Artist Dalek On The Importance Of Meat Pies

Is your Master or Mistress looking run down?  
Humans need sustenance, especially when the temperature falls.  

So when their energies falter, and their spirits ebb, get them something warm and filling right away.

Meat pies with gravy and chips are certain to recharge their batteries, and reawaken their creative impulses.  (You might also want to include some vegetables for a dab of color).

Then they can get back to their creative endeavors, freeing you to return to yours.

Artist Dalek

On Discipline, Priorities, and the Creative Process

“Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline.  On deeper thought, I believe that is not the case.  The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds.”

--Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

If I’m honest (and I always am, except when I only pretend to be), another reason I’ve been down on myself lately has been the lack of results with my writing.  While I’ve had many things throw me off my stride lately, from illness to jury duty to familial visits, the bottom line is that I haven’t been making progress on my dragon novel.  As much as I itched to write something else, I told myself this year that I wouldn’t start a new story until I had finished the old one.  Yet somehow, I ended up plowing most of my creative energies into blog posts, and devoting less and less to revising, editing, and finishing my novel.

Creation is the fun part of the process.  I may wrack my brain to create my way forward each day, but when I finish that rough draft, I also recognize that more work in needed.  I suppose that’s the difference between a dilettante and a professional: the professional finishes what he sets out to achieve.  He perseveres through the drudgery, and pushes past the tedium.  Only then can his work be revealed as the ultimate culmination of his efforts.

And yet, an author writes.  An author creates.  An author invents.  Or, I think, a little part of him dies.  I think that’s also part of what's been bothering me lately, aside from my lack of results.  And so, this week, I’ve assigned myself a new goal: to start off the day by writing a page of a new novel.  There’s an idea that’s been kicking around in the back of my mind.  I wrote up an outline for it a couple years ago (and revised it!), before setting it aside to concentrate on another story.  I haven’t found that outline yet, so I’m starting with the basic concept, and pushing my way forward.  I had several interruptions to my schedule today, but I still wrote a page of my new story, practiced the piano, and wrote this post.  In the coming weeks, I want to build upon this new model, to write at least a page of my new novel in the morning, and then spend time each day revising my dragon novel.  I know that I’m dedicated to my writing, even if I’m not always as disciplined as I should be.  This is an attempt to restructure my priorities so that I accomplish them.  Hopefully, this new plan will help.

At the very least, they say that change is good for the soul, don’t they?  And I do feel good about my new direction, so that’s something, I suppose.

Tomorrow, if I can, I’ll talk about one of the novels I’ve read lately.  I’d enjoy that.  Hopefully, you will too.

Dragon Dave

Palin’s Perspective

Before I read Michael Palin’s Diaries, I only knew him as a performer, and in that regard, chiefly for his work in Monty Python.  But just as there was more to the comedy ensemble than their TV show and movies, Michael Palin is much more than a performer.  There’s Michael Palin the family man, Michael Palin the entrepreneur, and Michael Palin the creator.  As a writer, I enjoyed reading about how he constantly turned his mind to new and interesting challenges.  Using his fame and prestige from Python, he tries his hand at all kinds of creative endeavors, from writing and directing his own TV shows, to acting in nonPython feature films, and writing stories of all kinds, including children’s stories and novels for adults. 

In addition to his creativity, Halfway To Hollywood reveals his perspective on life in the 1980s.  We see London through his eyes, and glimpse other places he visits, from other areas of England, to other cities in Europe, and even to the United States.  These insights function as a mirror, reveal how we often disregard what is immediately in front of us, praise what seems new and noteworthy, and reject what seems too different to be desirable.

Recently, I chatted with a friend about his business trips to England.  His initial perspective on English cuisine was that he didn’t like it.  But then, as we talked further, it became apparent that he had enjoyed many pleasant meals there.  This jibes with my own trips to England, where I tried many of the delicacies I had seen or read about in English fiction.  While I ultimately decided that Black Pudding and Kippers weren’t my favorites, I loved Cornish Pasties, Steak and Kidney Pies, and many of the cakes and tarts I tried.

