Dennis Cass Wants You To Be More Awesome

Writer Tanya Whiton writes:

First, thank  you so much for your fascinating and helpful article in the Jan/Feb issue of Poets & Writers. If you have a moment, I’m wondering if you might expand a bit on the notion of the conceptual ladder? (A Google search took me to a site about the Kabbalah, which was interesting, but not quite what I was after.) Is the conceptual ladder the way in which an individual’s mind moves from concept to example and back again? Or is the conceptual ladder a series of concepts, ranging in complexity, each of which might act as a starting point? Or perhaps some combination of the two?

First, glad you liked the piece. I’m currently working on getting Poets & Writers to release it on the internet so more people can read it.

Second, before I clarify the concept of the conceptual ladder I need to do two things.

1. Introduce the following backpack:

2. Redefine art (from the point of view of the person creating it):

A piece of art represents the sum of EVERY creative decision rigorously applied

One of the ways we get blocked is that we make assumptions about our work that we don’t even realize we’re making. We unconsciously decide that a flea market backpack can only pay tribute to Barack Obama OR Harry Potter OR Sonic the Hedgehog.

Once we’ve made that decision (again, often without knowing we’ve made it) we wrestle with making our backpack great. We run our hand over many pleathers in order to figure out which one is the finest pleather. We fuss over color and dimension. We pay extra attention to every stitch and seam because our backpacked tribute has to be JUST RIGHT.

The problem is that we acted too soon. We self-imposed unnecessary limits on what we considered appropriate and/or effective backpack decoration. We failed to consider that maybe, just maybe, the best flea market backpack would pay tribute to Barack Obama AND Harry Potter AND Sonic the Hedgehog in a kaleidoscopic explosion of who’s the boss of all humankind. (Don’t listen to FAIL blog, who featured this item a few weeks ago. This is a WIN.)

So you could look at the conceptual ladder as a hierarchy of ideas that moves from simple to complex, from quiet to loud, from demure to outrageous, etc.

Or you could think of the idea as occupying a rung on some kind of imaginary idea ladder. How would the idea change if it occupied a higher rung? How would it change if it occupied a lower rung?

Or you could think of your own badass self as standing on the ladder. How does your view of the idea landscape change as you climb up and down?

Or you could come up with an entirely different metaphor (knobs, dials, sliders, DNA sequences) to belabor (as I have) at your leisure.

The point is to find some kind of tool/reminder to keep your idea-generating as fluid and elastic and expansive as you can. Then, start using that fluidity, elasticity and expansiveness early and often, because once a creative decision is made (unconsciously or not) you have to live it. Forever.

Over the course of the year I bookmark lots of articles, websites, and whatnot with every intention of turning those choice items into even choicer blog posts.

For a variety of reasons (which, by the way, my voice recognition software often interprets as “for a Friday of reasons”) many of these items never make the final cut.

And so let us take a moment to recognize and to celebrate what was almost good enough in 2009.

1. Authonomy

HarperCollins is experimenting with an online slush pile/social network/American Idol contest called Authonomy. While trying to write about this site I could never figure out if it was the Future or merely a curiosity born out of fear and desperation. (I suppose it could be both!)

2. Will Work For Praise

This BusinessWeek article caught my eye because it talks about — at least in a tangential way — part of the dark side of being a writer. As the article notes, we’ll happily do creative work for free as long as it gets us a little attention. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to take this concept and talk about larger economic and cultural forces or merely riff on how sad our profession has become, so I just let it go.

3. Self-Publishing Review

For a while I was working on a trend piece about the coming legitimacy of self-publishing. The point I was going to make was something about how if mainstream publishers continue to offer their authors less and less — and if self-publishing can acquire the rigors of traditional publishing — then our whole conception of what “real” publishing is will change. But I only got as far as finding this cool link for a website that seeks to elevate the standards of self-publishing.

4. The Book is dead, the Book will live on, blah, blah, blah

Somewhere in the middle of 2009 I decided to swear off the whole FUTURE OF THE BOOK conversation. (Too many cooks!) That said, the Institute for the Future of the Book’s if:book blog is a nice clearinghouse. And the unsinkable Jonathan Karp’s article This Is Your Wake-Up Call: 12 Steps to Better Book Publishing is a nice, um, wake-up call.

5. Good and Bad Procrastination

Sometimes you set out to write a post and in doing research for said post you discover that someone else has done a good enough job of writing it already. My post on good versus bad procrastination falls into this category. Hit it, Paul Graham!

6. Will My Video Get 1 Million Views on YouTube?

Still other times you set out to write a post (like, say, what the number of hits on your YouTube video means) and quickly find out that in order to write said post you’d have to do so much legwork that it wouldn’t be worth it. Then two days later Slate up and publishes a thoughtful, well-researched piece about the very same subject. Problem solved.

