Racked My Brain

So yeah. It's been a while since there's been any activity on Something Different, so I thought I'd spice it up a bit. But the only thing on my spice rack was brains, so I'll spice it up with some mind.

If you think about that expression, "rack your brain," for a while it kinda doesn't make much sense, does it? It's supposed to mean thinking long and hard about something. searching your entire brain for one little scrap to think about, or to write, or to paint, or whatever else. But when you put something on a rack, it's just storage. You're putting that thing away while you're doing something else. Not using the racked item. So when you rack your brain, does that mean you're putting your thoughts to one side for however long you are doing the racking? It could be referring to practise of negative thinking, or thinking about what's not there, as opposed to what is. Or it could be referring to the Eureka effect, where if you try not to answer a question, you'll stumble into the solution by mistake.

But this can't be, because racking one's brain is usually described as a lengthy, tiresome, and only sometimes fruitful venture. There's probably some explanation behind it, one that I'm way too lazy to go out and find. Ah well. I'm a slacker, what can I say?

But this leads to the second part of my post. My brain seems to have been racked for quite a while. At least in some parts. And I mean "sitting in non-use" kind of racked. I have been writing quite a bit, a few short stories on my fiction page, regular updates on the blog, but the one thing that I really want to get back to is just... at a standstill. I'm alluding to my book, or at least the manuscript that will become my book eventually. It's maintained a fairly even few thousand words for the past month or two. No additions of anything, but at least no harsh red ink crossing off everything everywhere.

I think I might have lost my muse, whatever she/it may have been, or at least ran out of metaphorical fuel. I need a gas station in my near future. I can't run on fumes, coughing up short stories every time something catches and I start forward a bit.

Actually, on a more positive note, the short stories and posts have come more frequently lately, so my Muse might be siphoning some gas into the engine every once in a while. Let's hope for a break and an explosive week or two of mad writing.

I Command You, Talent!

What, exactly, is talent? Talent's different from skill. Skill is a learned ability. Talent is one that is innate. That is of or produced by the mind rather than learned through experience. Therefore, a skill can be gained, or lost, and while possessing a skill you can use it at any time. A talent, though, is slightly more complex.

A talent is always possessed, but not always apparent. You can't learn something that requires talent, unless you discover that you always had that talent, which wouldn't really be learning. But another quirk of talent, is that you can't always use it. Why is it, then, that so. Damn. Many. People. Try to use talents that they simply don't have... And, here's the kicker, get away with it?

The world today suppresses so much pure, raw talent, that may come from a, shall we say, less than "Hollywood-looking" person, in favor of digitally enhanced crap from the spoiled, rich daughters of celebrities and millionaires. Take a look at the Rolling Stones for example. They are some butt-ugly dudes, no offense, but they rocked the world. If they were to have tried from scratch today, no producer would have given them a second glance.

This effect isn't only seen in the world of music. Writing suffers from it too, add to that Science Fiction being a dying art form, and that spells disaster for the literate world.

The best we can hope to do is to rock the talent so much and so utterly awesomely that people will look past the crap that passes as talent, and start taking a look at the real stuff.

What It Is, Yo

So. This Blog is gonna be a total thought experiment. The basic premise behind it is this: I write. I write at length about something. Whatever the hell I want. But that's only the first post. And that's this one. The next post after this will be about something completely different. But that different thing has to come from one of the phrases, or sentences, or whatever that I used in this post.

For example: I used the sentences, "I write. I write at length about something." The next poster could use that as their title and write about how they like to write, or how they want to become an author, or something to that effect. In effect, you take something I have written, rip it out of context, and create Something Different.

See the humour there? I said Something Different, like they would create a thing that is different. But also Something Different, being the title of this website, so they're creating it. I thought it was clever.