There and back again - World Building for Storytellers - The Fargoth World Building Project

Through the miracle of modern technology today, it is now possible for a story to be realized and constructed as a virtual world and this has changed the nature of the marketplace and opened up tremendous opportunities for those writers who embrace the idea of not just telling a story, but realizing entire worlds, multiple cultures and races.

Tolkien captured it best when he wrote the immortal lines of “There and back again” for they capture beautifully and simply what is at the the heart of the reader experience when they fall in love with or become immersed in a story; the desire to go somewhere other than this world, and experience what it would be like to be someone else, live in any time, any place, and under conditions far removed from the real world in which we all live. Time travel? Read more

Pain & Suffering: do we need it to create great art? Part 2

This article is part 2 and follows on from Joel Falconer’s original where he finished off with this…

“So long as the traditional industry (and society) can point to the popularly propagated idea that ‘artists must suffer’ they have a reason to keep us in the dark, abuse us, rape us of our rights and suck us dry of every dollar, every word, every melody and every stroke of the brush that lies within us. Stop this myth now. Artists do not need to suffer to produce great work.

If you really believe “Artists need to suffer for their art” is a true and valid concept worthy of merit then next time you’re at the sex shop or visiting the CIA’s secret torture bases, pick up some whips and other instruments of torture, perhaps a waterboard and a set of fingernail pullers and bring them home to work over your local writers group, the garage band down the road who so obviously need help, and the painter whose delicate hands just beg for some knuckle crushing and thumb screwing and make them suffer, because the resultant works they produce will be guaranteed hits, oh, yeah. Success is just a whipping away. And of course, it’s firmly known by women and children everywhere that emotional and intellectual abuse makes them better people. Read more

Writing Tip: Writing Action Scenes - Great advice from Poul Anderson

Many years ago, when I started writing my first fantasy epic and was using the internet to research the potential for internet marketing and utilization, and in particular how it could be used as a research & marketing and educational tool (among its many other uses), I came across Poul Anderson’s On Thud and Blunder.

This is a very valuable piece of writing craft that literally makes the difference between amateur and profesional writing in the field of fantasy. It has a focus on writing action scenes, and though this is a fantasy-focused article it has relevance to any storyteller who is faced with writing strong action scenes which need to engage the reader, and put them into the middle of the action.

Poul’s article contains great advice and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Changing the World - A Peaceful Evolution - Changing Our Ideas

Since I was 7 years old I have been aware that the world is not a good place. But what is the world? And what is “changing the world”? Why did “changing the world” lose favor? How did it lose favor? Read more

Pain & Suffering: do we need it to create great art?

Why is enduring pain and suffering considered a prerequisite for forming good artists and producing good art? And why, then, is it not important for a businessman to endure the same for the sake of the spreadsheets? For too long, the myth that enduring the worst life can cook up helps artists become great artists has been propagated through society. It’s just another excuse that makes it alright to treat artists, when working professionally, like subhumans while the rest of humanity goes about life comparatively unscathed.

Read more

Ideas and their value - Support the Tuneback

I think there is such a thing as unconscionable commercial exploitation. It comes about when those who have money and power already act to take away from others the opportunity to exploit their own creations without so much as a “by your leave”.

When I heard about what had happened to the concept of the tuneback that was created and invented by my creative collaborator, friend, and colleague Joel Falconer, well I was immediately aware of the immorality of those that decided to capitalize without so much as a courteous well-mannered contact to the creator of the first tunebacks. This is what passes for “good business” today. And as the world has come to know it’s also what largely passes for the style of business a lot of American companies carry out today. Scandal, corruption, cheating, stealing, lying it’s the American Way today. An honorable person will tell you straight what is what, and when you look at it, they will be right. Not just right in a technical sense, but right in a moral sense. Read more

Foundation Principles — The Declaration of Creative Independence and the Code of a Creative Artist

Allforart, the Free Articulator and other companies and entities in the Allforart Network and all who work in that network hold as vital and important the founding documents that govern what we do and how we operate. These founding documents are:

• The Code of a Creative Artist
• The Creative Artists’ Declaration of Creative Independence

…and those applicable principles and concepts stated in A Creative Artist Enhances Society which will be a free download to Free Articulator subscribers and discounted to subscribers when it is published in hard copy.

But why do we need these things? Read more

The Declaration and the Traditional Industry - How Creative Artists want to do business

Some people will be concerned when they read the Creative Artists’ Declaration of Creative Independence that we are ignoring the fact that there are good companies, doing good business and cutting ourselves off from the lucrative market that the traditional industry model appears to have a firm hold on.

Well, that would be an incorrect assumption on their part. We do want to do business, but on our terms and in a fashion that is based on unbreakable trust. That means doing honest business with Creative Artists, because Creative Artists do honest business, and even exceptionally generous business.

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So, who or what is a creative artist?

Well first of all, it’s not “creative artist.” It’s Creative Artist.

Why is it capitalized? Because it’s a profession, and it’s a title, and it’s an important defining characteristic that separates artist from Creative Artist.

Secondly, an artist is not a Creative Artist until they have demonstrated the criteria and behaviour of a Creative Artist. A Creative Artist is deeply committed to the welfare and well-being of humanity on every level, to such a degree that they will suffer any amount of the crap that passes for civilized society on this once beautiful planet we’ve trashed, to get the work out. Creative Artists know that most people in this “civilized society” have a singular lack of respect for and recognition of those who speak the truth to the rest of us.

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A Live Earth observation…

I find it very interesting to observe that Al Gore, a statesman I much admire for his real commitment and firm stance on Global Warming and Climate Change, was unable to bring about any change in awareness through the political process of democracy, and that it took moving into the field of art & entertainment to make any sort of meaningful progress in raising awareness and consciousness.

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