“What you don’t know, you can feel it somehow.” 🎤

6 November 202311 November 2023 patmcg5 Comments

I always liked the song Beautiful Day for its optimism and presence.

It’s a beautiful day. Don’t let it get away.

Sure, that’s the obvious takeaway and a great reminder that every day counts.

But the last part of the song has been inspiring me even more as I dig into a scary new skill, which I hope is the right kind of difficult for me: playing, singing, and eventually writing my own songs. 😱

I do not have a good track record here so far.

I have spent most of my life as the kind of guy who could play Stairway to Heaven on guitar and be done with it. “I’m a guitarist.” 🤷🏻‍♂️ Then I recorded a cover with a friend and built up some confidence.

What I really want is to do find my own voice. Literally.

Despite never considering myself a singer (and consistently receiving negative feedback whenever I have tried 😆) I am jumping into singing with the help of an expert music teacher who always sees the best possibilities.

And that’s half the journey.

Touch me, take me to that other place
Reach me, I know I’m not a hopeless case

Which brings me to the best part of Beautiful Day: the last bit, the part about forgetting what you don’t have now and feeling your way, somehow, into the new.

What you don’t have, you don’t need it now
What you don’t know, you can feel it somehow

Stay tuned. 🎤

What a beautiful day.

Books · creativity

The “So what?” test

25 June 202326 June 2023 patmcg1 Comment

Continuing to pull some helpful snippets out of Show Your Work, let’s look at the “So What?” test.

I had struggled for a while on this blog with the “to post or not to post” question. I was honing in on a vague “useful or interesting” test when I read Show Your Work, which attacked this idea with a “So What?” test.

I had a professor in college who returned our graded essays, walked up to the chalkboard, and wrote in huge letters: “SO WHAT?” She threw the piece of chalk down and said, “Ask yourself that every time you turn in a piece of writing.

Now any of my own posts must pass the “Sow what?” test before I will publish it. Clearly I found this “So what?” test useful because I use it here constantly.

As always, the book explains the idea most vividly with an illustration.

I will say that this rule seems at odds (or is it just tension?) with other ideas in the book, namely share something small every day.

I mean, do you really have something interesting and useful to share every day? If you’re a professional writer, maybe. But if you’re just a guy with a blog and limited time, maybe not. 😆

So I’m letting the “So what?” rule overrule any others for now.

creativity · Quotes

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.”

3 June 202310 June 2023 patmcg2 Comments

I think Neil Gaiman pretty well captures the magic of creation with this quote.

The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.
Neil Gaiman

Turns out the dude can also draw, at least in a sketchy kind of way that I hope to master someday as well, if only for practical purposes.

I love the anecdote about writing a short story for his daughter’s 18th birthday that Daily Inspiration added for context on this quote.

Books · creativity · Music

“You’re only as good as your record collection.” 🎧

27 May 202325 June 2023 patmcg1 Comment

The little, square book Show Your Work has changed they way I think about blogging, processing my ideas, and has even helped me see my own music playlists differently.

And thus, my first book snippet.

Okay, it’s actually my second snippet – I just didn’t realize that the first one (also from this book) was a snippet when I wrote it.

This book says that creative people should embrace collecting as part of the creation process.

There’s not as big of a difference between collecting and creating as you might think.
Show Your Work

Great musicians, writers, and artists tend to collect and appreciate other people’s work. “The reading feeds the writing, which feeds the reading,” the book says. Or to put it another way:

You’re only as good as your record collection.
DJ Spooky, via Show Your Work

Hopefully this approach works for me as I dig into music creation.

To that end, here is my ever-growing list of new songs I like, built up gradually over the last few years, thanks to Shazam and a few coffee shops with their own great playlists. As of this writing, this playlist is over 49 hours long and could double as its own radio station.

Don’t hoard indeed. 🤷🏻‍♂️

creativity · Quotes

A good blog is like this item of clothing 👗

26 May 202310 June 2023 patmcg3 Comments

The best quotes are both funny and true, and therefore memorable. At the end of this talk good on conversations, Celeste Headlee credits her sister with this quote.

A good conversation is like a miniskirt; short enough to retain interest, but long enough to cover the subject.

The sister might have borrowed the idea from Winston Churchill. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I think the idea generalizes to writing too, so I’m going to adapt the spirit of this quote for my own purposes.

A good ~~conversation~~ blog is like a miniskirt; short enough to retain interest, but long enough to cover the subject.

And it’s working. I already deleted three sentences from this post – and added this one. 🤔

Before I forget, here’s a salacious photo – as required – to catch your attention.

Category: creativity