Why Being an Introverted Makes It Hard for Anyone Being an Artist

There's this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/20/introverts-signs-am-i-introverted_n_3721431.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=Books.

What is this? "I can't click the link." "I think it might be spam." It's a new article from the Huffington Post called "23 Signs You're Secretly An Introvert."

It's absolutely right...about introverts...about me. It's no surprise to anyone who has met me that I'm a bit of an introvert. "Why don't you like parties, Martin?" Look at number 2 or 3. When I'm at a small group gathering, say 5-8, I'm perfectly happy, social, etc. Hell, I may be ribald and interesting At a large party, hell no. I'm in this mode of "these people are talking about stuff that sound stupid."

"You're pretentious." Look at number 5, "You're too intense." Do I have a penchant for thought provoking movies, books, music, etc? Oh hell yeah and I ramble on this with a genuine interest that most mistake as faux interest and therefore pretension.

"Why don't you want to go to this audience participation improv show?" Number 13; hell for me is a performance requiring audience participation. The worst professional show I've even been a part of (literally) was in Austin, Texas for Rude Mechanicals. If you are an attractive lady that enjoys audience participation you are ugly to me.

It's interesting for me to read this article today. I've always known I'm a bit of an introvert. Contrary to my writing, I'm reasonably anti-social, perfectly content with watching a movie marathon in a theater (see number 7). Yet, I read this article after reading some old stuff I've written in the past and it led me to thinking (intensely) about what I said in my old stuff in regards to confidence.

Per my last few posts I've been working on a spec pilot script. I'm also doing some pre-planning on a one act draft I had in my senior year of university. I did three drafts, but I want to fine tooth it even more for a one act contest in New Orleans. I started reading into some old poems (because I'm trying to get more poems written by the end of the year) and also my old senior thesis. My thesis isn't impressive, but it brought up an interesting quote: "Being a writer or an artist is 75% confidence." Well I don't need quotations because I'm paraphrasing, but I'll leave it.

The truth is that art, creating art, writing, etc, requires confidence. It requires a willingness to showcase what you do, can do, to other people. Art isn't art if it isn't shown to someone. Art only becomes art when it is engaged with someone taking it in. "The Son" by Philipp Meyer isn't a work of art until someone reads it (like I am and enjoying it...shameless promotion).

This poses a problem for many aspiring artists and creative types who are coincidentally introverts. Most of us that are introverted have little confidence, overthink, and end up not going through with showing our work. If we want to do art as a living, there's a hierarchy that requires penetrating. That requires small talk (number 1 in the article), shameless self-promotion and networking (number 4).

We, introverts, often have friends who post pictures of themselves on facebook of them at parties, looking carefree, posting about new opportunities coming their way, talking about their new trips to the beach where they have the hand on their hip and smiling. There's an equal amount of envy I have as well as a critical eye due to a perceived psychopathy among these individuals (which isn't often really psychopathy).

Those are the kind of individuals that end up in MFA programs when they are in their twenties, and the ones who live in Portland, Brooklyn, and end up getting published, getting in plays, etc. We don't...always.

There are several writers, artists, etc, who are introverts that make it. It's not impossible. It just requires a hell of alot more effort. We live in a society that favors extroverts and it's easy to withdraw from the world and reject them.

Now, many are going to read this article and immediately see this as me whining like the poon I seem. I've been working on my introverted disposition. My trip to South America seemed to elevate me more than anything. It's true that I'm easily distracted, which leads me to not be so focused on my work. It's true that I can take a day without being seemingly productive and enjoy it compared to someone who makes "To Do Lists" and reads McCovey's "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People." Yet, I put dedication in my writing and work. I send my work to journals and don't give into depression after being rejected. Hell I got a poem published in "Deep South Magazine." Since I've come back from my trip I've been stepping up my presence on the internet through the promotion of this blog, through using twitter to promote my writings, to uploading my writings into "Scrib'd," etc.

Yet it is a struggle many of you, extroverted, cannot understand. It is a struggle to feel left out of everything yet have very few people who understand what it's like. Instead they cast you out for not drinking with them.

That being said, introverted people need to face their struggle and if you are an artist continue to work and work. As phony as promotion is, nothing good will ever happen until you put your work out there for everyone to see. Eventually the right person will see or hear what you have, and something good will happen. If you give up and reject society though, it won't benefit you or anyone.

My Script Design Morgue: World Building

"Children of Men." "Ghost in the Shell." "Firefly."

Somewhere in these three works lies my vision for this script and consequently my inspiration.

Many people would like to think that "true" artists pick ideas from the air, but realistically an artist is always picking up on ideas, thoughts, etc, from different works. When I worked in theatre, it was fascinating to watch the process and research for a person designing lights or sound because they'd create what's called a design morgue. A design morgue includes pictures that serve as an inspiration for the design of, say, a set or scenery. They come from historical photos, from art work, from...other shows. All creative personnel do this. 

