy writing blurbs and descriptions, updating and tinkering my websites, blogging, and creating covers, the real thrill is the story creation itself. It’s the constant “what happens next?” moments throughout a manuscript as I’m telling myself the story at 4:30 am each morning. Those are the moments I live for. Those are the moments I have control over.

But you know what? They have control over me, too. I can feel my fingers speeding up and hear the clickety-clack of the keys as my heroes get into and out of a problem. It’s my favorite part of this entire process. Next is me sharing it with others. And there’s nothing more irritating than my morning session running out of time before I have to get ready for work and I’m not at the end of a scene. Most of the time, I don’t have any additional time that day to keep on with that scene. The end result is that I’m thinking about the ending of that scene all day long until I can again put fingers to keyboard and go. On those days, I’m actually held in a state of suspended animation.

I have a blast telling stories.

So, how much fun do y’all have writing your stories?

Control the Controllables

Why is it we writers and creators sometimes suffer from bouts of doubt? In my day job as a marketing writer, I’m never without things to do and proper procedures to do them. Dittos for thousands of other skills. But we creators still suffer.

Mine wasn’t horrible or earth-shattering. It stemmed from a couple of things. One was the diminishing of the natural high one gets when completing a story. I submitted a story to an upcoming western anthology and, if accepted, it’ll be published in the fall. And boy do I love this yarn. Enjoyed reading it aloud to my wife who also seemed to enjoy it—not always a given. She’s a spectacular first reader/listener because she’ll tell me like it is, especially if a story doesn’t work for me. The other thing that got me down for a time was the just-as-critical sequel to writing “the end”: what’s next? With my day job, I have a rather long commute and, as a result, my personal time is quite limited. I still carve out time to write, but this week was mostly a failure. It happens from time to time. I used to see how long I could go writing each day. Then I didn’t. Now, I’m wondering if I should just so I can maintain the writing muscle.

On the business side of things, there are always a ton of things to do. Most of the time, I actually enjoy them. In fact, I’m in the middle of planning my fall’s published output and into 2019. It’s a good schedule and one I hope will reap some dividends.

And that’s where some of my thoughts went to this week: the other end of the process. The future reader seeing a story of mine, seeing the cover, reading the blurb, and making the decision to spend money. I can’t remember where I recently heard the phrase “control the controllables” but it reentered the forefront of my head again this week. What do I have control over? The prose of the book itself, the descriptions and all the meta-data, the covers and how they look, and setting the price. That’s it. There isn’t a darn thing else I control. Well, there’s one more thing: where the book is located. I’ve recently gone wide again, so my stories are available in most major online bookstores.

Well, there is one more thing I can at least have a say in: discoverability. I can control how I market, where I market, how much I spend on marketing, and so forth. But at the end of the day, it ain’t up to me whether a person reads one of my stories. It’s all on them. I cannot control their thought pattern and decision making. All I can do—all any of us can do—is put the best product out there and see what happens.

I know this is all not earth-shattering or brand-new, but, every so often, we creators need to be reminded of what we can control. It’s also a good reminder that all of us creatives have those moments of doubt. Famed Batman artist Greg Capullo (@GregCapullo) wrote this tweet:

For those struggling artists out there, know that I struggle too. After decades of drawing for a living, there are days when it seems like I’ve forgotten how to draw! It sucks. You suck, I suck, we all suck! …sometimes.

New DC Comics writer, Brian Michael Bendis (@BrianMBendis) followed it up with “Seconded.”

You see? We’re all in the same boat.

See Part 2 tomorrow.

The Gospel of Creativity with Kevin Smith

(The news of Kevin Smith's near fatal heart attack stunned me yesterday. He's a little under two years younger than I am. His heartfelt post about his near-death experience moved me to verify with my family if they knew how much they meant to me if I were to pass in an instant. I have grown to love and admire Smith's brand of optimistic fandom. The world needs more of what he's offering.

This is a piece I wrote in August 2015 after seeing Smith live. It was an event.

In his tweet, Smith wrote that he didn't want his life to end, but if it did, "I can't complain. It was a gift."

Kevin, your work has been a gift to us. Thank you, and get well soon.)

--------------------

I went to "church" on Wednesday night and the preacher was Kevin Smith.

Some of you will probably stop reading right now. Kevin Smith? The independent director of films like "Clerks," "Chasing Amy," and "Jersey Girl"? The guy who has a few dozen podcasts and fills them with talk of film and comics and humor all laced with profanities? Yup, that's the one.

