Today let’s look at one of the basic premises of writing a book and getting it published: do I have a good enough idea for a book? We will pretend that we do not already know that this is the best book idea ever and explore the main questions as listed in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published [hereinafter EGGYBP].
Audience. Who would be interested in reading a book about procrastinating and how to use that to become more creative?
Excellent question. As we’ll see when we go check out the competition, people really want to be more creative. They are under the impression that reading a book will help with this—and who am I to disagree? The current craze for adult coloring books, for example, feeds off this basic urge to MAKE THE THING THAT IS NOT.[1] I talk about the genesis of this book in Chapter One as springing from a seminar I did at the Governor’s Honors Program in 2013—if the students’ response to the Nine Precepts is anywhere close to representative of a populace hungry for permission to create, then I think the audience will be solid.
Who knows? This could be a niche book that only my friends and family will plow through, or it could become one of those freakish trends: “Become more creative by not doing anything!!”
Competition. If we go and look for books on creativity, there is no dearth of available titles. Why add this one?
Leave it to an independent bookseller (hi, Janet!) to immediately link to a book about the benefits of procrastination, apparently also written in an entertainingly humorous style. Missed that one in doing my research. However, in the overall philosophy of Lichtenbergianism procrastination is really just kind of a gimmick to hook the reader’s attention. There are eight additional Precepts that form a framework for getting your work done.
Also, most of the other books on the creative process are focused on specific fields: drawing, painting, writing, etc. Lichtenbergianism is a concept that is usable in every field—and not just in artistic ones. You can increase your productivity through TASK AVOIDANCE no matter what your job, hobby, or avocation is.
We’ll put off Marketability, Authority, and Salability until tomorrow.
—————
[1] In the book, I intend to set all our Precepts and Key Concepts in small caps. Since my blog doesn’t do that, I’ll put them in ALL CAPS. Ugh. Bear with me.
Liberal rants are fun and all, but I want to refocus my efforts here on the original purpose of this blog: whining about my creative efforts. (Don’t worry—the liberal rants will continue. How could they not, with so much to rant about?)
This series will be a combination of excerpts from the book, moanings about my progress, and meditations on the advice offered in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, which I picked up last weekend in Athens in my old friend Janet Geddis’ marvelous bookstore, Avid Bookshop. Really and truly, if you live in the Athens area, you need to make her bookstore a regular stop on your route, because it’s lovely. (There’s also a surprise about that purchase that I didn’t discover until I got the book home and started reading it; more about that later, much later.)
For those joining us from Facebook, please feel free to leave comments here rather than over there. Your first one has to be approved, but after that it’s clear sailing.
I would start with some background, but since that’s Chapter 1, I’ll hold off. So let’s start with the Introduction.
(For the record, this is a very scary thing for me.)
Cover.
(I just spent 20 minutes futzing with this image in order to avoid publishing this post. See how it works?)
Title page.
Copyright page.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One: Introduction to Lichtenbergianism
Chapter Two: Framework
Chapter Three: 1–Task Avoidance
Chapter Four: 2–Abortive Attempts
Chapter Five: 3–Successive Approximation
Chapter Six: 4–Waste Books
Chapter Seven: 5–Ritual
Chapter Eight: 6–Steal from the Best
Chapter Nine: 7–Gestalt
Chapter Ten: 8–Audience
Chapter Eleven: 9–Abandonment
Chapter Twelve: 10–The Tenth Precept
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dale Lyles. I am, for lack of a better word, retired.
Before that, I was an educator for 37 years. Most of that time I was a media specialist, teaching kids how to find and use information both at the high school and the elementary level. For my last two years, I was the director of the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, a summer high school gifted program where I had worked for most of the 30 summers before that, about half of them as assistant director.
During all that time I was the artistic director of the Newnan Community Theatre Company for 20+ years. I directed, designed and built sets and costumes, and acted with more than 100 shows there.
I was a choir director for more than ten years.
I sing and I dance.
I paint and I draw.
I compose.
I write.
I design.
I program. (Yes, I can build and program a FileMaker Pro™ database to do amazing things.)
Overall, therefore, I think it’s fair to say that I am a creative kind of guy. (I also create cocktails, one of which—the Quarter Moon—ought to be in every bar in America.)