In his entry for October 27, 1980, Michael Palin writes of a trip to Ireland, in which he ate “eggs and bacon like it used to taste before it was sealed and suffocated in cellophane packets, and home-made bread and toast too thick and generously cut to fit in any toaster.”  Cuisine in England must have changed since the early 1980s, for his appreciation of Irish breakfasts sound akin to my appreciation of English breakfasts.  I certainly never had eggs and bacon that tasted mass-produced.  In fact, the bacon there was far better, in my opinion, than what we get in America.  Also, the rich flavor of their breads made me appreciate our varieties all the more upon my return to the United States.  I never enjoyed dining at Panera Bread, for example, until we visited England.  It has since become one of my favorite lunch spots.

There’s only one problem with appreciating cultural differences.  For, while travel can broaden the mind, it can also broaden the hips.

Dragon Dave  

Those Great Sci-Fi Toys

Seemingly everywhere we went in Florida, particularly in the museums, we saw collections of toys.  Often, they were related to the space program, or popular Sci-Fi movies and TV shows.  Seeing so many great toys reminded me of all the toys I played with in my youth.  (Remember the spaceman that flew out onto the freeway when I spacewalked him too close to our car’s half-open rear window?)  After "Star Wars" came out, the toy market exploded with Sci-Fi toys.  I collected a few (Okay, maybe more than a few), including a lot of the Kenner Star Wars action figurines.  I never really played with them much, like Dark Helmet did in the movie “Spaceballs,” but I enjoyed looking at them.

When Pixar released their movies on DVD, interviews with the filmmakers showed office walls full of childhood toys.  It quickly grew clear that their love of toys influenced them to make movies such as “Toy Story.”  They saw playing with toys not as a guilty pleasure, but as an aid to the creative process.  Interestingly, many of their movies contain strong elements of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Several years ago, I fell into conversation with a man at a nearby restaurant.  Like me, he regularly frequented the establishment, and he noticed that I was always working.  When he realized that I was a writer, he began to share with me stories of the Science Fiction writers he had met.  He also gave me two things: a “Doc Savage” reprint, and a little Matchbox car in the shape of a green dragon.  With the latter gift, he specifically said, “I hope this helps give you ideas when you’re writing.”  That car sits on a shelf above my desk, and every time I see it, I think of him. 

A green dragon will feature prominently in my novel, so perhaps he had a hand in that character’s creation or development.  Like many who have influenced me in countless ways, life has taken us along diverging paths.  Nonetheless, he figures prominently in my consciousness, while others have faded with time.  Wherever you are, my friend, thank you for the stories, the book, and the cool Sci-Fi toy.

What do you think: do toys make one more whimsical or creative?  Do they serve as an aid to the imagination?  Or do they just make life more fun?

Dragon Dave

Andras Albert, Hungarian Storyteller

In a first-season episode of “Castle,” Martha tells her son Richard, the bestselling mystery writer, “Research doesn’t pay the bills.”  She’s certainly correct, as publishers pay Fiction writers not for their research, but based upon sales figures.  Nor do readers care how much research a writer does.  Their sole concern is how entertaining they find his or her novels.  Yet writers need inspiration, and the stories they write need grounding.  So research, in one form or another, seems like an intrinsic part of the writing process, as necessary to the writer as it is for anyone who is paid based upon his knowledge as well as his skills. 

Nevertheless, I’ve often wondered if I have researched too much, and written too little.  Certainly it’s easy to lose oneself in research.  Occasionally research has only underlined all that I didn’t know about a given subject, and intimidated me into not writing. I’ve often wondered how much of the research I’ve conducted was absolutely necessary, and if it contributed to what I wrote in a meaningful way.  Or was research merely pandering to my insecurities?

In her notes on the story “Handsome Andras,” contained in her book Folktales of Hungary, Linda Degh describes the storyteller, Andras Albert, as “one of the most genuinely creative storytellers in Hungarian oral literature.”  She attributes this to the land in which he worked as a lumberjack, but she also mentions that his superior abilities arise from his unique mindset.  Unlike most of his contemporaries, he describes his life as a folktale, populated by supernatural beings, characters from his own tales, and the heroic journeys he undertook.  He described, in exacting detail, an airplane he built.  Unfortunately, it crashed in the forest, and he never found time to build another.  Still, he spent part of his life in a cabin by a lake, where a dragon lived along its shores.  

Life, they say, is full of compensations.

