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Posts Tagged ‘essays’

The Value of Waiting to Write About Personal Experience

Nov 20th, 2012
by Nick Meador.
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Please feel free to share or re-publish the following essay with credit and a link back here, according to the Creative Commons license.

(Photo by Dave Hull, used with CC permission)

In mid-2012, after a couple years of fairly consistent and productive creative writing activity, I almost stopped writing altogether. I suddenly began to feel that my perceptions were changing too rapidly to make any concrete statements about my personal experiences. Even some pieces I wrote in early 2012 started to feel embarrassing, while many essays and stories I composed half a decade ago had become totally unrecognizable as my own work.

At first I thought the lull in activity was due more to my recent move to a new place, combined with my difficulty covering basic life expenses. These have surely made it harder to get back to work on my first book manuscript after a life-shattering illness in 2011. But another reason for the delay is that I’m testing my budding personal philosophy – laid out in my manuscript in abstract form – for effectiveness in the applied realm of real life. And this year, at least, my perceptions have seemed very untrustworthy – my beliefs, constantly in flux. So I began to wonder if I would ever be able to write anything again.

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Finding Value in the Rejects of the Job Economy

Oct 15th, 2012
by Nick Meador.
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Funding My Existence — a project I’ve been working on since spring 2012 — is picking up momentum! As I wrote on the project Facebook page, “Funding My Existence is an online community intended to help people ‘make a living’ if they’re willing to share the fruits of a creative life. We hope this will help bridge our entire civilization into the future we’ve always envisioned.”

H+ Magazine just published the second article describing the project, titled “Future of Work: Finding Value in the Rejects of the Job Economy.” Here’s a short excerpt from the essay:

Unless one is capable of staying in what our society has deemed a ‘normal’ state of consciousness for 20-40 hours per week week after week, one cannot ‘make a living.’ I for one agree with Fuller’s argument that no one should have to make a living. If the time and energy required to pay bills and feed ourselves prevents us from actually making the changes and progress that we envision in the world, then we are in trouble and we have also lost our link with America’s founding mission statement to guarantee ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ to all.

If this project speaks to you and you’d like to be involved in its development, feel free to join the Funding My Existence: Advisory Team Facebook group. Please also take a look at the first FME essay from April 2012.

Funding My Existence

Apr 6th, 2012
by Nick Meador.
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Please feel free to share or re-publish the following essay with credit and a link back here, according to the Creative Commons license.

It appears we are living at the dawn of a new era. Throughout our culture we see signs of change, progress, and evolution. A “Creative Class” is on the rise that — with the help of the Internet and other related technologies — will reportedly transform our entire socio-economic system.

And yet, at the same time, something is amiss. Much of this so-called Creative Class can only prosper by finding work within the current corporate infrastructure, resulting in very little actual creativity or innovation. The very ones who might create the necessary change in society must expend their time and energy worrying about “making a living.” Those who can keep a job have to sacrifice ideas that contradict the wishes of bosses and the company’s stockholders.

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Essay in Beatdom Magazine

Aug 5th, 2011
by Nick Meador.
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The literary magazine Beatdom was kind enough to publish my essay in their ninth issue. Titled “Death Within a Chrysalis,” it’s the third excerpt (technically more of an outline) from my upcoming book. My piece looks at the influence of psychedelics on Jack Kerouac’s “spontaneous prose” style, and how he suppressed that fact because it would potentially detract from his reputation as a visionary writer, both in the public sphere and in his own family.

The print magazine is available for $11.99, shipped anywhere in the world–and it will soon be offered for digital purchase as a PDF (probably cheaper). (Update 8/18/2011: Beatdom issue #9 is now available for free download as a PDF. The print magazine is $9.99 USD, plus $2.00 for US shipping or $6 for international shipping.) Below is a preview of the essay!

At the turn of the 1960s, Jack Kerouac found himself in a profound state of limbo, representing the climax of an existential crisis that predated his life as a published author. He had been looking for an “answer” to his problems since his early twenties, yet for a variety of reasons his dilemma remained unresolved. Then a 35-year-old Jack became famous in an instant when On the Road was published in the fall of 1957, and this led to the total disruption of his already chaotic life. (more…)

Un-Doctrinate Me

Jun 14th, 2011
by Nick Meador.
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The following is an essay that I was not able to place with a magazine, but still wanted to share with the world. Feel free to re-post on your blog or website, in accordance with the Creative Commons license (just give me credit and link back here).

