Letters for Creatives #33: Go down a rabbit hole without distractions
Letters for Creatives #33: Go down a rabbit hole without distractions
Create something new by learning about different topics
Hello, I am Celeste. If you would like to receive Letters for Creatives every Thursday, be a part of the family. Go to the directory to find what you need.
Image: Jeremiah Lawrence from Unsplash
Social media has a lot of distractions. Instagram started to feel like work and artists have expressed that they are posting art for the sake of posting. When you have to post creative work every day, it does not give you time and space to remix different ideas and create something innovative. There are people who can post every day but I am still figuring out.
Image: Sustainable digital detox notes from a documentary
A platform to go down a rabbit hole
I have stumbled upon Are.na on Instagram for a few months but I never look into it. It seems to be an interesting idea but not appealing enough to dive in. I know that some of you feel the same way with Letters for Creatives. I have been trying to get out of the rut. I appreciate it if you can give me some feedback.
There are more apps with features such as disposable camera, real-time chat with no chat history. You can read more about them here. Are.na is similar to Tumblr but you can put different pictures, poems or essays in channels. It is neat and has no button to like as you would have on Instagram. It is a great place to find inspiration if you want to get ideas that you don’t tend to stumble upon. One of the best things about these platforms is definitely the absence of algorithms.
Octavia Butler had four or five books open in his house to stimulate him and create new work.
They don't relate to each other in any particular way and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books and I will go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another.
I have learned that reading and learning about different topics has been helping me to broaden my worldview. You can learn how to write and tell a story from David Lynch. I find that films fascinate me and I learn about storytelling as I think about how a certain film starts a story. One of the great films is 20th Century Women.
Storytelling from films
The film starts with a car on fire. As Dorothea talked about the car, she started to go on and talk about her son and the time he was born. The narrative went on as the storyline in the present continues as the firemen come and Dorothea invites them to her birthday party.
The narrative and story progress forward in parallel and it is seamless. It is a great way to build the character in a story and I find it useful to write a fictional story.
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Thank you for reading!
Until next time,
Celeste
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