Writing and Music

Sweet Toof Williamsburg Brooklyn NYC Street Art

Music often has a fractal structure like writing and nature. Rudy Rucker compares a novel to a score composed by an orchestra of characters. I think of a looper laying down all his tracks before he begins his song. Rucker also mentions the soloist whether it is the sax or the guitar. I think of the freestyle emcee. In a rock and roll badass kind of way Rucker speaks of the power chords as god chords, and advises us of the themes of his beloved sic fi genre. The writer builds up the concepts, juggling the action, pressing it forward, the ideas moving. The musician uses time, rhythm, repetition, patterns, and alternation. The musician becomes a radio antenna accepting the energy as fuel to help create their song.

Fractals start small and keep building in complexity infinitely. New ideas keep breaking off and expanding, all the while echoing back to the source of it's original trajectory. They say the eyes are the window of the soul, so then the doors of the mind hold hidden worlds, and the world is likened to a building. On the roof we see the infinite realm of possibility and in the basement we respect the underbelly. All the while we are advised to remember the hierarchy, the outside, the inside, and the secret.

Sweet Toof & Mighty Mo from Burning Candy Crew Greenpoint

Stepping out of the Shadow Artist's Cocoon

As artists we must not hide in the shadows, but need to step into the light and proclaim ourselves as artists. It is foolish to wait for inspiration and expect genius to arrive at our doorstep without doing the daily work necessary to dance with our muse. Nothing happens when no effort is applied. I liken being an artist to being a king. As an artist you are at the center of a sweeping drama that is begging for you to unfold in the court of reality. As artists I insist that we all take our thrones, sit regally, and survey the world clearly, so that we can begin our dance.

Build it and they will come Julia Cameron tells us in her work centered around removing creative blocks. I accept her invitation and move into the foreground prepared to explore the universe seeking to reveal itself to me.

We are as humans an integral part of nature even if we have removed ourselves from that world in so many ways. Communing with nature doesn’t have to mean moving into the woods, we can engage with nature directly each day. This is our bridge into our souls and it is vital to our well-being. Rudy Rucker begins his Writer’s Toolkit talking about nature and fractals, how we are made up of smaller and smaller components.

Since this is a written piece let me continue to focus on writing, and bring in the elements mentioned in Rucker’s Toolkit. He begins with picking out a title. This is the rallying cry that all of your thoughts circle. This is also the tidbit that people will search for you under so you got to get a title you like and that is original so you don’t get lost in the pack.