None of this is to say that I’m any good at any of the above (except for the Quarter Moon—it’s really really good, you guys)[1,] but that’s not the point. The point is that I have spent my life both creating and guiding others through the creative process, and I’ve learned a few things.
A lot things, actually. I’ve learned a lot of things, and all of them point to my main idea here: you can do this too.
Who’s telling you can’t? Let me give you a piece of advice right up front. I call it the Lyles Eternal Truth About Actors, and I give this advice to any uncooperative or fearful actor: “There’s no such thing as an actor who can’t, only an actor who won’t.”
So if you want to write a symphony, who’s going to stop you? Getting it performed is another thing entirely and is outside the scope of this book, but no one can stop you from writing it.
No one can stop you from writing that novel, or forming a band, or creating a cocktail better than the Quarter Moon.[2] No one can stop you from blogging or taking photographs or painting or landscaping or whatever it is you would love to do but have been to afraid to start.
And the good news is you don’t have to do it today. Or even tomorrow. Procrastination is your friend.
By the way, it’s pronounced lish-ten-BERG-eeanism.
————— [1] The Quarter Moon Cocktail: 1.5 oz bourbon, 1 oz Tuaca, .5 oz Averna Amaro. Stir over ice, strain into old-fashioned glass over ice with orange peel garnish. (You may also do it straight up in a martini glass.) The orange peel is essential.
The other day I leaving the grocery store, and an older man was coming in. He was holding the hand of a young person, kind of grandchild age, maybe 13-14, and it was clear by the young person’s gait that there were some developmental issues there.
I say “young person,” because in the brief glimpse I had, I truly was unable to determine gender. Perhaps that was unimportant.
The child—and to avoid ungainly linguistic contortions, I am going to assign the pronoun “he”—was dressed all in black, black hair, eyeliner, and to top it all off, a black cape. He was committed.
It was not a particularly nice cape, just that almost-sheer velour material one gets in a plastic bag out at Party City. The child didn’t seem to have the attitude sported by most of our emo cadre, that sullen haughtiness that just dares you to stare or roll your eyes. This kid seemed a little wary, as if his outfit were camouflage that he was afraid was not quite enough to allow him to escape notice.
You can’t help but construct narrative, can you? Is this a look he’s seen and for some reason has taken on in order to “become” someone? Is it someone he admires? A musician perhaps? A movie character? Someone at school?
Does the (presumed) grandfather love this kid so that he willingly takes him to the grocery store in his freaky getup? Or does he cringe, knowing that most of the people in the store are going to be judgmental one way or the other?
All kinds of stories pop into and out of existence.
I will say that I am proud that my first reaction was to think that I should stop and say, “Hey, cool cape! Did you make it?” (knowing full well that he had not), just to validate his choices.
But of course I didn’t—I was on my way out, they were on their way in, and there are always too many variables to consider in such a split second. Would my approaching him give him a positive validation, or would it send him into an emotional tailspin? Would the grandfather appreciate the sentiment, or would I trigger some defensive response? What if I read the situation completely wrong and made it worse?
If I had seen them up and down the aisles of Publix and had time to figure it all out, I’d like to think I could have done a good deed by giving the kid a thumbs up. I’d like to think so.
I think that on the whole it is better if we don’t delve too deeply into the fever swamps of deluded rightwing conspiracies, but today a “friend” on Facebook shared a meme from Exposing Satanic World Government. That’s a Facebook group, folks. (I would like to say that this “friend” is a recent addition, and I do—I really do—look for signs of this kind of thing before I click on the Accept button, but sometimes they just slip by you, you know?)
Here we go, straight into the deep end.
Let’s start with an easy one.
—click for the original article—
This is the kind of thing that one usually gets: the government is out to get us, etc., etc.
Nothing new or exciting really. Just your run-of-the-mill, take-a-standard-government-program-and-turn-it-into-ONE-WORLD-GOVERNMENT-WAKE-UP-SHEEPLE stuff. As one does.
But I would like to draw your attention to that first comment. The poor guy meant “patsies,” I guess. Easy typo, or perhaps an autocorrect, but I’m comfortable thinking that he just didn’t know the difference.
This is the level of discourse we’re dealing with here. Literacy is not this kind of person’s strong suit.
