Water and Fire
There’s a disease artists seem to catch as they become more experienced. They begin to see art entirely in terms of its creation, in terms of the simple components that go into making it. As artists become more skillful, the…
Category Life in the Machine
Waiting
It’s Christmas now – well, it won’t be when this is uploaded, but it was Christmas when I wrote that it was Christmas. Usually, around this time of year, I travel. I get on whatever flight or train necessary and spend…
Difficulties
It’s not that I don’t have things to write about. I do. And it’s not that I can’t think of the words to say what I want to say. I can. It’s that the thread connecting one idea to the…
Things That Do Things
Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about my animation system. I’ll get into the decisions made regarding that tomorrow, but I want to get into the process I used for making those decisions, and what it means to…
Fire, Pressure, and Pain
Some people make art like glass, venting their heat against the earth until it gives way, melts and fuses, and giving it shape through the circumstances of wind and breath that brought it into being. Some people make art like…
The Last Lie You Ever Tell Yourself
This is a horror story. I missed my chance. It was Halloween a couple of weeks ago. But, you know, this isn’t the right kind of horror story for Halloween. Halloween is a time for the not-quite-scary, the weird and…
Gaming The System
Over time I’ve started moderating my consumption of media the same way one might moderate their consumption of food or of drugs – by closely monitoring how I feel and react afterwards, what the short and long term effects are,…
Calibrations
There’s two ways to make art. One way is to believe that you have something unique and special to contribute to the world, that something that you can create is worthwhile in some grander sense: The other is to not…
On Why I’m Not Writing About The Beginner’s Guide
So I’ve come to a decision to not write about The Beginner’s Guide, and I think this decision requires some explanation. Obviously, yes, by stating that I’m not writing about it, and then by explaining that statement, I am writing…
Simulations
I’ve recently seen people complaining about the (admittedly trite) fiction writer statement about how a character’s behavior can come seemingly out of nowhere, like they’re coming to life and acting out a will of their own, completely taking the writer…