Kern Carter's Blog, page 132

Nietzsche can help you overcome Guilt

and anger and feel free for the first timeImage by Michael Heuser

Ever noticed that you never feel sad or guilty while you are doing an activity, the same activity which makes you sad or guilt-ridden afterwards. When you are shouting with anger, hitting someone, betraying someone, getting drunk to the point of being blacked out or having sex, You do all these activities with the utmost indulgence of mind, yet the guilt comes only after the activity has ended.

“Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.” — German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

This is because when you do these activities, you are asleep. You have fallen back to being an animal which deprives you of the awareness that you are an intelligent being. That’s why people who do such acts often say, “It just happened, I don’t know why I did that”. It’s only when they wake up afterwards they realize that they had done something that they didn’t want to do.

Why people do things that they regret?

Activities of violence, anger, betrayal, alcoholism and intimacy are enjoyable when they are in progress. At that moment, you feel relief. It’s like the kind of satisfaction one feels after scratching an itch. You’ve just fallen back from the hypothetical bridge and become an animal.
Thus, the relief you feel in anger, violence, alcoholism or sex are all satisfaction of becoming an animal. It is the lightness you feel as the burden of being an intelligent being gets removed for a while.

But isn’t that relief always short-lived? As soon as the effect of anger, violence, sex or violence wears down, you are automatically pulled forward on to the bridge. You become a man from an animal again. This is because evolution is a linear process that moves in one direction only i.e- forward. You can’t grow backwards, you can’t de-age. That’s the rule of nature. Nature allows only forward movement. Even if you stay at a place, time will push you forward to the death like a wall closing in from behind

You can do all those activities for a while only. You can neither be drunk nor be angry for the rest of your life. Reality can’t be avoided for long. You can forget that you’re an intelligent being for a while but it cannot go forever. The illusion shatters very soon.

And once that period of being a beast is over, you’ll be back onto the bridge and then starts the guilt. A man will always find regret waiting for him on the bridge when he comes back from being an animal. Interestingly, all these pleasures can be enjoyed only after becoming an animal, becoming wild and free and human can not be animalistic forever simply because he is no longer an animal. He has evolved to be an intelligent being. As Nietzsche says, He is a bridge between an animal and over-human.

Animals do not suffer from guilt after sex or violence because it is in their very nature to be wild and free but as soon as you put slight intelligence in animal, it becomes guilt-ridden too. This can be noticed in the eyes of a pet dog after he does something that his owner doesn’t like. He becomes aware that he too has fallen backwards, done something which is anti-nature.

What to do when filled with such negative emotions?

If you don’t let out that anger, you’ll be a human with an animal trapped inside. It will then come out someday at the wrong time, at the wrong place and on the wrong person like an unexpected eruption of a volcano. And If you put that anger out, you’ll slip backwards to be an animal.

Man will always be troubled with uneasiness that comes with energies of anger, violence or sex. This is because he is not yet completely away from animalistic self. He is on a bridge filled with ever-present uneasiness. Some with little uneasiness that can be dealt with, some with huge which is hard to live with.

The Only Way to get relief is to either fall backwards and become animalistic for a while (but repercussion is a period of guilt much longer than the period of pleasure) or Rise higher i.e move forward towards over-human. Falling backwards is easier. It doesn’t require much effort. All you need to do is shut your brain and let your animalistic instinct take you where it may.

Whereas rising higher or moving forward is difficult. You have to tame your animalistic self in the right way. Be cautious. Taming doesn’t mean suppression. Any kind of suppression is against nature. Taming means letting it out in the right direction. It means very carefully moulding the clay of your being.

For example, Michelangelo says, ‘Every block of stone has a statue inside and it’s the task of the sculptor to discover it.’ It is said that whenever he used to get filled with anger, he would take it out on a stone and that anger helped him carve out something great every time. He wouldn’t be as famous as he is today if he’d let that anger out before getting to work.

“Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting” — Bertrand Russell

Usain Bolt runs, Keanu Reeves acts, I write. Everyone has their own ways to let that anger help them move forward on that bridge. A man with a strong mind will always be attracted towards the right side of the bridge, towards the future and he will always fall forward, thus not letting guilt subjugate his mind. Of course, he will still occasionally fall back because one can’t speed up the process of evolution but he’ll be much farther away from people falling backwards regularly and wasting their life.

A man will always find himself when he chooses to move forward.

