Entries tagged with “the creative beat” from O'Reilly Digital Media Blog

This year I took a crack at November's National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo). Didn't get as far as I'd like, I'll admit. But even my little trek was a great reminder of the importance of making something every day. One of the many perks of the NaNoWriMo experience are the email exhortations you get from a variety of guest-authors, as well as from Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo's founder and program director. The last one he sent out at the end of the journey, was a lovely essay on hobbies, work, and living the creative life. I asked his permission to repost it here and he graciously assented.

For the last year or two I've been interviewing artists about their creative process. A new interview went up this week, with young-adult novelist Dana Reinhardt, and I thought I'd post an abridged version here, including questions about her writing routine, how she pushes through when she isn't not feeling particularly inspired, and why she doesn't use notebooks to capture her thoughts.

A great idea for the holidays--or, really, anytime--from the redoubtable [StoryCorps](http://www.storycorps.net/): Take some time to sit down and interview someone you love.

When in Hollywood, as the saying goes, be sure to visit Universal Studios. I just did on an unusually slow day and had a great time exploring how theme-park designers create an immersive experience through clever technology and storytelling.

BoinxTV is a striking example of how digital creativity tools are changing. As our tools begin to work in real time, they become less tools and more instruments. We begin to PLAY them, and playing is the heart of creativity. Can you think of other examples?

Twenty-five years ago, it was easy. We weren't rock stars because we didn't have the recording equipment. You couldn't say it was for lack of trying, either. Pretty much everybody out with whom I hung would have emphatically jumped through unthinkable flaming hoops to have access to a 24-track recording device and a microphone or two -- it would have...

I've recently watched two films that really ought to be seen by anyone with an interest in creativity.

NaNoWriMo challenges participants to write a complete 50,000-word novel from scratch in 30 days. Now why on Earth would you want to put yourself through such an ordeal? There's really only one reason.

Will Wright's Spore features an unusually rich content-creation and content-sharing component that encourages players to design game creatures, vehicles, and buildings, and then share those art assets around the Spore-o-sphere — unleashing their beasties into other player's games. I was curious what the people behind the game's Creature Editor had learned about how you get people to make stuff, and Senior Software Engineer Dan Moskowitz was nice enough to take a little time to chat about, among other things, the importance of file size, keeping things simple, and the first few clicks.

So I got to thinking that in this day and age, there ought to be a way to create your own virtual art gallery, and avoid all the tiresome traipsing around to various world capitals.

Twenty-seven-year-old Jesse Thorn is a radio show host, a podcast producer, and one of the leading proponents of The New Sincerity. Next summer, he'll be leaping into all-new terrain by launching MaximumFunCon, a unique weekend event that's sort of a vacation, entertainment, education smoothie...

You may have noticed that we've done a little redecorating recently. Up there, over my right shoulder where we keep the categories, "Design" has been replaced with "Creativity."

This section is still the place to go for all our blog posts and features for graphic designers, including Deke McClelland's every-other-weekly, fully fab-tastic dekePod. But we've also added a new set of posts just starting up that we're tagging as "The Creative Beat." This section will focus on a wide swath of issues related to our creative lives, and in particular, the way tech is changing things up — changing how we express ourselves, how we share our art with others, and especially how we motivate ourselves to get off the stick and, dare I say, make something.

Portland-based toonlet.com is dedicated to making cartoon-creation easy. Launched in December 2007, 10,000 toons have been created so far, with just shy of 2 million comic views around the world. As a test of toonlet’s system, I logged on recently to make a quick sample. In all of 10 minutes, I had created an account and busted out my first toon. Easy, peasy. Back in July I got a chance to sit down with toonlet co-founder and CEO Craig Schwartz to chat about where the idea behind toonlet came from and what he’s learned from the experience.

We all love our technology, and certainly it enables us to do amazing things with music, with pictures, with ideas. But sometimes I think it becomes a bit of a burden. We feel a responsibility to all that technology, all those possibilities. It's important to remember who is working for whom. A good role model in this area is Brian Eno, renowned producer, recording artist, and creative strategist. To spur creative thinking or break artistic logjams, he developed the "Oblique Strategies," a set of cards designed with the artist Peter Schmidt.

Last night, Joss Whedon of Firefly and Buffy the Vampire fame began releasing Dr. Horrible. Independently produced on a budget in the low 6 figures, with a recognizable cast that includes Neil "Doogie" Patrick Harris and Firefly's Nathan Fillion, this show has the feel of a tipping point. Certainly, they've done so much right here, in terms of Internet entertainment...

Hi, My name's Dan and I'm the publisher for the Digital Media division here at O'Reilly. I'll be dropping by to join the conversation here and there, particularly on items related to that interesting point where creativity and technology meet and do a dance. Lately I've been thinking of the ways old and new media can work together. In Pixar's...