Ugly Sketches, Big Sparks

Systems. Silence. Uncertainty. It all helps.

But sometimes you need a boundary. A constraint. A Focus.

I draw. I always have. My art is my art. I'm not sure it's great, in fact, technically, I know it's not -- I'm messy -- think Picasso drafts without the iteration -- not that I'm comparing myself to Picasso, although he is an influence, but that will give you an idea of my art. But honestly, I don't care so much, because the thing is, it's mine.

It's messy, it's incomplete. Even the bits that do see the light of day aren't Dali. But they're more than that to me, because they all fulfil a purpose. Every sketch is a character, and some characters get a name, then a few deserve a purpose, a story.

That's what happened with Molon-tor. Molon-tor didn't exist before the drawing. Then, the more I looked into that imploring eye, the more I saw a character and a purpose within The Dark Peak. And molon-tor became a central character in book two.

It's visceral, the way a drawing, a character, a name, grabs your attention and demands that you write about them, or it, or he or she.

The woad was different. The drawings of the woad came after the writing, but the writing was then informed by the character creation as it subsequently appeared in visual form.

That's how creativity shows up. Not in the elegance my art, because there isn't any, but in the leap from messy to meaning.

Two worlds collide, the visual and the verbal.

You can’t summon creativity on demand —- I’ve tried, but you can invite it in -- you can trick creativity into showing up. For me, sketches are that trick. A simple pen line (always a pen, never a pencil) becomes a character, and a character sometimes demands a story.

And the story doesn’t have to be good. The point isn’t quality. The point is movement. Forward motion. A thought, then another, then another.

A sketch, a doodle. A name. A reason. A purpose. A story.

And sometimes, just sometimes, the smallest thing cracks the biggest idea -- the ugliest of doodles leads you straight to the spark, just like it did with molon-tor.

Books I’ve been reading recently

Red Rag to a Bull by Jamie Blackett, Rural Life in an Urban Age - memoirs of a Scottish landowner in Dumfries and Galloway

Tenement Kid by Bobby Gillespie - took me back 40 years with The JAMC, and then a drug-fuelled meander into some eventual hit records

Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis - how the Tech Bro’s became the world's feudal overlords, enslaving us with big data. Kind of the same as is played out in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak

Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success by Scott Adams

Memorable things I’ve watched lately

Alien Earth on Disney+ - Still watching, and still a great new series

Free to Choose on Amazon Prime - Milton Friedman’s original series on capitalism from 1980

Blade Runner on Amazon Prime - one of the best science fiction films ever created, based on one of the best sci-fi stories “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” by PKD

Tenet on Amazon Prime - Christopher Nolan. I’ve watched this a couple of times now, and I’m not fully sure I understand it still

City Rats on Amazon Prime. Apparently one of a few select films to have a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I loved it, which makes me feel reyt good that I don’t fit in with the norm’.

Inspiring things I’ve listened to in September

Search Engine - The Obituary - disturbing conspiracy theory

Good Bad Billionaire - George Lucas. It’s a double bill with Peter Jackson

News articles that inform me about The Dark Peak

Super faster data highways. More…

We think social credit is a dystopian system, but we already have it…

The wheel, re-invented. More…

The average citizen in The Dark Peak reaches 200 years of age. The off-world is catching up…

New study shows plants and animals emit a visible light that expires at death - is this evidence of a soul?

This Month’s words and pictures

The reaper is the ultimate nihilist. It hates iteself. It endlessly tries to deface and defile itself. It has no interest in living, yet cannot die by its own hand. But mistakes can happen, especially when consumption is so hight: alcohol, rockcrust, fly agaric - excessive quantities readily available in The Wisewood, make it all too easy for a nihilist.

Is it a spirit? Yes, I think so, probably boggart in origin, it certainly has the look of a hob - yet Made somehow. Maybe it has a touch of the murkwraith plague.

The Wisewood reaper wants to die and sees no purpose in life, but it tries to convince others that life is worth living, but is so depressing in its delivery, that others beg it to cognivise them, dispossessing them of their personality and lifeforce.

Like Marvin the depressed android in HHGTTG, crossed with Golem.

If you’re travelling in The Wisewood, watch out for The Reaper 😱. Have a great October!