Relaunch. Again. For like, the millionth time.

So as you may or may not have noticed, this blog has fallen into disuse. This may be shocking to some of you in the blogging world who are used the steadfast commitement people usually bring to blog writing. The unyielding dedication to midnight pledges of daily updates. So I feel somewhat guilty for being the first to slowly grow tired of maintaining the illusion of an aspirational writing career.

However a confluence of events has inspired me to revisit Laconic Reply.

#1 - Copying other people.

I always strive to be more like Mark Cluett. The one on the right. This guy.

In that vein I contemplated launching a Tumbr account in his model of short and quick musings. But then I realized that I already have a blog site I pay for and I'm too lazy to redirect this domain name to a new location. So the blogging will remain here.

Also, Kevin Naulls is kicking some ass with his blog to the point that people are giving him free stuff. So I think I should step it up considering I'm almost half the man he is, IN SPITE of my handicap of being unable to grow non-pedo facial hair.

#2 - I'm already writing.

I often write 90% of a blog post based on some random source of inspiration and then give up without posting it.

Also, Joey Nowak occasionally sends me emails composed entirely of a "Look at this" and a link. For some reason the content she sends me almost always illicits a 10-15 paragraph response, despite being nothing but a kitten video or poorly written copyright-related article.

Usually her response to my prose is nothing but a simple "Wow" or silence, either of which I assume signifies her being stunned dumb by the beauty and eloquence of my words. So I feel that I should not limit this valuable knowledge to only Joey's consumption, and instead share it with the world.

#3 - Living in Goldsboro, NC is boring and I have nothing else to do with my time.

So from now on I plan on posting things here more frequently.

But how am I going to do that if I wasn't able to maintain it before? By decreasing the quality of course! Previously the bulk of my blog-writing time was spent hunting photos for hours, or proof-reading my work to perfection. This new work will minimize both of those things.

This new work will largely be composed of big blocks of ranty text, quickly written, and poorly thought out. It's not intended to be perfect, or even good. It's intended to be a snapshot of my ideas and attitudes at a given moment. And if the rest of you get some entertainment out of it, even at my expense, all the better.

First new post to follow.

WriteRoom - 1/365

by static416

I'm trying this photo of the day thing again. Last time I got to 39 I think, we'll see how far I get this time.

This is what forced creativity looks like. It's WriteRoom. A pretty great, simple little text editor that really helps me focus. Hopefully.

The blinking cursor motivates.

Digital Fasting

I used to think a lot as a kid. I would spend a huge portion of my day just inside my own world. Looking back, that was really the point in my life that I felt like I had the most potential. I felt like my brain was always working on something. Imagining, thinking, turning things over, effing the ineffable.


by RellyAB

I didn't really watch TV. We only got 3 channels and my mom wouldn't let us see anything more advanced than Care Bears until we were 12. No computer at that point either. No VCR. Just books, blocks and the outdoors.


by static416

My friends lived pretty far away. The closest was a 20 minute bike ride, and the rest were far enough to require a drive, which meant I didn't see them more than once every week or two. So I spent almost all of my time blissfully alone. Thinking and creating. I had no distractions then.

I have nothing but distractions now. I have infinite communication options and nothing to say.


by underminingme

There is so much coming into my head all the time that there is no time to think, process, or produce. I consume more new information every day than people 50 years ago would consume in a month and it's shutting me down creatively. 12 year old me would be a vegetable in this environment.

I don't blame the technology, I blame my own lack of self-control. I've been gorging myself at the all-you-can-eat info-buffet for too long and it's time for a diet.


by alancleaver_2000

So starting now, I'm backing off the junk. No consuming any digital content. No podcasts, no music, no blogs, no TV, no movies, no IM, no StumbleUpon, no pr0n, no Twitter, no radio other than CBC news on the hour. Only books, legitimate online academic journals, and the power of my imagination. Email and phone permitted, I'm not going off the grid.

Focus on creative production. Photography and writing. Research and thinking. Only blog posts, Flickr uploads, and real human interaction. No pointless browsing or passive reception of info-tainment.