I remember having to come up with a design morgue for Principles of Design for my project "Margaritaville" where my classmates and I had to come up with a designed project inspired by Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville." I decided to make my project look like a "war zone" because of the inherent theme of depression underscoring "Margaritaville" so I designed a war plagued beach. Putting together my design morgue, I included both photos of war beaches from the Pacific Theater in WWII as well as different artistic works I thought was relevant, in particular Erwin Kirchner.

Getting off that experience, I think writing a script of significant magnitude, especially a speculative fiction script, requires an equal amount of design morgue work. One of the things I mentioned in my preliminary script post was that I wanted to walk on world building. 

The idea of the location for my script initially was depicting a wasteland, depicting a landscape akin to Russia...so I had it take place in Russia with a Russian actor. If I'm doing this spec pilot script seriously, however, having it take place in Russia is asinine because no television network will buy a script that takes place in Russia with Russian characters.

I decided to change it to the United States, but how to depict a war and a war fraught wasteland. The first piece of my design morgue started: the new Civil War. 

This of course smells of "Hunger Games," but really it isn't about fragmented states as much as it is about two sides. As a Southerner I decided to not make it a North-South thing, but a East-West thing. How could a civil war happen?

The idea that came to mind for my mental morgue was the Chilean Military Coup of 1973. I think my trip to South America played a part in my use of their history. I created this world where a Socialist President is elected, like Salvador Allende. How could a Socialist President be elected in the US? I came up with the idea of a Democrat alienating voters by a scandal and a moderate Socialist taking his place, through extensive negotiation with urban Democrats and Latino voters. 

To depict the events that would lead to this theoretical president's overthrow I wrote a series of fake articles giving glimpses into the moments that would lead to the military overthrowing the fictional president. I also depicted events leading to the secession of West Coast states, which I named as the "Pacific Coalition" or "Pacifica," including California, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. 

The idea of the show was that it would take primarily in the Western part of the United States, post-war. The US defeated Pacifica. Now they are imposing strict penalties on their technology usage and creation. This would help with my wasteland.

A great show should hinder on characters, and I wanted to keep a dynamic pair relationship like I had in my first script. I decided to change a crucial element in the protagonist. Rather than keeping the protagonist Russian and male, I change the protagonist into American and female.

I think the show aims to depict the desperation of this protagonist through such a Sisyphusian task; finding and taking down robots that she once help design and control. The robots, giant robots, are almost God-like. I want to show someone in a crisis, someone idealistic but in need for survival, how someone can transform into banal subjugation. 

The pieces of my design morgue correlating with the character come from Hannah Arendt's work with "The Banality of Evil," as well as strong female protagonists. "Ghost in the Shell" comes to mind because of this. "Ghost in the Shell" is easily my favorite science fiction show, far superior to "Star Trek," "Battlestar Galactica," and it would be influential in my vision for the show. In particular, the character "Major Kusanagi" is one of the greatest female protagonists in televison, animated or not. 

So how does "Children of Men" and "Firefly" come into play? I think I want to combine the wasteland depiction of "Children of Men," one with a political landscape laid to waste, with the Western aesthetic of "Firefly." 

A while ago I wrote a story about an astronaut who in space grows to hate silence. I'd like to use that character trait in this character, the idea of silence being a proxy for a void in the character. I think having a landscape in the Western areas would induce such anxiety with silence. Plus, it allows me to play with the verisimilitude of giant robots hiding. The Western United States has less civilization, therefore more places to hide. 

I truly think "Children of Men" deserves to be a benchmark in action films. Unlike "Iron Man 3," and other films, "Children of Men" gets away with using long shots, stillness, that creates a dynamic to the action. Yet, I think I'm growing ahead of myself in looking towards that film as I'm primarily concentrated with the script. 

One more piece of my design morgue is how I aim to depict the military's grown power during this time. Reading Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Farewell Address," I can't help but feel how prescient he was. 

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Eisenhower talked about how necessary security but liberty are with each other. There's a sphere of military omnipotence that exists in the United States now, that the military are above citizens. Most of the military personnel don't believe this, but there are several civilians that do. I often wonder what we are leading ourselves into with our continued struggle to balance security with liberty. I saw the consequences of security over liberty in South America, where thousands were arrested and detained while many were killed over the extremes of security measures against terrorism and leftism in nations like Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. 

I have in mind a nation primarily dominated by the military, with a dominance predicated on curbing technology usage and ownership. More importantly, I want to depict a landscape that has come to meet Eisenhower's fears. Eisenhower seemed to warn against the emergence of a Laconian mentality, a belief of Spartan superiority over Athenian. 

Hence I came up with a show title: "Against Sparta." I don't known if it will last.

My Love of Atlanta...sorta

Sometimes when I'm not woefully inspired by writing, I'll dig through some old stuff to reread them. It's important for me to see what kind of progress I've made, and if I haven't published the work or shown it publicly I'll read them. A poem of mine might sit for a bit and I'll look at it to decide if it's not bad, if it has potential, or if it outright sucks.

I've said before that I use the Southern landscape and particularly the Southern Appalachian landscape as a muse for my poetry. What I noticed in my poetry stash was that not only had I written poems about this landscape but I had written two poems about Atlanta.

