Alen Kapidžić's Blog, page 3

To write or not to write?

Photo taken from Huffpost.Amanda Patterson at Writers Write has written an excellent post The Myth of Writer's Block. She says:

The most common excuses for not writing are:
Family: I have children. I’m the family taxi. I have to be there for my husband/wife.
Work: I work long hours. I’m too tired after a day at the office. I have to work overtime so that we can afford a new car / bigger house.
Time: I’m too busy. I’ll do it tomorrow / next month / next year. I can’t write late at night / early in the morning.
General: I’m not inspired. I’m too old/young. I’m too tired/depressed/sick.
Our Favourite: It’s not what you know but who you know in publishing. (I thought this one works only in the Balkans. :-))

And poses a question:

If you were told you were going to die tomorrow, would you regret not having written?

Searching for a good photo for this post, I found Rick Smith's article What Would You Do if You Were Going to Die Tomorrow? Or Not.

Fits well, doesn't it?

And don't forget to read Amanda's post. :-)

Writing by Chackras

Combining ancient wisdom and creative writing.

Why not?

Source: Writers Write!

Young@heart

Two things amaze me: the human spirit and the human will.

In this post, I was thinking to write about how changing context transforms content into something else but we all know that very well. We do that all the time when we twist and deform truth to fit in our narrow point of view only to preserve this unbearable way we live. We do that every day failing ourselves and those around us who we so eagerly and desperately try to love. But we fail. We cannot succeed only by wishing and hoping. And the others do the same to us and we are all stuck in that unspoken and invisible conspiracy of turning a blind eye to who we truly are and to what we really should be doing.

But, every now and then, something rises in our lives that we cannot ignore. Sometimes it scares us, sometimes inspires us (and it's the same thing - just interpreted in a way how do we feel: attracted or repulsed). To me, it's the spirit and will in action. The spirit as the ground to be human being and the will as the way to be human being - to live our short lives the best way we can for ourselves and for all those that we love.

This people inspired me today. Thank you unknown fellow humans. May the light shines on all your paths still to walk.


Fix You - Young@Heart from Enzo Gianvittorio on Vimeo.

If you want to write

Done for today!

12 Quick Tips for Beating Writer's Block

From Writers Write.

Click for tips here.

Samizdat

Don't know what is the right reason but, somehow, I was always in that samizdat bullshit. When I was student of Croatian language and Literature in the second half of the 90's, I was publishing artzine named OFF Skroz (with a help from my friends and colleges Enver Krivac and Mišo Novković) and we published six issues. Even our first novel (collaboration with Krivac) was also self-published. Somehow, at that time, we thought nobody wants to publish our work because it was too subversive, too provocative and too much politically incorrect. I believe one of the reasons was fact that we were living in small province town not so much far away but enough away from a big publishers and cultural epicentre of capital city. Maybe we were more unnoticed than subversive? So, after we published our first novel Picinic and after we published Mišo's collection of poems Moonrain, we concluded two things. First: anyone can publish a book if one has enough money (vanity publishing). And second: there is no point in publishing a book if no one ever read it. So we quit with writing and self-publishing.

For 13 years.

OK, not exactly. I published a novel 5 years ago and in that time Krivac published a novel, comic collection and soon will publish a short story collection but all that time we actually spend on learning that there is no money in writing and publishing books in Croatia – if you're a writer. (I won't write this time about publishers in Croatia.) For writers in Croatia the only satisfaction is to hold their damn book in their shaking hands. That is the top what you can expect and that is top what you'll get. Who wants to write and publish if that's the best what you can get? I know one writer, and I believe there are more writers out there who think the same, who once said to me: "You know, I make peace with myself that I would never earn any money from my writing. So I would satisfy myself with holding my book in my hands."

Fuck that, man!

Jesus Christ!

FUCK THAT!!!

That's what I say.

No one will live on behalf of my work while I work for free. I'm no slave, motherfuckers! Did you hear me? I'M NO FUCKIN' SLAVE, ASSHOLES!!!

And for you writer-sucker, it will be better to hold your dick in your hands than the damn book!

So, in a last few years some people invented smartphones, e-readers, e-books, tablet computers and some other people saw opportunity for making big bucks and so I heard about self-published authors and the new way of publishing, so called e-publishing. And what could I say? No thanks (I'm too old for that shit)? Of course not! Self-publishing is in my veins. I've always been doing that. The only difference now is there is a slim chance that I can actually earn some money from doing something I always needed to do. To write.

Samizdat – here I am!

Professional writer

[image error]

Writers Write

Mold

'

Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
Try to find some money then you die

All lyrics here. 

Power (political)

For a half year I'm following tweeter account WW2 Tweets. Project started one professor of history and it will go for next 5 years. It presents 2nd World War as it happens today by tweeting it. Couple of days ago I stumbled on Pinterest on this photo in header which is taken during the Nanking massacre in 1937 when Japanese army invaded China. I read of mass scale bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany and British retribution attacks on German cities. I read propaganda articles on both sides and wondering how all these atrocities could happen? How could we do all these horrible things to each other? Then I remembered a Croatian – Serbian war I lived through (luckily my town was spared demolition and war conflict) and then I realised it happened because we didn't perceive other human beings as human beings. We saw them as objects, as non-humans. They were no humans. They were "others".

For a people born and grown up in last 50 years in Western culture after the WW2, after Rock 'n' roll, hippie movement and rise of postmodernism it is hardly to comprehend what horrible things we did to each other and why. I believe the reason is as I stated above.

We didn't treated others as human beings.

We didn't have sympathy for them, we didn't want to know that they have feelings as we do, that they love, care, hate, feel pain, being bother, have mothers, fathers, children, relatives, friends... Same as we do. If that is not true, then how could we know what love is, what fear is, what is sharp pain and dull pain, what it means to think or have an idea? How could we understand each other? We all share these experiences and that is why we understand each other, why we make connections or why art or science exists.

Western culture learned lessons from a past (or at least it looks like it did) and I'm hoping for good even not all the members of our society did. We still have people among us who look on the other people as objects. We all do that on some occasions and that is the reason why we should keep remembering what we did in the past. Not to torment ourselves but to prevent for repeating the same mistakes.

I see political struggle all around. There is basically leftist and rightist and whole spectre in between. Generally I believe they all have some basically good values and all have blind spots but one thing must be set as lower limit. No man or a party could win elections and rule if they do not perceive others humans as human beings. That limit I haven't seen anywhere in the world and basically anybody could nominate and win elections. In other words anyone can be a politician. I agree with that but I would suggest that people who have that kind of ambition should have passed set of psychological tests. If we need to pass psychological evaluation for getting driver licence or weapon licence then the politicians should do the same.

Examples of misuse of political power we have more than enough.