Music Before the Money

Writer’s block is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to begin or continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity - WikipediaSorry, I don’t get it. Oh, I get the concept but I don’t get writer’s block. There are just too many things running through my head at one time. That’s why I can write four blogs (soon to be five) and never run out of things to talk about. Whether or not they make any sense is a question for the readers.When I wake up I do my ten minutes of breathing and read material that will get me going in the morning. During my reading I can come up with 80 different things to write about (well maybe not exactly 80). That’s because my brain wired differently.

I do believe that people who are not as successful as they want to be do not have a burning interest in the occupation toward which they are striving. I am the prime example. I have been in sales for years - and many people say how good I am - but I don’t think I’m good at it. If I was I would be Donald Trump -ish and rolling in it.

Writer’s block, I believe, is like that. I think it’s an affliction of people who deep, deep down, don’t really like writing. Oh, I think when they write they are good at it, and many of them are famous. But my view of a writer is Stephen King. According to his book, On Writing, he never gets writer’s block. And I believe him. Look at the volume of work he has created.

Maybe one day I will get writer’s block. But maybe one day I’ll get hit by a falling airplane. And I hope neither of the two happens.

Brian Jones experimented with a wide variety of instruments, not settling for the normal ones that most British bands used: Rickenbacker, Gretsch, Hoffner and the odd Gibson. After the Rolling Stones were at a point where they could afford new instruments one of his first stage guitars was a teardrop-shaped Vox that became his trademark instrument.

In 1962 Vox introduced the pentagonal Phantom guitar, originally made in England but soon after made by EKO of Italy. The Mark III was released in three versions, as a 6-string, a 9-string and as a 12-string. The unusual 9-string had three wounded strings and three couples of unwounded strings. This style won Vox an international price for best design, when it was released.

It was followed a year later by the teardrop-shaped Mark VI, the prototype of which was made specifically for Brian Jones using a Fender Stratocaster bridge.

Vox discontinued the production of guitars in the seventies but now copies from the teardrop guitar are being made by other producers.

From

Thinking Like a Genius:

Eight Strategies Used by the Super Creative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison - Michalko, Michael

1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)

Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and becomes a new one.

2. Visualize!

When Einstein thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and believed that words and numbers as such did not play a significant role in his thinking process.

3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.

Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many “bad” ones. They weren’t afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence.

4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.

The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science.

5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.

Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse invented relay stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for horses.

6. Think in opposites.

Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves to a new level. His ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity. Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form.

7. Think metaphorically.

Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts.

8. Prepare yourself for chance.

Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question “Why have I failed?”, but rather “What have I done?”