I should say at this point that the whole group is purely Christian in its approach. I think it’s part and parcel of the whole authoritarianism thing that has recently caught the attention of the pundits trying to explain why Donald Drumpf is leading the Republican pack—and is closely followed by the even bigger horrorshow of Rafael Cruz.
(Of course, the hippies have been making fun of Republican “strong daddy” types since the days of W, but just like the Iraq War it sometimes takes time for the Very Serious People to catch up.)
Anyway, this is the kind of group that seeks strength through Christ, and by that I mean pure, naked power, not the strength of quiet faith and good deeds that the wiser among us picked up in Sunday School. Since they seek power, they see it everywhere. Since they want dominion over the earth, they a) create a self-image of being righteous warriors, and then—because what good is a flaming sword unless you have someone to smite it with—indeed, why does the flaming sword even exist unless there were, of course, b) an all-powerful Enemy?
Once you have this mental framework in place, then every waking moment of your life is spent looking under the bed and in the closet for that Enemy. Every. Waking. Moment.
What was it the man said? “Seek and ye shall find…”?
—click to see the original video—
EVERY WAKING MOMENT, KENNETH!
The comment on this one is representative of many of the comments on this page, a kind of pearl-clutching fantod that reassures the commenter and the readers that yes, they are servants of the Risen Lord and all manner of things will be well. I’ve written about this before, this curious split-brain thing of thinking that one is simultaneously on the losing end of this corrupt world and yet the victor. I still don’t get it.
—Do click on this one—
Mercy.
I mean, these kinds of theories have abounded about the Beatles since the 60s, but it’s still hysterical to see all of them so tidily presented (and by a 24-year-old author!).
You may have noticed by now that there seems to be no dearth of websites dedicated to exposing the TRUTH to the world. Once you start clicking, there is no end to them.
None of them explain why the Illuminati/Bilderberg/Freemasons/Satanists are taking their own sweet time in implementing the New World Order. You would think that our all-powerful overlords would have lost patience with teh sheeple and just taken over by now, but no, it’s clear they must get a kick out of teasing us with the threat of a nightmare future.
Again, I’ve written about this before, but it’s important to remember that this frisson of fear is a feature, not a bug, in these people’s worldview. They wouldn’t see it that way, but their brains love that little tickle of terror they get when they imagine Satan just sitting there like a spider in a web. They’re addicted to it.
Moving on…
Closer to home:
It all seems so clear now, doesn’t it?
I like the part about “intelligent people who actually understand socialism.” This is something I have not noticed to be true in this election, especially from this kind of voter.
And the comments… The old “Marshall law” gambit: remember when the crazier liberals thought the same thing about W? But this time… You know it’s true.
The energy expended by these people is incredible. How do they keep it up when none of their fears are proven to be true and they just transfer the fear to something new? It exhausts me just observing it.
As for the “will of God” gambit, mercy, people, when are you ever going to think that perhaps God is working his spirit out through Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders or even, Cthulhu help us, Clinton?1
Spoiler alert: never. It will never occur to them that God might be a liberal. Or that she might not even care.
And if “our blessings will be just the same,” then why all this energy directed at identifying, exposing, and defeating the Satanic World Government? I’m not sure what the point is, if nothing you do matters because God has his eye on the sparrow.
Last one, I promise:
—Really. There’s a video.—
There is a 15-minute video which I have not watched—nor am I going to—positing that Donald J. Drumpf is a high-ranking priest in the Satanic World Order.
This is not an isolated viewpoint. Click through and a) read the comments; and b) check out all the videos recommended over on the side.
Jebus.
As I’ve said, folks, EVERY. WAKING. MOMENT.
Once you’ve committed to this mindset, the whole of the planet must be viewed through that lens, and everything must be made to fit the madness. Donald Drumpf is just a egotistical bully? Nonsense: he’s part of the conspiracy to elect She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Beatles were a talented group of men who hooked into the zeitgeist of a world waking up to possibilities of not despising those different from you? Crazy talk: they were puppets of a conspiracy so vast that it is capable of destroying all that we hold dear.2
Personally, I blame the Wachowski sisters. Red pill/blue pill, my ass.
——————
1 Just to be clear, I am not a Clinton basher. It’s just that she’s the current repository for all the irrational fear and hatred. What do people think is going to happen if she’s elected? What on earth could it be that would make it better to vote for Trump or Cruz??