“Move forward and discover your truth before you sleep forever”

Nietzsche can help you overcome Guilt was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Building ‘Bridges’

Building Bridges with Jesse Ryan— balancing art, income and the new albumJesse Ryan — photo by Robin Sassi

“Most of the jazz musicians that I admire, are struggling,” says saxophonist Jesse Ryan. “I don’t want to live like that.”

We speak on zoom, of course, during these strange times. His thoughts around art and entrepreneurship come to the forefront.

“My wife, Kristin and I, took a big risk coming to Canada from Trinidad where we had a very comfortable life. In order to be in Toronto, it has to be worth it.”

To that end, Ryan has developed multiple income streams as a producer, arranger, composer, music educator, band leader and graphic designer, all under an umbrella company FWÉ Culture.

I tell him that the only other musician who I’ve interviewed who speaks with this approach is Joy Lapps-Lewis. “We are friends,” he laughs. Her husband, Grammy Award-winning drummer, Larnell Lewis is co-producer of Bridges, Ryan’s debut album.

Featured on it are some of Canada’s best young jazz musicians — Joanna Majoko on vocals, guitarists Sean Clarey, Lucian Gray and Andrew Marzotto, Ewen Farncombe on piano and Rhodes, Marc Rogers on bass, David Richards on drums and Nicolas Franginni Salvo on percussion.

Entrepreneurial mindset

After time at the Berkley College of Music in the United States, Ryan completed his studies at Humber College in Canada. Here he noted a template for musicians who were “successful”. He gestures making quotes in the air.

“Most had certain boxes checked: they were recording, touring, composers and band leaders and they also had a gig teaching at a college.” He does note that there are only a few examples of successful Black jazz musicians in Canada listing Oscar Peterson, Rich Brown and Larnell Lewis as examples. “Some Humber alumni have put a petition together for the Creative School to hire more Black and Indigenous faculty.”

Ryan currently teaches at the Canada Christian College. “Music and styles are evolving so fast with different influences, that the way colleges teach right now, is not the best approach. I think in the next couple years, internships and mentorships will be big things, as it used to be back in the day.”

Cultural bridges

“I grew up in Belmont, (a neighbourhood in Trinidad and Tobago’s capital of Port of Spain), with steel pan, African drumming and dance and my Hindu neighbour blasting his music.” He also grew up somewhat sheltered within the Pentecostal Christian community and experienced these same elements of his culture as if “from behind a glass wall.” “There is that colonial influence that anything that was African and folk was secular and that we shouldn’t touch it,” he says.

Zambian Offertory is an arrangement of a melody, sung by Zambian nuns who swayed to the sounds of drums during the offertory part of a Catholic mass. He’d come across the video online. “I was so excited! It was the first time I’d seen those two worlds meet. I wrote an arrangement right away,” he explains.

One of the most significant influences on Ryan’s works is an album by Puerto Rican saxophonist and composer, Miguel Zenón, Esta Plena. Plena is a style of music, dance and drumming, that uses 3 frame drums — small, medium and large. He discovered that variations of this music exist throughout the Caribbean. There are connections to Grenada, where his grandfather, calypsonian the Mighty Bomber, was born. He also found a variation of the music in Tobago, called tambrin drumming.

“It was almost as if this ancestral thing, ancestral DNA, was pulling me in.”

Ryan travelled back to Trinidad and spent a day recording the Mt. Cullane Tambrin Band who are featured throughout the album.

Soweto Kinch, jazz saxophonist and rapper from the United Kingdom is a big influence in terms of Ryan’s sound and approach. Compositional influences include the great Trinidadian trumpet player and composer Etienne Charles.

Ryan reveals a bit of his own compositional approach. “I try to use the tools that I have to convey emotion and feeling. When I am writing a song, it is never about melody and chords or just about the groove. It is about how all work together to create a feeling, a space for people to connect with the idea. There are no lyrics, so I feel some extra responsibility to be intentional about how I use the tools.”

Early Morning Solutions

Jesse Ryan admits that managing energy and motivation for so many projects can be a challenge. Did I mention that he is also the musical director of his church? Or that his wife Kristin runs a family business Mélé Cuisine, located in Trinidad for which the couple provides administration and marketing from Canada?

How does he manage to carry all of this?

To help re-set and sustain his energies, three times between December 2020 and March 2020, for a period of 1 month, he started his day at 5:30 am.

“The second time, I had 10 people join me.” With this sphere of mutual accountability and a few extra hours in the day, he felt inspired, supported and incredibly productive. He plans to do another 30 day stint soon!

In the meantime, the album project is now complete.

