Are you living creatively?

I've been taking a fascinating course on Overcoming Creative Anxiety from creativity maestro Eric Maisel (could this be procrastination?).  Time management is more of an issue for me than anxiety (I'm anxious that I'm struggling to manage my time though), but I have to say that I've been finding the course fascinating, especially about carving out, and honoring the creative space (you know, that time you put aside to write your novel that keeps getting interrupted).  Perhaps allowing and even inviting those interruptions is also driven by a form of anxiety and avoidance.  There are plenty of excellent no cost podcasts by Eric (who is, above all, intelligent and articulate) over at: http://creative.personallifemedia.com.  "On Being Too Nice" is my current favourite (and I guess a personal issue for me).  A very motivating form of procrastination.

Kurzweil invents the future (again...)

The Singularity Hub reports on Ray Kurzweil's stunning new ebook platform, the Blio.  Blio preserves the original format of books including typography and illustrations, in full color. It also takes advantage of Kurzweil's company's own high quality text to speech capabilities and supports animation and video content. The interesting thing for me is that authors can now begin thinking about how they might create with text, voice, music, image or video as part of the overall content package.  Providing audio and video options embedded in a book might mean a whole new medium for poetry.  I know that these things are already available, sometimes in patchy combination (.pdf will read to you, badly, and online books can incorporate multimedia elements), and I often play with these notions in performance, but having them in one attractive, portable package on any Netbook, iPhone, or e-reader is pretty cool.  Free too.  That's even nicer. Now if only Ray can invent some means of expanding time so we fit in time to create meaningful content for these new tools.  I know he's working on it. 

Love, Wonder and Evolution

The Tangled Bank is a new anthology, edited by Chris Lynch, which celebrates the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.  The book contains over 100,000 words of fiction, poetry, artwork, and essays, including my poem "Expressions of the Emotions" written after Darwin's less-well-known book by the same name.  The Tangled Bank will launch on Darwin Day, 12th February, 2010.  More information on all contributors can be found at the website.

Book tree (now there's an idea...)

A great idea for celebrating the holiday with books (you could buy them as gifts too...I always do) from the Barr Smith Library in Adelaide.  They aren't the only ones doing it, though I particularly like the idea of the books resting on the Dewey Decimal Classification (showing my age). The James Cook Library in Cairns, QLD has also done something similar. My own shelves are definitely overflowing, and much as I love books, I've got no place to put all the new ones that will surely arrive by sleigh in the next few days, especially with the Christmas tree taking up half the living room.  Here's the obvious solution.  Happy holidays to all of you, and thanks for all your wonderful support this year.  

Spirals

Following is a link to a reading (with music) of my poem Spirals, from Repulsion Thrust:

http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/images/spirals.mp3

Spirals


NGC4736
take that
a dirty incoherence of numbers and letters
your identity
crushed into a spiral galaxy
empty of dark matter
an absence of darkness
your exotic invisible substance
denied

some would call that ‘light’
shake unwashed hair
and swear
no such thing exists

you hold tight to darkness
the hardening addiction
that clinks
against the side of your glass
each night as your hand drops
in spiralling slumber

rotation slows as you move
further out
from the crowded inner reaches
of your galactic core
your motions sedated
gravity weakening

it might be the big bang’s
afterglow
that leaves you gasping for air
a stone’s throw
from one galaxy full of dark matter
to another full of light
pulsing
as you drift into another
dark sleep

Technological Singularity: The Movie

Yes, it's a bit odd, but you have to admit it's thought provoking and picks up just a bit on the poem's theme.

Two poems from Repulsion Thrust published at blackmail press 26

Two poems of mine from Repulsion Thrust have been published in New Zealand's blackmail press 26. The magazine is 8 years old and has been called "A wonderful blemish on the literary landscape of new Zealand!" The poem Koha was inspired by a Māori poetess who was married to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's son, who left his wealthy German life behind to live amongst the Māoris during a time of war. It's a great love story that has so many fascinating elements and beautiful dichotomies. The story came to me by way of a friend who is actually related to Puhiwahine (and still uses the name Von Goethe), and will likely form the basis for my 3rd novel, Goethe's Daughters.