Glowing After Weary Travels

My flight was delayed, and two babies screamed pretty much the entire duration like it was their jobs (which, as a friend mentioned, is sort of their actual job). We hit a good amount of turbulence which made me think the baby screaming wasn’t actually that bad. You know, compared to us falling out of the sky and plummeting to our demise.

A number of people nearby kept trading glances at the parents of the screaming children. Mind you, this was a three-hour flight. If a few hours of baby screaming is the worst thing to happen to you all day, on a budget-class flight, be thankful.

As I wrote about before, sometimes we have to sit through things to arrive at better things.

I’ve had to run every other day for nearly two years before I could casually head out for a seven mile run with no great pain or discomfort.

To completely avoid screaming babies, scary turbulence, and a snowy 30-minute delay, I would have to cancel all my plans and just stay indoors. But I would have missed sitting on a dock, or running along a waterway, or having a good conversation with an old friend.

All those things are glowing, but they’re never automatic. They don’t come easy, as is the case with most things worth experiencing.

Midnight Writing

Perhaps it’s the nature of blog writing in 2018. A less connected medium, free from a socially networked place where we’ve remained logged in for several months without ever needing to remember our password. After not writing like this a year or more, with no expecting audience, it’s a bit freeing.

Midnight writing can go two ways; either it’s on a deadline, cramming to finish some arbitrary word count for an editor at 7 am, or it’s typing away at something that might never be read by more than a dozen people. In either case, the night is still and only odd sounds disrupt the clacking of the keyboard; either ghosts or some intruder (though neither are the case 100% of the time).

Writing at the midnight hour, for no one, for myself, for someone who might read this seven months from now. Its purpose unknown at the time, other than an urge to write, and tending to the desires of the muse is advisable (please see ‘Turning Pro’ for Steven Pressfield). Maybe this writing gets published and it gets 20 clicks, or maybe it moves one person to tears or action or rage and their entire universe is uprooted.

That’s why there’s midnight writing. Or the graffiti artist operating under the moonlight. A musician recording one more take on their laptop before diving into bed before another shift in the morning.

Its midnight, and we must write.

Bags

When I hit the road back in 2010 on my bike I used a Chrome messenger bag. Eventually, I switched to a Chrome Yalta, and that was my go-to bag for many years. I’ve got a Goruk GR1 which I really don’t use enough, but it’s a great bag for day trips or hikes in the woods.

Then I started running in 2016, and could finally run longer distances, so when I traveled I wanted to be able to run once I got to my destination. Packing extra shoes, shirts, shorts, and jackets… running gear takes up some serious space.

I purchased a Patagonia 60L Black Hole Duffel Bag in February of 2017, so almost a year now. It’s big enough for an extra pair of shoes, running gear, regular clothes, and a small Timbuk 2 laptop sling (I usually check this duffel when flying, or throw in the cargo hold of the bus, then keep the laptop bag with me). In between buses and trains I can throw it over my shoulder with the hand straps, and if going extra distances I break out the straps and carry it on my back.

The Glow

I love long, drawn-out songs for the glow.

One of my favorites is Cult of Luna’s ‘Echoes.’ It’s from the 2004 album ‘Salvation,’ and is one of four songs longer than 10 minutes on the record.

God, this sounds like a fucking “album review,” but hear me out.

This isn’t a quick and easy song to digest. You have to sit down and take it in, in much the same way you don’t just sit down with ‘The Big Lebowski’ and skip ahead to your favorite scenes.

Back to ‘Echoes.’ The “pay off” doesn’t come until the 5:30 mark. You sit there, be patient, and when it hits, oh wow, does it hit.

Now, since this isn’t an “album review,” let me explain how this fits in other parts of my life as of late.

Getting up at 7 am to meet some other people on a cold, rainy Sunday morning doesn’t sound delightful. Then running five miles with wet, muddy feet? Why do that?

After all that trouble, the wait, the grind, I get that payoff. It’s something I’ve been feeling since I started running back in 2016. It’s the tunnel vision, the focus, like a secret you have that you can’t explain to anyone.

The glow.

MAKE IT AWESOME

I’m not trying to knock writing on the web, I’m really not. But holy damn, when you can watch a video like the one above, when Cory Henry launches into this solo? Watch out!

I’ve said it before; the writing of a seasoned pro appears exactly the same as an unpaid intern when presented on a website. The pixels, the fonts, the layout – serioualy, after 10+ years of meandering on the web, side-by-side, at first glance, it’s the same.

Sure, after reading a few lines you’ll tell which is which, but those are precious seconds that add up over the course of your day, a month, a year. Add in the fire-hose of shovel blogging, “me-too” editorials, and you see where I’m going with this.

