• lessons from the moose

                No. 1 : Alternative tools

Break a pencil and we dig through the stuff drawer searching for that little plastic pencil sharpener like we used to have–in seventh grade. 

These last few days (a full week as of Thursday, 2/21) I have been laptop-less. No email (a gush of cool air blows in from the East. Ahhhhhh!) How did we live most of the way through the 20th Century without email? As my always-clever brother, Todd, reminded me, "Remember libraries?" He asked. "And books, card catalog's, and the Reader's Guide to Periodicals?"

"Vaguely." I said. "I think I was sick that day."

So, I have gone a full seven days without email or laptop on which I typically spend a third to a half of my work day writing, job hunting, researching the net, working on two of my four new book projects, and (did I mention) job hunting. Fortunately I thought to print out a hard copy (actually a flimsy copy, it's on paper) before sending my MacBook off to Apple Memorial Hospital (Memphis, TN). So, for the past seven days I've been scribbling my edits into the current draft and writing new "chapters" where the draft just has a title and a few lines of ideas. (All with fountain pen, of course.)

One can only imaging where this will end up...or up end. 

For now, we will all find out together.

I have always done most of the early editing of my books on paper. But actual writing, composing, creating for several pages in my favorite Rhodia, Quadrille (graph) has been great fun. Change forces other creative juices to flow.

My first two books and much of my third were written first in "long hand", fountain pen, some roller ball (never ballpoint) on lined or graph paper pads. I like the organic, intimate scratch-out-a-line, draw an arrow (primitive "cut and paste") to relocate a paragraph.

But this week, necessity being the Mother of Invention, I am enjoying the all scribbling, all-the-time days I am having.

Over the years, I have learned a lot about life and business from my old friend, Bullwinkle J. Moose*:

"Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit our of my hat." Dear Bullwinkle, never did find that rabbit. Never-the-less, he kept trying and in so doing he made some wonderful and amazing discoveries in that hat of his. And he never stopped trying. 

What's the last discovery you made, in your hat–or anywhere–just because you kept trying?  Do you keep trying, go around the other way, plow through? Or do you enl;ist the classic:  try-fail-give-up method?

Funnily enough, while my Mac is on sick leave, I also needed to created, scan, and email some illustrations (see cartoon, right) to a magazine editor friend who is publishing an article I wrote for his April  issue. It's a preview by way of excerpts from my forthcoming Brainstorming book.

I pulled out my pencil, little plastic sharpener (see photo above), a few favorite India ink felt pens, and got to work.

TRY THIS: Grab an old "tool" you haven't enlisted in your creating in a while and play around for a few days. Throw a few crayons, a lead pencil, glue stick, into your bag. Or, open that draw and grab something you haven't used in  a while and make something that wasn't in the world an hour ago.

I'm going to get a refill on my coffee while there's still some latte foam left in my glass mug. And, there are a couple eight year olds breathing down my neck here in the Crosstown Cafe who wan to play Global Annihilation: Giant Elf's Revenge II on the free-to-all computers.

By the way,  after drawing eight cartoons for  my friend's magazine (he won't need them all) I kept drawing and finished a few I will be sending off to other mags I've contributed to over the years.

Keep drawing, doodling, scribbling, and rummaging through the "Stuff" drawer or tool box for old friends you haven't played with in a while.

Let me know (in the comments section), send my a snap, a scan, a jpeg of what you create.

McNair

*My favorite, all time cartoon character, bar none.