8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions

Category: January Journeys

  • Musical Motif

    One of the ideas I have about my most recent writing project is that the end goal is not (merely) a novel.

    I want to make an audio story.

    Back as far a my university days I had it in my mind to try to make an audio drama in the style of H2G2 or Ruby.  

    I went about it completely backwards, of course, trying to improv a script while learning all the audio tools. I would get five minutes of groovy sound effects wrapped around a nothing script and then quit because I had never done any planning. I was using borrowed sounds and music in free software I had very little knowledge of how to use and making up a science fiction story on the fly. It was a recipe to accomplish nothing—except maybe learn from my mistakes.

    So I’ve been working on a story first.

    But also…

    In the last couple years I have built on the knowledge I had around music theory and audio software and have started to learn the basics of music production. I have been acquiring the tools—mics, synths, mixers, recorders, and recently an effects pedal—to produce my own soundscapes. 

    And? This week I actually wrote a song. Well… actually the technical term is called a leitmotif. It is the basic building block of a recurring musical theme tied to a character, place, group, or whatever. And… I wrote one.

  • Dabbling

    The risk when taking on any new project is that it might all too quickly become another notch on one’s chalkboard of failed projects. The risk of dabbling is ultimately boredom and moving on to something else new.

    But how does one stop dabbling and start honing and refining—especially if one is inclined to be more of a dabbler than a deep diver.

    I admit, I am a bit of a shiny object guy when it comes to my hobbies. I see something new and interesting and I d dive deeply into it for a while—that is, usually, until I’ve learned enough about said shiny object that learning about it becomes less interesting than it was at the beginning. And then often, said shiny object goes on the shelf, forgotten. Dabbling done.

    To fight through and beyond the honeymoon period for any new project my tactic has generally been to use goals or public accountability or external commitments. It’s neither complex nor especially obscure. Signing up for a language class or telling everyone your running goal race or planning a trip to sketch in another country are examples of great counter-dabbling tools.

    These sorts of external motivators create a kind of reward system to overcome the raw dopamine drop when the innate rewards of dabbling fade. 

  • Doodling Inspiration

    A huge part of my creative process as I work on a new novel has been sketching.

    I assume lots of authors, the kind who are also meticulous planners, make notes. I make notes, too, but I have also been using a form of visual note taking. 

    It works like this.

    I open up the next blank spread in my sketchbook, I write the chapter name somewhere central on the page, and then I start sketching out something that is a cross between a vision board and an idea chart on that page. I include sketches of characters introduced in that chapter. I sketch out objects that make appearances in the scene. I sketch the facade of the building or the stuff hanging on the walls or the grove of trees that I think I might want to mention somewhere in the story. 

    The result is that as I then go to write the chapter itself, I have not just my plan and the words that describe what I plan to write about, but I also have this rough collection of doodles and drawings that spark more connections and drive my writing forward.

    I can’t tell you how well it will ultimately work for me because it is a new thing I am trying, but so far it seems to be inking out strong inspiration every day.

  • Impossible Summit

    It’s easy to aim too high when we start a new project. It’s easy to think that anything we create should be a final, salable product to hold up to the whole world for judgement. It’s actually pretty tough to recognize that almost everything we make should start off as something just for our own selves and maybe never become more than that.

    I am just starting out on this project and I have not only accepted that every new post is not going to be a gem of enlightenment and a spark of insight. 

    I have decades of writing experience, but even so, the idea of generating something interesting to say five times a week is daunting and seems as though an endless mountain is rising in front of me.

    Yet.

    The climb is the point. 

    I may never reach that impossible summit.

    And anyone who creates needs to be okay with that idea.

    Nothing here is meant to be a final, salable product held up for judgement because most of it is just for myself, yes, shared with the world but nothing more than that.

    January 13 – Audio Version

  • Creating on Routine

    Last October I decided I was going to sketch every single day of the month.

    I broke out a fresh sketch book, I gave myself a few basic constraints, and I drew one sketch for each day in October.

    Can you guess how many of those sketches were amazing?

    Basically none.

    Sure, there were a few solid works and I even shared a half dozen of them. But if I was seeking perfectionism—or worse, waiting for it to even get started on my artist journey—I would have drawn one thing on October first …and then very likely given up.

    Instead, I embraced it as an incremental effort of modest improvement.  The goal wasn’t to create thirty-one great sketches, no, the goal was to sketch thirty-one times.

    The goal wasn’t fame or a viral drawing or something I could sell. The goal was creating on a routine.

    It’s easy to aim too high. It’s easy to think that anything and everything we create should be a final, salable product to hold up to the whole world for judgement.

    It’s actually pretty tough to recognize that almost everything we make should start off as something just for our own selves and maybe never become more than that.

    January 12, 2026 – Audio Version