Bridges is an aural explosion of stellar musicianship, that incorporates Ryan’s explorations of his own cultural roots, expertise in the modern jazz idiom and elements of the sacred, embellished with joyful Trini flourishes.

Bridges drops worldwide on December 4, 2020 on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and CD Baby.

Building ‘Bridges’ was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What does the PRH purchase of Simon & Schuster mean for authors?

Image by Simon and Schuster

Last week, Bertelsmann, which is the parent company to Penguin Random House (PRH), confirmed its purchase of Simon and Schuster for approximately $2.2 billion. This acquisition, which is expected to close in the second half of 2021, will combine two of the “Big Five” publishers.

Bertelsmann seems to be aggressively competing for market share in the book publishing space. It already owned Random House in 2013 when it purchased Penguin. Now it has again broadened its position with the acquisition of Simon and Schuster, which CNBC says will push PRH to 34% of all book sales in the U.S. For context, HarperCollins owns the second most market share at 11%.

What does this mean for authors?

Any time two companies the size of PRH and S&S merge forces, authors need to pay attention. Why? For a couple of reasons.

Advances and contracts

An author’s advance is based on what a publisher is willing to invest. Part of that decision is based on competition and paying a price that would out bid another publisher. The merging of these two gigantic publishers means they won’t be bidding against each other anymore. Theoretically, that puts the publisher in a stronger negotiating position.

But bidding on a project is fairly rare in the publishing world. There is a low percentage of books that capture the attention of multiple publishers and force them to compete for that title, and those books tend to be from public figures or authors with a large following (there are certainly exceptions to this. Some debut authors are fortunate enough to get multi-million dollar deals without being known publicly). So while this merger does give the publisher leverage from the bidding perspective, this is not something that will impact the overwhelming majority of authors.

The impact on readers

Simon & Schuster will continue to operate as its own separate publishing unit under Penguin Random House. That suggests that the majority of authors looking for publishing deals will still have the same number of editors they can pitch to, which is important. Publishing is moving towards being more inclusive in the stories they tell, the authors who they choose to tell these stories and in the way they market, in addition to hiring a more diverse staff. The industry needs more editors right now, not less, although having them consolidated to a single entity could prove problematic.

PRH publishes 15,000 titles a year and S&S publishes 2,000. That’s a lot of power in shaping the stories that the public reads. But if this single, dominant entity handles this well, it could reshape the narratives of an entire generation and the generations to follow. It can help readers better see themselves in these stories and can help capture audiences that have long been ignored by publishers.

Independent Publishers

Another argument I’ve read is that independent publishers will struggle even more to compete once this merger is finalized. The Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP) released a statement that said this deal…

“would be particularly challenging for the independent Canadian-owned sector, which competes with multinational publishers for authors, media coverage, retail shelf space, and staff. A combined S&S/PRH will make these challenges even more acute.”

This is a fair argument. I can see how indie publishers are collectively throwing their hands in the air in frustration at the thought of one of the Big Five becoming even stronger. Not only do they compete with multinational publishers for authors, they also compete with them for employees.

But by their own statement, the ACP admits that this merger “will make these challenges more acute.” This infers that it’s already a problem independent publishers are facing. By nature, they already need to be more creative, nimble and more innovative in the way they approach authors and their projects. That’s the beauty and burden of being an indie press, so it’s not precisely clear to me how the merging of these companies will make the beauty and burden more prominent.

SummaryYes, this merger is a big dealSome authors will be effected, but only a small percentageThere’s an opportunity for PRH and S&S to really change the landscape of publishing if they manage this rightIndie publishers are going to have to keep being innovate and agile if they hope to compete

What does the PRH purchase of Simon & Schuster mean for authors? was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

New Book Discovery Site Launches — BingeBooks

New Book Discovery Site Launches — BingeBooks

A new book discovery community has been formed, and it’s been funded by more than 120 authors. Alessandra Torre is the cofounder and CEO of the newly formed BingeBooks, which officially launched on November 18.

BingeBooks allows readers to view the opening chapters of thousands of books. You can also follow authors and save books you think you’ll be interested in reading.

Bingebooks makes it clear that they are not a retailer. They earn income from affiliate links to their partners, which include Apple Books, Amazon and Kobo. Torre says that the platform will also be charging authors for spots in its newsletter starting in 2021.

Currently, Torre and her team curate the titles on the site and ensure that there is a diverse variety of stories. There is a focus on emerging and underrepresented authors, both published and independent. Torre is also an author of 22 novels.