7. 10 Hallmarks of Amateur Recording

The final entry for my 2009 anti-roundup roundup comes courtesy of Des McKinney’s Hometracked blog. His post on the ten hallmarks of amateur recording had me inspired to do a similar post about the 10 hallmarks of amateur writing. Except I wasn’t going to merely copy his idea but instead create some kind of cross-disciplinary bridge between his world and mine. Then I remembered how smart you are and realized that given the opportunity you could figure it out for yourself.

Thanks again to all the readers of this blog for a memorable 2009. Here’s to the increased furtherance of awesomeness in 2010.

First, this is NOT the cover to the January/February 2010 issue of Poets & Writers magazine, which is all about INSPIRATION. That cover was designed by Chip Kidd and is pretty rad, but for some reason the P & W website is not letting me rip the image.

So I went into Flickr where I found the photostream of Stephen Poff. He did a series on INSPIRATION and so I’m Creative Commons-ly using his work instead. We all cool/clear?

That said, I’m very happy to be part of the aforementioned Poets & Writers issue in which I have an article called “How To Get Unstuck.” The piece uses  psychology research into creativity to (hopefully) help writers of all stripes become more emotionally intelligent about writer’s block.

There are also jokes.

So far I’ve received some very nice feedback on the piece. Since it’s not available online I thought it would be helpful to create this post in the event people stop by and want to leave a comment.

To kick things off, I offer this e-mail I received from writer Emily Calvo:

I LOVED your recent Poet & Writers article about creative thinking. Having spent 20 years paying the bills by writing ads and marketing pieces, I can’t wait around for inspiration or I’d starve. Your description of the process of unlocking the brain is perfect. I’m also a psych major and a poet, so this topic is particularly interesting to me.

One additional thought I’d like to share with you. In the many brainstorming sessions I’ve conducted, I’ve noticed that the ideas generated eventually become grossly inappropriate. Politically incorrect, humorously nasty and just plain X-rated. Too often, that’s when the participants want to “cash-in.” They assume that they’ve reached the bottom of the barrel. However, I’ve noticed that when they keep going, the best stuff decides to finally pop out of their heads. It’s as if the inappropriate ideas have allowed them to open the door to greater flexibility and less fixation.

A reader writes:

Every essay I’ve ever written turns into something else entirely. Also, I notice I often sit down thinking I’m going to blog about one thing, and it goes somewhere else. I know this is normal, but is there any way to make it less maddening?

One way to think about ideas (and this is a direct outgrowth of my book) is to remember that they are part of your body. Even though we have this natural separation between mind and body (what Yale psychologist Paul Bloom calls “common sense dualism“), your thoughts are indeed biological.

Ideas live on oxygen and amino acids and blood sugar. They are less “in” your head (as if your skull were some kind of storage facility) but “of” your head. They are you in all your you-ness.

Can we say the same thing about the work?

Sort of.

You can feel very attached to your short story about a 19th century pineapple baron, or feel a deep personal investment in your photo essay about the fallacy of “clean coal,” but the work exists outside your body. It exists on a page or a canvas or a screen, not to mention in the mind of the person who is appreciating the work. Atoms other than You Atoms are involved.

When your work starts to get away from your ideas, that’s good. That’s your creative mind searching for ways to turn that idea—that little slice of you—into a piece of work that another person can understand and relate to.

I would be more concerned about the person who writes in with this question:

I have these ideas that I keep circling around. I turn them over, and look at them from all angles, and review them over and over and over again, but they never go anywhere. Am I crazy?

Is that who you want to be?

Thanks to the University of Minnesota’s College of Continuing Education for having me speak at your annual Town Hall meeting. This post is for you.

First, two articles on what psychologists call “sudden insight.” While I cautioned against getting too excited about that Eureka! feeling (aha! means “pay attention to this” not necessarily “I’m a genius”) those moments are still important and fun.

Aha! Favors the Prepared Mind (courtesy of ScienceDaily)

The Eureka Hunt by Jonah Lehrer (.pdf of article from The New Yorker)

Second, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point professor emerita Leslie Owen Wilson has a nice, brief overview of the eight aspects of divergent thinking.

They’re all important, but personally I think fluency (the ability to generate a lot of ideas), risk-taking and curiosity are the most important. Volume, fearlessness and an appetite for knowledge will take you far.

Third, the opening credits to Katamari Damacy, a Japanese video game (aka 59 seconds of pure divergent thinking):

Finally, divergent thinking is nothing without convergent thinking. We often discount the creative contributions of analytical thinkers, but without focus, limits, and consensus, then divergent thinking can lead to creativity for creativity’s sake. You can—and will—do better.

Good luck.

A reader writes:

We probably all have a million ideas for things we could write or produce. How do we know which ones are worthy of our time and attention?

I used to write down every idea. I carried around an Ampad Reporter’s Notebook (Gregg ruled, please!) that I special ordered from a business supply company in St. Paul.

In my idea-hoarding prime, I might go through two or three pads a month. I wrote down everything:

• Update Smokey and the Bandit but make it so it’s, you know, good
• Sci-fi story where humans are second on the food chain?
• Start magazine that makes The New Yorker obsolete

Then, about three years ago, I stopped.

