8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions

Category: [2026] The First Year

Chapter List

  • Voice Work

    I broke and I bought a new action camera.

    I’ll spare too many details, but the short version is that I’ve been meaning to upgrade for a while and we have three travel adventures planned over the next year, not to mention a long list of local walking and running adventures, and I’ve been craving having a (reliable) camera back in my hands for action videography. Long story short, I splurged and… well… new toy.

    One of the upgrades from my decade-old model tho piqued my curiosity: the new one has a front facing screen intended, as I am given to understand, for video blogging selfie-style recording.

    Ugh—was my first thought. I’m not very good at that.

    Hmmm—was my second thought: maybe that’s actuall a skill I should try to learn.

    New camera, new approach, new skill. And oh look! I have this place where I write and post about just that sort of thing: honing creative skills.

    Not everyone has a voice for video. Not everyone has a confidence for turning the camera on oneself and hitting record. And heck, I would be the poster model for those two hesitations and probably a long list of others I haven’t even considered.

    Maybe it’s time to remedy that.

    Maybe. 

    Or maybe I’ll just take some good running videos.

  • Morning Person

    It’s nearly 8pm as I write this and I’m stumped.

    I do almost all my writing for this project in the mornings. I get a hot mug of tea, I set up in a quiet-ish place, I open up my word processing software, and I just start writing.

    It’s nearly 8pm as I write this and my family is out for the evening leaving me alone with a quiet house, no obligations, and drizzling bit of cozy weather outside. One would think I’d be up to my elbows in motivation, huh?

    Instead, I’m stumped.

    I’m writing about writing and how I can’t find the focus to write, which is exactly what writers do when they can’t find the motivation or inspiration to write what they are supposed to be writing. Ugh! Writers.

    Lucky for me I have a whole blog about this sort of thing.

    One set of advice will tell you (and I strongly agree) to treat creativity as a job. Sit down. Make the conditions. Get it done. Excuses are people who don’t finish their projects.

    But then—well—there is also a realistic part of me that acknowledges that productivity and progress on a project is also about knowing the conditions when you work best, having a routine, and being in the right frame of mind.

    I’m a morning person.

    I work best in the morning.

    I’m productive in the morning.

    I wrote this in the evening proving that I’m not rigidly locked to that schedule, but given the choice—well, you get the point.

  • Insta Warrior 

    I just opened up the app and counted: as of this writing I have eight active accounts on Instagram.

    Each of them is unique.

    Each of them is maintained.

    None of them are popular.

    Look, I am not some kind of dabbling influencer wannabe, just so we’re clear on that point.

    I just see it as a tool for expression. It is a blank wall upon which to scrawl the products of my art, as tempting as a passing train car might be to a graffiti artist with a backpack full of fresh spray paint.

    It is there, so I use it.

    My most recent work on the platform has been me posting monochromatic photos: I only upload black and white pics that I’ve captured, from textures and abstract shadowy artsy-fartsy illusions to simple monotone landscape shots from my wandering adventures.

    It is not meant to build a following or create a brand or generate an audience or—forbid—become a revenue source. It is nothing more than a creative outlet that caught my inspiration one rainy spring day and has grown the barest semblance of metaphorical legs that has kept it going for a couple months (so far).

    Art is expression.

    Art is filling blank spaces with humanity.

    Art is using the tools that are right in front of you to spread a bit of joy, drive a taste of curiosity, and cast a feeling out into the universe without knowing what the result might be—if any at all.

    It is the silent warrior.

  • Advice Less

    You may have found this blog project and be thinking that I’ve made a terrible mistake.

    There’s not really much advice here, you might be thinking.

    You’re not wrong, but you’re not right.

    This was never intended to be a manual about being a creative person. No. Not at all. It was meant to be a collection of thoughts on the accidental nature of creativity. I have no solid advice. I have no lists of skills to check off on your way towards success.  I have no morals or lessons or cautionary tales with polished insights at the end.

    This is a fumbling, imperfect exercise in abstraction. It is an daily exercise in being lost on a path that is as much about the journey as it is about a destination. Imperfection is the goal.

    You want a lesson?

    Fail more. Because it means you tried something and maybe learned.

    Embrace different. Because it might be the only way to stand out in a crowd.

    Close your eyes and ignore all the other advice. Because copying is what machines do and the humanity of creativity is something that might not be teachable so much as felt, gleaned, experienced, caught, or whatever.

    You’re not wrong. There isn’t much advice here, just a few notes from the last guy to wander this path and never really find his way out.

  • People Places

    I am writing this from within the abyss of the political dark ages of the mid twenty-twenties. 

    Nationalism is in a kind of haphazard resurgence. The media is faltering. Artificial intelligence is clouding the internet with a seemingly unlimited supply of slop and misinformation.

    It is dire.

    And artists have this important role to play: continuing to make stuff despite the inanity. 

    Despite wars. Despite clashing cultures. Despite self-dealing politicians. Despite generative algorithms pumping out dead-on-arrival content.

    And to top it all of, half of the people that could read this will discount it as the words of a man sitting across on the other side of a funhouse mirror making up a reality they disagree with. We can’t even see eye to eye on that anymore.

    Culture is opinion. Opinion is truth. And truth (whatever that might be) has always shaped the stories we tell through our words, sounds, music, and art.

    I write this very blog in competition with countless algorithms that will fight to ensure it only get seen if it generates money for a shareholder somewhere, profit for a corporate bottom line, or revenue for someone who is probably not me.

    We are humans caught up in a system and we are treading water in a creative torrent that we can barely understand. The abyss is below. The sky is above—so long as we can keep our heads above the flow of society.

    Under the category of People & Places, I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.