New Book Discovery Site Launches — BingeBooks was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How Changing My Diet Helped My Writing

Image by Ella Olsson

Sounds like an odd pairing, I guess. Diet and writing. Especially when you think of writers, you don’t picture the healthiest people in the world. The very nature of our occupations suggests the opposite. That we are sedentary creatures social only within our own circles and not at all afraid to throw back a few drinks.

Don’t you love stereotypes! Truth is, though, I do write a lot. And that means I’m often in one inactive position for long stretches of time. Even intervals of stretching during articles aren’t enough to rid me of that worn down feeling I have after a few hours of work. Once the afternoon hits, I’m usually ready for a nap.

Fortunately, I work from home so it’s very much possible for me to retire to my room, or fall asleep right there on my couch without any penalty. Except lost time, of course, and for a freelancer who is so particular about how I spend each hour of every day, time is very much an asset I can’t afford to waste.

Which brings me to the entire point of this piece. The change in my diet. One of my close friends is a renowned fitness professional and nutritionist. We’re close enough friends where I can ask for advice from time to time without any charge. On this occasion, my question was how to get rid of that early afternoon creeping feeling of fatigue that forces me away from my laptop and onto my back.

Essentially, I wanted to be more productive. An hour or so wasted in the middle of the afternoon may not seem like a lot to some people, but for me it was far too much. So when he offered advice that was contrary to nearly everything I had read on the internet, I figured I might as well give it a try.

His advice was to save all my carb consumption for the evening and eliminate any carbs from my morning meals. Needless to say, I was a little-taken aback. I asked him about the “eat breakfast like a King, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper thing.” He laughed and told me to just try it.

So I did. No more toast, or cereal, or pancakes, or croissants (yum) for breakfast. Instead, a simple smoothie and a fat like half an avocado were my new morning dishes. And wouldn’t you know it, by day two, no more afternoon snoozes. I actually felt more energized. I was able to work through the entire day without ever feeling tired.

Lunch consisted of some kind of salad, and then my dinners would include fish or whatever else I felt like eating. I have to say, his advice worked and worked like a charm. If you’re looking for an explanation, I won’t do it justice (If you message me, I’ll direct you to my friend. He’ll break it down precisely). I know it has something to do with carbs breaking down as sugar and that sugar spiking then dropping during the day, which causes your body’s energy to spike and drop, as well. And then the carbs I eat at night actually acting as fuel for the morning.

Either way, you’ll be surprised just how much more productive I’ve become with this small change. My output has picked up considerably. My mind is sharper and I’m able to think through articles or stories much clearer. Instead of resting for that hour, or being zoned out not really accomplishing anything, I’m looking for things to do. It really has been transforming.

Now I’m not exactly suggesting you cut out morning carbs. What I am suggesting is that you analyze your relationship to food and your productivity as a writer. There are things we can do through diet to enhance our creativity, our output, and our focus. I’ve continued to explore how my food choices impact my writing and have made even more discoveries.

To be the best, you must prepare like the best. It’s true of every occupation and us writers are not excluded. So maybe you should think twice about that blueberry muffin at 7:00 a.m. You don’t know what it’s doing to your writing until you try something different.

This worked so well for me. Like I said, I’m continuing to find new ways to improve my productivity through diet. It’s amazing how the two are so closely related.

Follow me right here on Medium Kern Carter

How Changing My Diet Helped My Writing was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A List of Fully Funded MFA Creative Writing Programs

Big thanks to The Workshop for putting this list together. They’ve done an incredible amount of research and due diligence to provide a list of MFA Creative Writing Programs that fully fund its students.

Fully funded means that the program costs are covered by the institution. It’s such a helpful list for writers who would otherwise not be able to afford these opportunities.

If you’re a writer and thinking of entering into an MFA, you must visit The Workshop to check out what they’ve put together.

A List of Fully Funded MFA Creative Writing Programs was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why do you pretend to be happy?

I’m thinking of how strange the holidays will be this year and this piece by Neha Ravindra spoke to me. It’s titled “Why Do You Pretend to Be Happy” and she personifies depression in beautiful prose that grabs hold of you in brings you deep into its world. My favourite moment of this piece happens near the beginning:

Today you were at your weakest, running around in desperate attempts to make ends meet. I was helpless, far away, and incompetent. I watched you through your struggle, but the barricade that separated us told me not to try. It warned me to stay away and I couldn’t pass by.

Jazmine Dessarae also contributed a unique piece to CRY. She compares the creative process to gestation in a story titled Isolation Gestates the Gifts of the Artist.