It wasn’t because the ideas were as absurd, vague or grandiose as the above. The reason I stopped was because I was getting much better at having ideas than I was at executing them. I had a storage closet filled with boxes filled with notebooks filled with ideas, but I wasn’t writing or publishing any more than I did when I first started my career.

Now when I have an idea I do the following:

1. Enjoy it

Ideas feel good. They make me smile and feel smart. Good for me.

2. See if the idea can be re-purposed to fit into an existing project

As writers and artists we tend to circle around and inhabit certain themes. Often a new idea isn’t new at all, but rather another way of getting at something you’re already working on. See what happens when you start thinking about ideas not as “new” but as part of an ever-forming whole.

3. If it doesn’t fit, then I say goodbye

I have three books in various stages of completion and precious little time to work on them. It’s a shame to throw out a perfectly good idea or insight, but these books need my help, not my divided attention.

4. If it comes back and it’s genuinely a new idea, then I ask myself if I really want to do the work

I recently had an idea to do a piece on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Running Man was on cable and I thought, “Look how far this guy has come. And yet he’s still a punchline. Maybe it’s time for a reappraisal.”

But do I really want to do the work it would take to write that story? Do I really want to try to get access? Or watch all of his old movies? Or become well-versed enough in California state politics?

The answer, sadly, is no.

5. If the idea comes back again, and still can’t be re-purposed, then I have no choice but to work on it

[Sighs] All right. If you insist. But you better be worth it . . . .

Next month, I return to the University of Minnesota’s Compleat Scholar program to teach How to Be Awesome: A New Way of Looking at Creativity.

The class, which starts on April 6th, runs on three consecutive Monday nights.

If you like this blog, you will love this class.

If you love this blog, you will LOSE YOUR MIND.

See you in school.

Dana Stevens of Slate nicely sums up what Joaquin Phoenix’s “public decompensation” (decomposition?) is all about:

There are multiple theories as to what Phoenix’s public decompensation is all about. (He announced in October that he was giving up acting for good to pursue a career as a musician and has since had one disastrous live show in which he rapped inaudibly and fell off the stage.) He could be spiraling down into alcohol or drug addiction—the actor has done a stint in rehab in the past. He could be mentally ill. Or the whole thing could be an elaborate hoax, staged with the help of his friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck, who’s planning to direct a documentary that’s ostensibly about Phoenix’s transition from acting to rapping but will (according to theory No. 3) turn out to be the chronicle of an Andy Kaufman-style piece of performance art.

I hope it’s theory No. 3 because I do love me a good art project. There is something about that level of commitment to an idea. (This is also the theme of one of my favorite movies in recent years The Prestige.)

I also love the uneasiness that it creates in the audience. If he’s joking, then why am I not really laughing? If he’s not joking, then why do I find this all so funny?

Two years ago, I envisioned this website an art project. I decided against it because my mandate is to help people. (If I’m the fake headmaster of some kind of real/not-real Institute for Awesome Studies, then it’s about me not you.) Still, even thinking about DCWYTMBA in that way expanded my horizons.

Here is an exercise for you:

Ask yourself what your current project would look like if you erased the boundaries between art and artist and audience and turned it all into one crazy, big-ass THING. How might you go about the work differently? What kind of character or personae might you develop? How would that personae free you up? How would that personae limit you?

And then the most important question of all:

How far would you have to take your idea in order to transcend the ordinary?

I’m generally not one for sudden outbursts of digital enthusiasm, but I’ll say this:

Hooray for Tina Brown!

With newspapers cutting back, she is cutting up? with Book Beast, the new Daily Beast book site. If you haven’t checked it out, I encourage you to give it a look.

Here’s what I took away:

“Long tail” mentality

The “Rediscovery” tag says it all. Thanks to the persistence of the web, there is hope even for obscure, dead Norwegian novelists. That thing you wrote only dies the day you give up on it.

Video saved the literary star

The conventional wisdom says that books and TV are an awkward match. But books and Web video work surprisingly well. Maybe it’s the size of the image. Maybe it’s the fact that you can showcase Chuck Klosterman, John Grisham, David Denby and James Baldwin all in one clickable party strip. Either way, if you’re an author you need to get on board.

Art + Commerce + Whatever = fine by most

There is no reason why serious criticism, service-oriented reviews, profiles, features, gossip, scandal and publishing news all can’t inhabit the same page. While you always want to stay focused, you’re also freer than you ever have been. So go mix that sh*t up, yeah?

Thanks to everyone who came out last night to see me talk. It was gratifying to see such a positive response.

We’ll explore some of the topics and themes in the coming weeks, but for now here are the links I promised:

2003 How Much Information? Study

2008 How Much Information? Study (results pending)

I Can Has Cheezburger

Top Ten Awesome Bush Shoe-Toss Animated GIFS

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

Manbabies

Enjoy the links and check back soon for more moreness.