One was called "First Time in Atlanta" and I talked about my first time arriving to Atlanta with the perspective of my small town upbringing. Don't expect nothing but sentimentality, however, for I discuss "homeless drummers" and etc. Whenever I start a poem, I'll sit on a line that I have in my head and try to drag out something meaningful in writing. With this poem it was "Atlanta was the first time I ever saw night." 

Another poem was partially inspired by Beverly Hall and the scandal of the Atlanta Public Schools. Beverly Hall was a superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, an individual responsible for bringing a fledgling school system into a national spotlight, but the school district was later to be found to have engaged in test cheating and erasures by the teachers. What upsets me about the state was how people want to resolve the education issues in the inner city by incorporating standards that would emphasize those exact high stakes testing. It's a matter of the suburban metro Atlanta area dominating politics, so I wrote a poem entitled "Sherman is a Suburb" that was a sarcastic response to Hall, where I advocating burning Atlanta again.

Atlanta gets a bad reputation for its flaws. Atlanta is a flawed city. It is a sprawled mess. There's nothing I hate more than when someone from Woodstock says "I'm from Atlanta." No you're not. You're from Woodstock, just like I'm from Mount Airy. 

My friends would rather spend a weekend in Asheville than Atlanta. Asheville's nice, but it's not Atlanta and it requires a further drive. My family hates going into Atlanta, with traffic congestion and all the hoopla of being there.

Recently, a study on upward mobility placed Atlanta at the lowest scale for large cities. This means in Atlanta it's difficult for people living in the city to move upward from their station. Paul Krugman wrote an article, an OP-ED in the New York Times calling Atlanta the "Sultan of Sprawl."

I agree. Atlanta has all of this shit. Atlanta needs a better public transit. Atlanta needs more leaders that are willing to push for actual spending. Atlanta needs to use any funds it could possibly gather to afford a new Georgia Dome to actually spend on reforming MARTA or allowing private companies to put forth their own transit if they can't afford it.

So why do I love Atlanta? And it is love.

Because Atlanta is my city. 

Granted, I didn't grow up in a city. I grew up in rural northeast Georgia. Yet, Atlanta was our city. Atlanta was where we'd go to see the Braves play, which at age 8 is pretty magical. It was magical to see the pillars of the skyline rising and at night shining. It seemed so vast and large that it was hard to not love the city. 

For people who live in the Southeast, this is our New York, our Los Angeles. If you're from Iowa you fell in love with Chicago. If you're from Utah, you fell in love with San Francisco or whatever. If you're from Evergreen, Alabama Atlanta would be your special trip. It was the Empire Capital of the South, with actual legitimate museums, art, zoos, and music. 

This is what Atlanta was to me. It was the best of the South. It was new, all new, and I liked/like all the new. All the transparent glass buildings rising high, all the postmodern architecture with curves and geometric modifications served my inspiration and my imagination. Yet, it was the South. That part is becoming more diluted and you can tell by the restaurants. There are fewer mom and pop restaurants in Atlanta. Most restaurants are for yuppies and for the really wealthy, but there are some gems that display the culture of survival, hard work, and community in the South like Mary Mac's Tea Room and Daddy D'z. Atlanta was a city built on sweat, in textile mills, in rail, in manufacturing. That's why there's Atlantic Mill and Mechanicsville.

Atlanta is a city that doesn't seem to satisfy many people. People looking more of a Southern culture, expecting something akin to Savannah, leave there thinking different. People used to Chicago complain about the sprawl, etc. 

There's an independence in Atlanta that I love. It is a city that swells in freedom, as expressed in the park areas and the green areas (the tree canopy of Atlanta stands at 30%) and through the legendary figures of the city like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Krugman and others are right to poke Atlanta for its flaws. I can imagine how Atlanta doesn't stick out to many people. They come in, they only use MARTA and what they see is a Downtown that is growing to be as bland as Times Square (though the Skyview may help) or they see around Peachtree.

Very few see the alternative nightlife of Little Five Points, which gets crowded with hipsters but remains a vital area and one special to me. Growing up in a rural area, the alternative crowd usually flock to the trashiest places in those rural areas and my friends and I felt displaced. In spite of the rise of hipsters and similar individuals, people were drawn to Little Five Points for the same reason we were led to its direction. It's the least judgmental place for individuals who think differently and act differently. When I arrived into Atlanta after my trip to South America, the first place I went to was Little Five Points into The Vortex to grab the Elvis Burger.

Very few visitors get to see Grant Park and the serenity of the Queen Anne and Craftsman homes nestled in Atlanta's green backdrop and canopy, alongside Oakland Cemetery.

Very few can get into Cheshire Bridge, enjoy adult nightlife (if that's your thing) or an art film at the UA Tara, bowling at Midtown Bowl, or blues and bbq at Fatt Matt's BBQ.

Instead they stick around areas that showcase some of the nicer things of Atlanta (Fox Theatre for one) or they stick to areas that don't represent Atlanta.

I love Atlanta. I love it more than most cities and with exception to Chicago and Seattle it is the only big city I want to live in. Yet, Atlanta needs to improve its opportunities for rapid transit and make the big city worth moving to.

Because the suburbs suck.