For as long as I can go.

Inspiration

Like many people, I have difficulty doing any sort of creative writing in a deliberate fashion. If I'm not able to immediately put my fingers on a keyboard at the moment inspiration strikes, the passion will miss me and the moment will pass. 

In an attempt to get around this I got a notebook to write down ideas in the hopes that I'd then be able to recall this inspiration at a more convenient time and place. But it doesn't work that way. 


by gr33nt4u (more behind than ever!)

In the moment I will get excited. Ideas and words will rush through me, everything seems brilliant, important, and essential. I jot something down and then go about my business. I get home, look in the notebook and see "yell out stupid shit". No word of a lie. That's in there. And I'm not sure what it means.

So rather than being this repository of my genius, it's a record of my dementia. It's a written analogy of the situation where pot smokers record their conversations thinking they're profound in the moment, and then realizing afterward that maybe their thoughts on the subjectivity of existence are not that novel. In fact I seem to remember that topic already being covered by someone else a little while ago.


by @BB

And even in the event that the thought was recorded accurately and actually seems to have some sort of substance to it, I find it hard to rekindle the enthusiasm I may have had not but 2 hours before. It just doesn't seem important anymore, not worth the effort.

If I try to force the issue, insist to myself that it's crucial this thought be shared with the world, I only get something garbled and lacking passion. I get the facts but not the feeling. Suddenly what I wanted to be an impassioned rant on the public's perception of their security in a modern world becomes this dry recitation of the capabilities RFID technology. And no one get excited about RFID technology.


by bre pettis

But enough introspection already. The point of all of this is that I'm beginning to see that the mark of a successful writer is someone who not only writes when they feel it, but also when they don't. 

So what keeps me from writing? That's one area where I think almost everyone is the same. It's a combination of procrastination and a fear of inadequacy that feed back on one another. I don't write because I'm tired, then because I haven't written in awhile I don't write because I feel I've lost my audience and don't have anything worth saying.

Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine refers to negative voice in his head as the little hater that fuels the feedback cycle of laziness to self-doubt to more laziness. My little hater makes it difficult to justify my own voice when it seems that there are so many genius's out there doing what I already do, but better.


by ɹǝɟɹnsןןıɥ sɐxǝʇ -- WW Tribe Wanderer

And that's the where a new kind of thinking is needed. In her TED talk Elizabeth Gilbert refers to genius not as any specific special kind of person, but as something that could potentially happen to anyone who is already engaged in a creative process. This is a critical distinction. 

If you believe genius is an inherent quality then you may decline to create something because you fear you are not the genius that others may be. But if you force yourself to think of genius as a condition, as something that happens to someone who is dedicated, then there is no barrier to entry and the only way you'll succeed is by frequently putting yourself in a position where that genius can find you and act through you.

To paraphrase her, if you show up for your part of the job often enough, sooner or later the genius will show up too.


by Nicholas Gray

Cool Site - ill Doctrine

I came across this site via StumbleUpon and subsequently spent the better part of a day watching his past videos.

ill Doctrine is a hip-hop video blog hosted by Jay Smooth, creator of the hip hop music blog and founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad.

I know that merely seeing the words "hip hop" may cause some of you to run in fear immediately, but you really should check it out this site. (Seriously, whenever I tell people I went to the Wu-Tang/Rage concert outside Harlem they look at me like I said I've been hanging out with a militia in the DR Congo. It's just music people, it won't hurt you.)


by JEKY

It's not just hip hop he covers. It's also pop culture, the music industry, celebrity, politics, and philosophy. He has some really interesting viewpoints on things, and he's able to articulate them very well. It's not just listening to what he has to say, but how he says it. Below is a good example of what I'm talking about.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc]

Like all good writers and speakers he's able to say a lot in relatively few words. And his choice of words is diverse enough to minimize repetition while managing to avoid sounding like he's reading from a thesaurus.

After going through his past topics, he's given me quite a few ideas for future posts, and provided me with another standard by which to judge my writing. Another site to add to my RSS reader.