Write Like your Parents are Dead.

Back in graduate school, I had quite the struggle with the concept of content. Art can be anything in these post-modernist times. During my crits, I was never given the golf-claps like some of my colleagues would enjoy. Frankly, I’m quite glad I got my ass kicked. It only managed to develop me and by the time my thesis show was up on the walls, I had secured record-breaking attendance for the gallery and graduated second in my program. Nice!

One thing that got me out of my shell was advice from a professor of mine who said, “Paint like your parents are dead.” Whaaa?

Eventually, I got the message. Don’t hold back. Be dangerous. Disclose. Be naked. You simply cannot push envelopes while nestled in your comfort zone.

Yesterday, I had written a piece of Bizarro flash fiction intended for James Roy Daley’s Books of the Dead Press. It turned out to be too long for the site’s guidelines, but I still had a blast busting it out, and now, I want to continue on with future installments of it! Let me just say, the thing is out there. It’s mean. Read it here.

Whether you manaballers like it or not is neither here nor there, but I did feel a great sense of relief having written a tale off the trail of my beaten path. Sure, I may have lost Tweeps over this ditty, but I had also received some props.

Point is, art applies to writing. Writing is an art in and of itself. Reject your fears and hang-ups and inhibitions and battle them with your unfettered imaginations. And never apologize.

Write like your parents are dead.