Linda Degh describes his story, “Handsome Andras,” as an example of “the gifted storyteller who can build a complete story around an incomplete episode.  The main topic turns on the hero’s wanderings.  Well-known tale elements are skillfully interwoven to thicken the plot before the final entanglement.  Thus a new story evolves.”  This story offers numerous episodes and fantastic elements, and utilizes motifs common to classic Hungarian folk literature.  “The long wandering of the hero is described with such dramatic sense that never for a moment does it become uninteresting.  The plot is cleverly intricate; a dazzlingly picturesque world unfolds itself before us, and in a fascinating manner the changing moods, the worries and anxieties of the hero are poignantly described.”

At first glance, Degh seems to suggest that research is unnecessary, that great stories arise solely from one’s ability to harness the imagination.  But a careful look at her notes underlines that Albert “remodels the old form in so ingenious a manner that instead of turning the tale into an individual literary composition, he abides by the accepted pattern of folk narrative.”  

Despite his extraordinary imagination, it appears that Andras Albert would not have met the expectations of his audience, had he not memorized the classic Hungarian folk tales, and understood why his listeners loved them so much.  So I guess I'll return to my research, even if the rewards of doing so are not immediately apparent.  At least I can occasionally glance out my window, and watch the dragon lounging in my backyard.

This weekend, maybe I'll get started on that airplane.

Dragon Dave

John Hannah and Sherlock Holmes Play With Drugs

The movie, “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,” portrays a Sherlock Holmes so befuddled by drugs that Watson is able to trick him into traveling to Austria, in order to be cured by the great Sigmund Freud.  The TV series “Elementary” takes a different look at the connection between Sherlock Holmes and drug usage.  Watson, a former surgeon, lives with him in New York City as a sober companion, forcing Holmes, fresh out of drug rehabilitation, to attend meetings for former addicts.  Of course, while he is learning to live without relying on drugs, Holmes also consults with the NYPD on their most perplexing cases.

In last week’s episode, “A Giant Gun, Filled With Drugs,” a former drug dealer, Rhys (pronounced “Reese,” and played by our good friend John Hannah, from "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor") shows up at Holmes’ apartment.  His daughter has been kidnapped, and Holmes immediately bursts into action, evaluating all available evidence.  Watson asks Rhys how he’s “keeping it together,” and Rhys says that he’s observed Holmes back in London.  He watched Holmes draw conclusions from seemingly random data at superhuman speed, and responds with a smile, “I believe in Sherlock Holmes.” 

Rhys is under a deadline to pay the ransom demand, and when complications ensue, he begins to question his unswerving faith.  He tells Holmes, “I’m proud of you.  It must be like trying to relearn the piano after a stroke, doing what you do, without the drugs.”  Holmes says “Ridiculous,” and asserts that he’s engaged in a deductive science.  “Drugs are a hindrance, not a help.”  But Rhys says that part of what Holmes does, making connections, involves the creative and artistic side of his brain.  “Some artists need the drugs to fuel the creative stuff,” he tells Holmes.  Rhys argues that some artists, such as rock musicians, have often produced their best work while under the influence.  

After a particularly troubling setback, Rhys offers Holmes cocaine.  Holmes, enraged, hurls Rhys into a chair.  “You’ve needed it these last two days,” Rhys tells him.  “Listen to the rubbish you’ve been spouting.  That’s not you; that’s not Sherlock Holmes.  This is some ghost of you, some pale imitation.  You need your meds, get yourself right.”  

There may be some truth to Rhys’ assertion.  Some drugs may temporarily boost a person’s creativity.  Sadly, in the long term, we also know that they damage the brain.  As Rhys suggests, some artists, after going sober, have found it difficult to equal the quality of their earlier, drug-influenced work.  Imagine what that must feel like, to listen or look at something you created, something you made, and wonder if you’ll ever achieve that level of performance or brilliance again.  Up until now, Holmes has steadfastly denied the necessity of Watson’s role in his life.  While forced to attend meetings for former addicts, he has refused to share his own experiences with drugs.  But at the end of the episode, he asks Watson if they can delay dinner so he can attend one such meeting.  He says that he wants to share his experience, saying off-hand, “Others may find inspiration in my abstinence.”

I’ve provided a link at the bottom, so you can watch the episode if you like.  For those who prefer not to, know that Holmes validates Rhys’ faith in him.  When Rhys tells Holmes, one last time, “I believe in ya,” he’s not saying he believes in The Man-Plus-Drugs.  This time, he really believes in Sherlock Holmes.

Believe in yourself.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Watch “A Giant Gun, Filled With Drugs”

"Elementary" airs on CBS on Thursday evenings.  I'll be watching tonight's episode.  How about you?