I'm unique in the world of Kevin Smith fandom. I've never seen any of his films. I know him as a podcast personality. Three years ago, while listening to the podcast from SF Signal, there was mention of "...a Batman podcast by filmmaker Kevin Smith where he talks to Mark Hamill." All I heard was "Batman" and "Mark Hamill." The definitive voice of the Joker as far as I was concerned. I listened and fell in love with Fatman on Batman podcast. I've written about it more than once. (here, here, here, and here). Add in Hollywood Babble-On and  I have some great content for the week that includes the wonderfully talented Ralph Garman. 

Cut to a few weeks ago and word came down that Kevin Smith was going to be live in Houston. I knew I had to get tickets. A couple of friends and I met at the Improv Wednesday night. We got there at 7pm for the 8pm show. It started at 8:30...and didn't stop until 12:10am! No breaks. What followed in between was one part comedy show, one part great stories, and a huge, heaping helping of a motivational speaker who preached the gospel of creativity so well that if I hadn't already started my own company and published two books would've had me going home to write a business plan.

The format was Q&A and Smith joked that he might be able to get through five, maybe six questions. I thought he was joking. He wasn't. What is great about podcast--not just Smith's--is that there is no ticking clock or commercials butting up against the host to curtail discussion. There have been many times when an interview goes multiple parts. I love it because you can really dig deep and ask questions we listeners want to know. I assumed that in a live setting, some of that would actually be trimmed.

I assumed wrong. For each question asked, Smith gave the audience member his full attention. The answers were in depth and, dare I say it, reminiscent of Garrison Keillor in that whatever rabbit trail Smith traveled, he always came back around to the question asked. And the rabbit trails were so fun. A year or so younger than me, Smith basically loved the same things i loved as a kid: Batman, comics, and Star Wars. He has made a name for himself just being himself. He just has twenty something years in the film industry to bolster his heritage.

What really struck me was his passion for independent creativity. One of the questions involved a podcast. Smith paused to give an impassioned tangent about the power one individual can have in this world through podcasting. He used podcasting as a real-world example but basically said that any art can save lives. He talked so well and deeply that I wasn't the only one who picked up on his motivational style. Heck, there were so many good nuggets that I flipped over the comment cards and started taking notes. Yeah, I know: I’m odd, but when you hear words of wisdom from a guy who’s been in the fray, you take notice. Among the things I took away, in case you can’t read my scribble, are these:

• There’s too much ‘Why’ in the world. Go for “Why not?”
• Find something that’s yours.
• Don’t be afraid of your thing not working.
• Put some ‘secret sauce’ in your project, something that just for you.
• Ask yourself: What would make your bliss?
• Smith made “Clerks” because he kept looking for a movie like it and realized it was never going to be made unless he made it. (Of all the things I’ve heard Smith say, this one resonates most with me.)

There were others, but those are the highlights. Oh, and he talked extensively about “Tusk,” the movie he made last year. He told about its genesis (via a podcast), how his daughter had a part (as a convenience store clerk), and how Johnny Depp got involved merely by Smith taking a chance and asking a question.

I absolutely loved the show and the message of independent creativity. I’m already doing the independent publishing thing (new western short story and new Benjamin Wade novel coming next month). Now, I just have to go watch some Kevin Smith films.

The Gospel of Creativity by Kevin Smith

Today at DoSomeDamage, I talk about seeing Kevin Smith live in Houston and what I thought of the show: http://www.dosomedamage.com/2015/08/the-gospel-of-creativity-by-kevin-smith.html

Lessons from the Batcave

I learned something this week from the Batcave. Well, it's not really the Batcave. It's actually the Fatcave, but you can't have a Fatcave without the Batcave.

Speak sense, man! Hark! I shall.

Most of y'all know that Batman is my favorite superhero. One of the absolute best Batman-related thing currently being produced is Kevin Smith's Fatman on Batman podcast. He refers to his house/recording studio as the "Fatcave," so there's the reason for that reference. If you are remotely interested in Batman, I can't recommend this podcast highly enough. But if you are also interested in how creative people come to do the things they do, this podcast is a must. 

This year is the year in which I learned that I could write and write consistently. I now know that I can sit anywhere and bang out words and string along paragraphs to makes stories or novels. I'd like to think that the more I'm writing, the better my writing is. That's the nature of practice, right? But what about the other side of the equation? What about the imagination part?

On my own, I've been studying some of my favorite novels to break them down into their component parts to learn how a book is constructed. But what about the germ of an idea? Sometimes, I'll admit, that my imagination is the thing that needs work. Sometimes, I'd almost like a prompt. On the things I do imagine, I'm always curious how others use their imagination and create ideas. 