Watch Henry’s solo (around the 4:00 mark, linked here) and you’ll see it – you won’t need to guess if it’s worth your time.

A podcast host either has it or they don’t, like a room full of musicians either bring it or they don’t. 

Because, dammit, you see it. The click-bait headlines. The social media tricks to get people to follow a link. You can just taste the tactics these days, can’t you?

Make the gates of joy and awe spring open when you release your thing. Every day. All the time.

TURN YOUR IDEAS INTO THINGS

Often I’m asked about people’s ideas, and this is what I usually say:

Don’t ask, just start. 

Do it often, make your mistakes, and keep learning. You need to be child-like in your zeal for the idea that you have.

Make 10 instances of your “thing,” then get some feedback.  Send it to people who might enjoy it, and see if they share it. If they don’t, DON’T ASK THEM WHY. Make another thing. And then another. Make them until they’re so good your friends are finally asking, “WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE?!”

But don’t seek approval before you even start. Just start it. Make it, stay busy with it, and refine it. Solicit opinions from people you trust, but don’t spend a lot of time monitoring comments sections or writing emails or having mega long conversations. That’s time you could be spending working on your thing.

Remember, you’re just starting something. You need a thing before you can really have conversations about your project!

So get busy working on your thing. 

Wait, how? 

Guess what – that’s for you to decide! Do you buy a domain name, then secure the 14 social media networks with that name first? Publish weekly? Release something every month? That’s up to you!

Make 10 of your things. From there you’ll be nailing down your process. The busy work, the technical parts, the images that you’ll use, tone, maybe working with other people – there are so many moving parts! Figure all of that out behind the scenes, quietly, before you’re bumbling and stumbling around in front of 1,000 people a day. Oops.

But work on it everyday, and get something out there as often as you can. It’ll force you to trim the fat from your process, and you’ll learn that quicker by a putting out a lot of stuff, rather than sitting on something until it’s “perfect.” You don’t want your production to be so arduous that it takes you weeks or months or years. That much time between releases, at least to start, and you’ll miss out on learning valuable lessons. 

At this stage in the game you need those lessons. Those lessons add up. And while this thing you’re working on now might not work out, you’ve learned a bunch, so it was never a waste of time. Just take those lessons now and apply them to your next idea. Go!

This piece originally posted on Patreon on April 3, 2016.

GETTING BACK TO BASICS

In 2013 I was in Nashville, TN and hanging out with a photographer friend. He was helping a friend who needed photos so I tagged along, just to see how these sorts of things worked.

Not being a photographer, and only loosely understanding megapixels and such, I was shocked to see some of his cameras. I would think it’d just be super expensive digital cameras, but then I saw cheap 35mm point-and-click cameras. 

Wait, what?

Turns out that you don’t always need fancy gear to make great things.

It reminds me of a time visiting a guitar shop, and this kid was sitting there riffing quite loudly (and annoyingly), all the while talking about GEAR. The “best” pickups, and the “worst guitars.”

Sure.

There’s this progression: as a beginner you covet the new gear. If you have the new, the fancy, the shiny, and high-end, well then you’ll sound better, or make better photographs.

But after many years, with enough skill, you find you don’t need expensive gear. There’s more to making beautiful things than how much you’re able to pay for the tools to make them.

This piece originally posted on Patreon on March 28, 2016.

KEEP IN TOUCH WITH YOUR BIGGEST FANS

The most engaged audience you have is the one right in front of you. At a show, a gallery, a book reading – that’s it. People gave up a night of Netflix, of takeout, of a million other things, and instead chose to be there with you.

Make the most of those opportunities. Make it easy to follow up after the event by getting email addresses. Put out a notebook and ask for emails, or just make a simple postcard explaining why people should join your email list, with a link to sign up.

Two things:

1. Don’t say “join our email list for updates!” That’s boring and ain’t cutting it in 2016. Say that you’ll be sharing behind the scenes photos of your process, and doing give-aways just for people on your email list, with special discounts, and pre-sale announcements of upcoming shows. Say THAT instead of “updates.”

2. Why haven’t I mentioned social media at this point? Well, because not every fan is on every social media network, and chances are you aren’t either. And you’ve heard bands and artists complaining about “reach,” and having to pay for their posts to be seen, right? Twitter is becoming the same (have you even looked at how many people actually see your Tweets?). This is why I stress good ole fashioned email – it ain’t going away (ask some bands about their old MySpace “Likes”).

You can sit on a social media 24/7, but your greater impact is face to face. When you get to shake hands, and hug people you’re making connections that can last decades, so do your best to keep in touch with those biggest fans and get their email address.