2 Because, really, who wouldn’t want to rule over a world that you’ve wrecked beyond repair?
I would like to entertain the idea that Donald Drumpf is a Jedi master.
I mean, his whole campaign is kind of a “these are not the droids you’re looking for” hand wave, right? He has his supporters give a Nazi-like salute; he says he will order our military to act illegally and they will do it; he vamps about deporting immigrants while hiring them, and snagging jobs back from China while exporting them; he’s endorsed by David Duke and the KKK.
And when quizzed about any of this, he just waves his hand: “That’s the first I’ve heard of it.” “I don’t know anything about that.” “That was taken out of context.” “We were just having a good time.”
I’m sure the press thinks they are doing their job just by allowing him to expose himself as a lying liar who lies, but that’s not what is happening. What’s happening is that people see him successfully elude the mainstream media and think he’s more majestic than ever.
Here’s a brief (yet complete withal) summary: Jeanine Pirro thinks Muslims are scary and said so.
Really, that’s it.
But Dale, you will marvel, what was the damaging leaked info about Obama that “Judge” Jeanine Pirro exposed? And what exactly does her furry look like? (Okay, so you might want to go read the first sentence.)
Spoiler alert: there is no damaging leaked info about Obama.
Nothing. Nada. I read the article three times thinking I had missed something. But no, it’s not there. The headline has nothing to do with the article.
And the article is simply telling us that “Judge” Jeanine Pirro said some things. On the teevee.
By doing so, of course, she’s become a “political enemy of the White House.” We guess. There’s no link to any kind of statement from the White House. There’s not even an educated guess about an Enemies List, which I think is just lazy rightwing martyrdom-doing.
But given how vindictive the President is—oh, come on, you know how he yells on the teevee and calls people names and threatens them[1]—we all would be astonished if Pirro’s days were not numbered. You just know we’ll find her in a ditch any day now.
I like the way Pirro rants about House Resolution 569, or Condemning Violence, Bigotry, and Hateful Rhetoric Towards Muslims in the United States Act; the author of the article immediately confuses it with an actual bill before Congress. I guess she didn’t get to that webpage when she was homeschooled.[2]
Somehow neither Pirro nor the author of the article seems to realize that this “bill” “establishing Sharia law”[3] had to have been passed by the Republican House. Such is the power of Islamic terrorists, I suppose.
Pirro also makes the whoa-if-true statement that Islam is the only religion “protected” by this “bill.” I wonder if she read it.[4] Yes, Islam is the only religion mentioned in the resolution, but perhaps that might be because the House of Representatives wanted to offer their “thoughts and prayers” to any member of that religion who finds themselves in danger because of rightwing demagogues like “Judge” Jeanine Pirro.
::sigh:: Another day, another rightwinger throwing stones at themselves because no one else is doing it.
I’d feel sorry for them if they weren’t enjoying it so much.
—————
[1] Oh wait. That’s Donald Drumpf I’m thinking of. My bad.
[2] Sorry, homeschoolers, that was a cheap shot. I apologize. I was just highly amused that the first and most succinct explanation I found of the difference between a resolution and a bill was on a conservative homeschool site, i.e., this author had resources congenial to his/her worldview and failed to use them.
[3] No, really, another nutjob website headlined the resolution exactly this way. I will not link to it, if only because ALL THE TEXT ON THE PAGE IS CENTERED, KENNETH!
I had copied down a bunch of cocktails from the interwebs, and one of them was called New Friend, ringing changes on a classic cocktail called Old Pal, which in turn is based on the Boulevardier, which in turn is based on the Negroni. Got that?
Here’s how it goes:
Negroni: equal parts gin, Campari, sweet vermouth
Boulevardier: rye, Campari, sweet vermouth
Old Pal: rye, Campari, dry vermouth
New Friend: rye, Aperol, Cocchi Americano
Yeah, that’s a big jump between the Old Pal and the New Friend, but it works. You can read about it at Serious Eats.
But then I messed up. In pulling ingredients, I got the rye and Aperol but then had a brain-fart and grabbed the new bottle of Amaro Nonino, which is not the same as Cocchi Americano. But the drink was scrumptious, so I finished it before trying the actual New Friend. (The Cocchi Americano is a vermouth, so it had a brighter, grapier flavor than the mellower Amaro Nonino. Slight preference to the Amaro Nonino.)