That's where Kevin Smith comes in. On his 51st episode, his guest was Paul Dini, the same man who inaugurated this podcast in episode one. As Smith is wont to do, there is some meandering talk, but something magical happens about a half hour into the 90-minute podcast. The two of them discuss the TV spot of the new Batman: Origins video game. Here it is. The commercial is fantastic. What it shows is a series of images, all close up on Bruce Wayne, from the moment the man kills his parts, to the funeral, to prep school, to high school, to him training to be Batman, and finally as the Dark Knight himself. As steeped as I am in Bat-lore, the prep school and high school scenes were new to me.

And they were new to Smith and Dini. They both zero in on the prep school shot and talk about that part of Wayne's life is underwritten. Then, the magic starts. The two Bat-fans start brainstorming a potential TV show centering on Bruce Wayne in prep school. Their enthusiasm for the project is palpable, and it's a show I'd, frankly, pay money to watch. They spin the show's mythology in wonderful little twists and do for Batman what the TV show Smallville did for Superman. And the fan community went wild. Just check out the comments.

It was the brainstorming that really got me. Right there, in my ears, was a creative team imagining something, putting beats into the overall story arc, talking about where you'd end season one or season two, and just painting this tantalizing vision in broad strokes. Then, they went back and filled in some details before moving on to the next topic. 

Man! That was exactly what I needed to hear. Shoot, I've listened to it twice, not only to absorb the how-to session of spitballing an idea, but to revel in the Bat-nerdism of these two men. Someone should seriously make this show. It's awesome.

So, in an unlikely source, I got a little taste of a creative team in a brainstorming session. It was exactly what I needed to hear and I've already started applying it's tenants to the series of novellas I'm writing. I'll be a better writer for it.

Now, if someone would only make that show….

What kind of out-of-left-field things help you along your writer way?

Inspiration from Unlikely Sources

A common writerly thing we tell ourselves is that inspiration for a story can come from just about any place and at any time. You know what else can come from those same mysterious places? The desire, the push you might need to get one's butt in a chair and write.

I don't know if y'all ever experience this, but, at times, watching my current favorite TV programs (Castle, Elementary, Grimm, Body of Proof), at some point during the broadcast, two things usually happen. One, the realization that I should probably be writing. I let that one slide, typically, because we can't be a writer and/or writing all the time. Two, I get inspired to go write. I enjoy those shows for their creativity, their structure, and their characters that it can prompt me to take notes about my characters or stories or dash to the keyboard and fire out some pages of my own characters because I enjoy them coming to life as much as I enjoy watching Castle, Beckett, Holmes, or Nick Burkhardt come to life and do their thing.

That kind of inspiration is, I think, typical of all of us writers. What may not be typical is getting inspiration from as unlikely as source as a podcast about Batman. Kevin Smith has, since last year, created a podcast devoted to his love of the Dark Knight. Naming it "Fat Man on Batman," each week (more or less) is an episode devoted to one or another aspect of Batman's history. With this venture being an audio-only podcast, naturally, the only thing we have is the interview itself, the voices of Smith and his guests for that has been the way Smith talks about Batman. His guest list has run out pretty wide, even though it is probably more Batman: The Animated Series heavy. 

For any Batman fan out there, I cannot recommend this show enough. It has been the weekly thing that I most look forward to. I download and put on my iPod as quickly as possible. The depth and breadth Smith and his guests take the adventures of Batman is inspiring. It will confirm things you already knew, reassess things you thought in a different way, and make the entire experience of watching and reading Batman fun again.

But that's not all. What comes across in your ears is passion. There is a passion for the material, certainly. How can you even think to have a podcast if you hated something, right? It's become something of a joke now, but many of Smith's interviewees bring the big man to tears. If it's not tears that are forming in Smith's eyes (and voice), then it's awe. All too often, the guests--who have ranged from Mark Hamill, Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Kevin Conroy (Batman: TAS) to Kyle Higgins, Geoff Johns, and Grant Morrison (comics)--convey their thought process behind a certain episode or issue or way of thinking about Bruce Wayne and his rather odd outlet for his childhood tragedy. Each time, Smith just sits in stunned amazement, comprehending something he thought he knew and seeing it in a new way. The same for us listeners, too.

Just like the old days when you were limited by the number of comics you could put in a box and take with you on vacation and you read those same issues over and over, these podcasts are like that. I've listened to most of them twice, so enjoyable are the conversation and the topics. But each time, I am prompted, nee I'm pushed by an uncompromising force to get to my Mac or pen/paper and *create*. It is the strangest thing. You'd think that I would start writing my own Batman story or jump back to an episode or an issue and re-read. I do that, but not initially. What I end up doing is want to create my own beings and put them through the motions of their lives. I want to bring the passion for my own material that others bring to Batman. I already have the passion for my projects--why else would I be writing them?--but sometimes, this podcast is like icing on the cake. It is a wonderfully unexpected consequence to listening to theses podcasts.

Is there something you do that brings unexpected creativity to your writing?