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Strengths and Weaknesses as a Writer: a Pointless Question

March 11, 2024

art, creativity, fiction, genre, writing

I recently had a hilarious (as it turned out) experience in a professional capacity. A Gothic writer wanted to hire a freelancer and I was one of the candidates. One of the interview questions was, What are your strengths and weaknesses as a writer?

On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this question. Lazy recruiters have been using this for a long time and equally lazy and conformist candidates have been giving nice canned responses.

The thing is, al this falls apart once fiction writing enters the picture.

So this ridiculous experience – I’ll offer you more details in a while – inspired me to write this post, to clarify why What are your strengths and weaknesses as a writer? is a profoundly pointless question. Any writing adviser, guru, coach, or whatnot who tries to sell you a course or method to “fix your writing weaknesses” is just after your money.

strengths and weaknesses as a writer, AI render of a dystopian city made of files and folders — Those who are dead set on finding “strength and weakness” in everything, will end up living in a city made of files, folders, and boxes.

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How to Write a Song Influenced by Postrock/Postmetal Sensitivities

February 26, 2024

Experiencing

art, creativity, experiencing, music

This ought to have simply been a “here’s how I write my music” post, but I decided to shift the focus a bit. So this became a “how to write a song” post. And since my music is influenced by postrock/postmetal sensitivities, the weight will naturally be on that.

Perhaps you are not interested in music composition. Maybe you don’t feel that learning how to write a song (of any genre) is useful to you. Or perhaps you play music but not postrock/postemetal. Is there something still interesting in this post for you?

I’d say yes, this post is still something you should read.

The reason? Because creativity is holistic. By learning how other artists work – even if they talk about something you aren’t directly interested in – you acquire useful experiences. Essentially, you can understand a little bit better how creativity works.

And of course, if you are a musician – especially a postrock/postmetal one – then this creativity insight is even more direct.

As a clarification before we begin, this post is not technical in nature. There are, I’m sure, many guides on the internet on which chords to use, or which riffs to focus on to make postrock/postmetal songs. I’m sure there are even more suggestions on what equipment to use. My focus is on creativity.

How to write a song - image of a guitar and bass — I just use this bass and this guitar to make music (plus free software). They’re humble, cheap, do the job just fine. Equipment doesn’t matter; ideas do

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Shape-shifting in Nimona: Metaphor and the Subconscious

February 12, 2024

Fiction, Writing

creativity, criticism, fiction, imagination, LGBT, social masses, society, symbolism, writing

Nimona is an animated film based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson. It features “a girl” (more of this in a while) who can shape-shift into any form, from whales to gorillas and from little boys to emulating other people. As I explore in this post, shape-shifting in Nimona is a metaphor that reveals something about the role of the subconscious in the creative process.

You see, there are some metadata you need to know – if you aren’t familiar with ND Stevenson already: The first one is that he identifies as transmasculine/bigender. The second, that Stevenson was apparently unaware about his gender identity before Nimona:

There are times in my life where I feel like everybody knew what my deal was before I did, and this is one of them. But it would be years before I started to see that in myself. I guess I planted the seeds without realizing.
Time

Is that really possible? Can an author create such strong symbolism – as shape-shifting is for gender identity – without consciously realizing it? We know that books often write themselves, but as we’ll see in this post, symbolism is even more powerful, its focus more sharp, when it comes to subconscious meanings.

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