Best Friend
1 oz rye
1 oz Aperol
1 oz Amaro Nonino
orange peel
Stir with ice, strain into glass, garnish with orange peel.
This message is intended for those who are going to vote for Donald Trump. Please feel free to pass it along to someone like that.
In this post I am going to outline what I feel is a very strong rationale for not voting for the Republican candidate for President (and by extension, for Republican candidates for Congress), even if you are a die-hard GOPer.
Warning: there’s a lot of reading here. I’ve linked to original articles, but I will summarize each. Trust, but verify. (But you can trust my summarization.)
“There is, however, a very great risk that, in the absence of Justice Scalia’s influence, a majority could in fact vote to affirm the Second Circuit case, which would result in binding Supreme Court precedent and create a potentially insurmountable obstacle to the practice and enjoyment of those rights elucidated in the Heller decision.” (Here’s an actual news article about the case.)
You and your city file a class action suit against Nestle because you’ve suffered significant and irreparable damage.
The case works its way up the appellate system, and finally the Circuit Court rules in your favor. Nestle appeals to the Supreme Court.
And there…
Here’s the question you have to answer honestly to yourself: Do I want my recourse to compensation and damages handled by Antonin Scalia?
I put it to you that even if you hate Hillary Clinton with the heat of a thousand suns, even if you fear that Bernie Sanders is going to turn the U.S. into a communist hellhole,[4] even if you’re positive that Donald Trump is going to somehow make America great again5]—you might want to rethink your long game in this one respect alone.
Don’t vote for a candidate who’s going to nominate Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court. The life you save may be your own.[6]
[2] And the support of any corrupt Democratic ones who are on the take from Big Water—but trust me, it will originate and find its main support from the Republican Party.
[3] “But a corporation has to maintain safety/not harm customers because…” Because why, exactly? You’ll take your tap water business elsewhere? They might get sued?
Here, go read this. I’ll wait. [NOTE FROM 2025: That link does not work any longer.]
tl;dr: a very long, quite well-written piece by a Christian author warning us about mandala coloring books being spiritually dangerous.
Okay, woo alert. Since I am an Existential Mystic, my tendency is not to grant woo an independent reality, so perhaps it’s a little unfair for me to pick apart the writings of a Spiritual. But the far ends of any scale are fascinating, so let’s dive right in.
Sure, click here if you want to risk your IMMORTAL SOUL!!!
One of the issues I have with die-hard Spirituals is that their belief in the reality of their particular woo is so absolute that it extends to all the other woo as well. In this case, we have a carefully reasoned blogpost that provides proof of the dangers of simply filling in random spaces on a piece of paper: if you color a mandala, it will automatically open the door to your soul/mind/body and let demonic forces in.
Evangelical believers, particularly, are prone to this kind of thing. Their understanding of God is that of a “personal God,” which does not mean (as most of them think it does) a God who is “mine”; rather it means a God who is “a person,” i.e., independently existing as an individual outside our reality. The same applies for the idea of a “personal Satan” or “personal demons.”
This belief, coupled with some vague biblical literalism,[1] leads them to the understanding that not only do God and Satan have a real existence, but so do witches and demons and all those “other gods” whom generally our evangelical friends ridicule as nonexistent “false gods” but who really exist not really yes really.
In the same vein, they understand transactional magick to be real and effective: that’s the basis of their belief in intercessory[3] prayer. They easily transfer that belief to pentagrams, Ouija boards, Dungeons & Dragons, yoga, and yes, mandala coloring books—just touching one of these things is enough to unleash the hounds of hell whether or not you believe they’re “real.” Just joking around at a sleepover with “Bloody Mary” or taking a hot yoga class will press the On button on the remote control, and, well, you’ve seen enough horror movies to know what happens next.
Here’s the interesting part: the only proof they ever have is their own belief in the reality of belief systems that otherwise they will tell you are not real. It never occurs to them to say, “Hm, those other people are trying make sense of the Infinite, too—I wonder how similar their approach is to mine. Maybe I could get further in my own faith if I paid attention to theirs.”
Nope. Instead, because their Tao is the only Tao—they can NAME IT AND EVERYTHING, KENNETH—all those other paths to the Infinite have to be wrong. Demonic.
Coloring mandalas. You may think there are 64 colors, but as we all know, there’s only one real Flesh.
And there…