The 2007 documentary Indoctrinate U argues that administrative bias at American universities is hindering free speech, education value, and even human rights. But by framing the film within the context of bipartisan politics—whether that was or was not intentional—filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney fails to explain the full nature of the problem and, therefore, to suggest viable action points. Because the film unknowingly makes generalizations and misevaluations, it can help us understand how we all do that on a regular basis.

To explain what I mean, I’m going to run through the generalizations that I made, consciously or unconsciously, while watching the documentary. But first, a moment of disclosure. Since about the time the War in Afghanistan started in 2001 (when I was 18 years old), I considered myself a “liberal” or a “Democrat.” My affiliation was unofficial, involved only two instances of voting, and was inspired more than anything by my disgust over the actions of the “conservative” or “Republican” leadership then present in the country. Furthermore, I didn’t even fully realize my “liberal” bias until 2010, when I finally transcended my own worldview and was able to look at it critically. Now I generally consider myself non-“reactionary”—not so much “liberal” or “radical” as simply opposed to any kind of “anal territorial” politics that seem to have set humanity on a course for disaster. (more…)

Looking For Magazines to Publish My Work

Mar 8th, 2011
by Nick Meador.
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Web 2.0 technology has created a strange predicament for writers. There are more ways to publish than ever before–but all selective publications are swamped with submissions, and almost none are able to pay writers.

A few of my essays were published on Reality Sandwich last year, but they haven’t responded about my last few submissions. I tend to write essays in the 2,000-8,000 word range, based on a mix of documented research (I prefer to use citations) and personal experience. (more…)

My Year in Review, 2010

Jan 27th, 2011
by Nick Meador.
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2010 was a crazy year for me, with some of the highest highs and lowest lows that I’ve ever experienced. I moved out of the country, got published in a real (albeit online) magazine, began writing my first book…and even bottle-fed three foster puppies! By the holidays I was totally worn out. But now that I’m settled in the new year and working steadily on the book, I thought I would write a quick summary of what I did last year. I’ll provide links, in case you missed anything or want to read one again.

A quick calculation revealed that in 2010 I wrote about 50,000 words in essays and stories, as well as 31,000 words on the book manuscript!!! That doesn’t even count the articles on my MusicEdge blog (which I closed last April), my Refractor blog (which has been on hiatus, with a few sporadic posts, since last July), my notebooks, or my dream journal. I have to say, I’m excited by the thought that I probably topped 100,000 words in 2010—especially because that’s my goal for the book manuscript. When I lacked a first-hand sense of how much work it would take to create a book, the idea was a lot more terrifying. (more…)

Book Excerpt: The Agent of Apathy

Dec 16th, 2010
by Nick Meador.
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As some of you may know, I’m running a project on the creative funding site Kickstarter.com in hopes of self-publishing a first edition of my debut book once I’m done writing. Since the minimum funding deadline is Saturday, it doesn’t look like that project will survive. However, I’m still writing the book, and Reality Sandwich just published an excerpt from my first chapter. It’s a historical look at the “hipster” figure in Western culture called “The Agent of Apathy.” Here’s how it begins:

Over the last decade the cultural figure known as the “hipster” has increasingly turned into a target of scorn, despite an apparent disagreement over what the term means and to whom it refers. In his 2008 Adbusters article, “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization,” Douglas Haddow provides one of the keenest descriptions of this trend in its current form. (more…)

Downward Is the Only Way Forward

Sep 23rd, 2010
by Nick Meador.
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A third essay of mine was published by Reality Sandwich on 9/9/10. It’s called “Downward Is the Only Way Forward: Following Inception’s Dream Trail” (the magazine added the subtitle, but I think it works well). It was inspired by the film Inception, and in it I discuss topics as various as Eastern philosophy, psychology, quantum mechanics, and Godel’s theorems. It’s about 7,000 words long, and I consider it a landmark in my personal development as a writer. Here are the first few paragraphs for your reading pleasure.

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CC-BY: A Step into the Belated Future

Aug 15th, 2010
by Nick Meador.
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On August 12 the web magazine Reality Sandwich published a second essay of mine. Click here to read the full thing. Here’s the blurb:

Copyright law now protects creative works for almost a century. At the very least, copyright terms should be drastically reduced. Of course, the concept of revising creative compensation is based on the presumption that we will still use monetary currency with inborn inflation in the future. But a gradual transition would be better than picking up the pieces in a post-apocalyptic world.

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