You too can be goblin free and happily creative!

Inner critic got you down? Artistic demons chewing on your soul? I know how you feel, and I have a solution!

First off - inner critic is really too polite a title for what I've got. And  "demon"? Maybe that word gives them too much power. How about GOBLINS? Disgusting, vile, violent, and dangerous as they might be, goblins are also incredibly easy to defeat (at least they were in the Hobbit movie). 

I have turned my demons to goblins and banished them from my writing desk, and maybe someday my soul. Follow my 7 easy steps and you too can be goblin free and happily creative:


1. Get a powerful vessel.
My grandmother used to keep tictacs in this by the side of her blue rocking chair.
It's a special memory of comfort and care. Good juju


2. Assemble a collection of goblin (and the odd troll) fetishes.
I cut these out of a Lego catalog.


3. Put goblins in box


4. Make a talisman of victory.
This is the best line of the whole 169 minutes of the Hobbit.


5. Place talisman in box with goblins.



6. Place lid on vessel.



7. Goblins vanquished.
Now go make art or whatever it is you do
 without those mean goblins all up in your business! 


Reading: 
Buncha bits and pieces of stuff pertaining to the writing. Maybe I'll linkie them later; I'm out of time now.

Writing:
YES! Made conceptual maps of my manuscript. Beginning to see what the whole will be shaped like. Also, see where there are holes to be filled. So awesome. Auspicious start to new year. Yay! 

Dinner: 
David made spaghetti and (frozen) meatballs, with green peppers on the side. Yay, David.

Soundtrack: 
Merline Johnson, the Yas Yas Girl, and Hank Williams, who died 60 years ago today, in the back of a Cadillac on a road somewhere in West Virginia (or Ohio? Depending on the account).

Random thing:
From an Anne Patchett essay on making writing a job that my friend Lynda shared with me: "The process of writing books is somewhat akin to a very long police interrogation in which the detective leans over the table littered with the butt ends of cigarettes and cold coffee in Styrofoam cups and says for the 87th time, 'Now let's go over this again.'" ... Pretty much feels like that, yes.

Comments

  1. MicheleJanuary 2, 2013 at 6:35 AM

    That is an awesome quote from Anne Patchett. That is an awesome talisman. YOU are awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ckJanuary 2, 2013 at 9:37 AM

    Toni, I'm indulging in your lovely writing this morning... so happy you are blogging away and the goblin talisman is just TOO CUTE! I am making something similar to help me with organizing the chaos vortex that is my office... put had completely neglected to add goblin-capturing to the theme. I will correct that immediately.

    ReplyDelete
  3. beedieJanuary 3, 2013 at 4:19 AM

    Thanks to you both!

    ReplyDelete

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