Like an expectant mother carrying a seed for the first time, you may experience feelings of anxiety, joy, nervousness, awe, and self-criticism. While we are aware that two entities are needed for co-creation, how you birth what you carry is primarily dependent on you. Only you can feel your seed burgeoning and becoming in a way that no one else could ever understand. They may bear witness to the result, but you know intimately well the process of being alone with that in which you carry.

Finally, first-time contributor Carlos Anthony discusses a topic we’re all too familiar with in his piece titled “Confidence and Creativity.”

I spend the next couple of days wondering, do I matter? Or why do I matter? I reflect on all the hard work that I’ve done to get me to this point. Still, I want the most validation from the people who remind me that I’m not enough because my work has not yet produced any benefit for myself or them, such as a house, car, followers, etc. I’ve increased my network to sell myself to the world. But what good is it if I’m continually being rejected or ignored?

The submissions keep getting better and better. As we head into the month of December, we’re going to keep calling on our writers to share their perspectives on how this holiday season promises to be one like never before.

Why do you pretend to be happy? was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Creative Writing and SEO — How They Work Together

How creative writers can use SEO to attract more readers.

Continue reading on CRY Magazine »

Writers, are you using Substack?

When thinking of different ways to build an audience, communicate with that audience and then get paid, writers don’t have too many outlets. There’s Medium, of course, which uses a system of time on page and number of reads to calculate what your articles earn. There’s also Patreon where you can charge a monthly subscription fee for your content.

But what about Substack? Have you thought about using it? Are you even familiar with how it works?

What is Substack?

Substack is a platform that claims to be “a place for independent writing.” How Substack works is that it allows you to create a newsletter on whatever topic you feel expert on and charge for that newsletter. Using Substack is free. They only get paid when you get paid. They charge 10% of your newsletter fee, which must be a minimum of $5/month. They also take a percentage of your transaction fee.

What is unique about Substack?

One major difference I’ve recognized with Substack is that it allows you to include audio into your newsletter. This means your newsletter can operate almost like a podcast.

Another major difference, which I think is most important, is that it lets readers pay you directly. This is where it differs from Medium. With Substack, if a reader finds value in your writing, they can support it. That means having a few hundred readers subscribe to your newsletter can earn you thousands of dollars. With Medium, you’d need thousands of readers spending a certain percentage of time on all of your posts in order to theoretically earn thousands of dollars.

How can fiction writers use Substack?

I’ve thought about this. For me, one way to use Substack as a fiction writer would be as a marketing tool for your book. Let’s suppose you know you have a novel coming out in the spring. You can create a free newsletter (which is also an option on Substack) with excerpts from your book leading up to its release.

But on the flip side, you can actually charge right off the bat for full chapters of your novel. This can be an effective strategy if you’ve already built up some cache with your subscribers. Maybe you release one chapter each week for a month or two. Maybe you release all chapters and send the full novel to those who are already subscribers.

Those are just a couple of high-level ideas. I would suggest spending some time on Substack to learn how other successful writers are using the platform.

Writers, are you using Substack? was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Call for submissions — when is it time to take a creative break?

Call for submissions — when is it time to take a creative break?

My routine is constant: up at 5:30 and I’m writing most of the day. It’s been like this for close to a decade, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t need to take breaks.

When I say break, I mean taking short stretches of time where I don’t write at all. For someone like me, this is extremely difficult. It’s also necessary because there are times when I just feel like I’m losing myself in the routine and not actually living in the passion.

For this week’s call for submissions, I’d like you to write about how you manage your creative expectations. You’re dealing with a lot and 2020 has thrown even more at us. When do you take time away from everything and how does that look in your world? Is taking a break even possible?

This is meant to be about taking creative breaks, but we’ll accept submissions about taking a break from anything you do constantly. Maybe you’re supporting an elderly parent or you’ve been running an online course that’s been taking up a lot of your time. Whatever that thing is you need a break from, we’re open to hearing about it.

Same rules as always:If you’re already a writer for CRY, go ahead and submit.If you’re not a writer for CRY but would like to submit to this request, let us know and we’ll add you ASAP.Be as creative as you want in your submissions. As long as you stick to the topic, we’ll consider it.Just because you submit doesn’t mean we’ll post. If you haven’t heard back from us in three days, consider that a pass.Deadline to submit is this Monday, November 16.

Please reach out if you have any questions at all. If you are new to Medium, here’s how you submit a draft to a publication.

Call for submissions — when is it time to take a creative break? was originally published in CRY Academy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.