Barbara's Blog

A friend of mine, Barbara, once told me (like yesterday), "it's very hard for me to be calculated when it comes to writing." I couldn't agree with her more.

Let's get something straight right off the bat. I'm not what you would call an arteest (long "e" infliction is intentional). What I consider art--Ex Machina, Aya Brea, The Plimsouls, 28 Days Later--is simply not blipping most middle-aged artisan’s  radar.  I cringe when I hear a medium-T-shirt-sized film director with an affected Euro-trash accent procliam "Ete eez gwat I feel." But he's right.

I simply cannot write, I cannot design, something that I don't feel. To be clear, however, cannot is a relative term when used in this context. I earned my living as a writer for the better part of a decade, still write professionally, and can tell you without reserve that I don't really feel it when I write an online banking article for Alaska Airline or a Tomb Raider review for Playboy. It's a job, a good job, a job that I try to do as well as possible. But feeling it? Nope.

But that is non-fiction. Creating great fiction, whether it's a novel, a game, a film, a drawing, or a song, must, as Barabara alluded to, come from the heart. To go one further, I'd say that creating a great life, as defined by one's personal happiness, must also come from the heart. That doesn't mean we should all quit our day jobs, buy beat up six strings and form strangly-named indie bands. I've met teachers, lawyers, and truck drivers that all work from the heart, and those in the same professions that don't. It's a matter of finding a niche in life that you can believe in, and working it the best you know how. A wise man once told me, "Do what you love, the money will come."