Elizabeth Gilbert on Elusive Creative Genius

Tulip had forwarded me this excellent Ted Talk from Melissa Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love. Although I didn't necessarily care for the book, I can readily identify and agree with much of what she says about the creative process and how maybe it is some sort of touch upon the divine.





Having always felt  that I was channeling while writing fiction, I seriously identified with the part where she discusses the poet who would feel inspiration come on like an animal storming across the countryside and she'd be frantically trying to get to pencil and paper on time to catch it. Too often, the ideas come storming along and are gone before they can be recorded.

A Quick Programming Note

My long-time reader may have noticed that I've gone from a profile username of simply "Expat" to "Cape Cod Ex-pat". I tweaked my profile name after seeing someone else commenting under the name "Expat" out and about at other blogs that I like to peruse.

I realized that it was a little too common a name and decided I didn't want folks confusing my claptrap with that of someone else. I like it when folks honor the individuality of each other's bullsh!t.

I also brought it back in line with the blog's title. Yes, there is a story behind the title and username and, no, it isn't based purely on trashing my natal region of our republic. I hope to tell you more of the story once I feel that the safety of our Second Amendment rights is better secured.

Thanks for your interest!

Late Night Thoughts: Why Blog? Why Write?

The Weewolfe had needed to go out. Unfortunately, it was right at what I usually consider bedtime and it turns out, she just wanted one last chance to romp in the fresh snow. No problems there, other than I came back to a house that felt too warm and couldn't sleep.

Wound-up reading some of the last posts available out there on my favorite blogs and doing a little research on handloads for .38 Special/.357.

As I perused several sites, blogs, and forums, this also got me thinking about that urge to write and the driving force to place so much time and energy into something that has a high likelihood of only being read by a few.

In the past, I've put such efforts into writing fiction [shameless self-promotion here or, for anachronists such as myself, here]. Focusing one's self into the dedication of time and thought to produce a 350-plus page book with limited readership should seem like the end-all of banging a creative head on the brick wall of futility and has certainly felt daunting at times.

So, you may ask, why go through this night-after-night, collecting thoughts and/or sharing online things that have impacted me over the course of a day—especially, when it's so easy to bank such strong expectations on only hearing the proverbial chirping of crickets?

Well, this verse from Anna Nalick's "Breathe (2 AM)" easily comes to mind:

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

This blog has been something I've wanted to do for a long time and finally found the overwhelming initiative to undertake after the 2012 elections. This is my chance to take all those thoughts, hopes, fears, sarcasm, and ire seething round the gray matter and bleed it off to see who may share similar thoughts or even open-up good discussions.

Although I may be more blunt and emphatic than in my everyday life, anything that I do say here I will not shirk from saying to anyone in person.

Initially, I'd hoped to focus more on general politics and sports and hunting and fishing; however, the events of December 14, 2012, and the looming backlash against gun owners has rather hijacked a lot of my focus. I am, afterall, a "Cold, Dead Fingers Second Amendmentist"—a key reason I moved away from Massachusetts and family after completing college—and, lately, this is my soapbox from which I will not go down quietly in defense of our constitutional rights. All of them.

I will not leave myself broken-souled for a lack of trying.

This is but one of many avenues down which I can strive to be seen, be heard, and stand firm.

This is my soapbox to get those thoughts outside of me and allow you, dear and precious reader, that opportunity to take them however you may want to.

Thanks for your ear!

Saying A Quick Congrats to Jay G!

Jay notes that he's just hit his 7,000th post just under 6 yearsat MArooned in Massachusetts. I look at the work it's taken me to get going and just crank-out 60+ and think WOW!

I think he sums it up nicely:

Thousand posts a year, and given that I was nowhere near as prolific in my rookie year, that means a heck of a lot of posts. As I've joked, this blog is a form of therapy for me - rather than scream in impotent fury at the biased news displayed on TV, I can write in impotent fury here... Like Unc says, I do this for me, not you - and as the often-missed Acidman used to say, a ceaseless quest for adoration from people who don't know me...

Here's to 7,000 dispatches and, many more, from behind the enemy lines of occupied Massachusetts.