To Succeed, You Must

Posted by Theodore Maestranzi on Jan 20, 2018 in Blog Posts, It's Just Business | 0 comments

One of the most frustrating things for me is to be talking with a partner in a project (creative or non-creative) and be told that we should do something one way because that’s what everyone else is doing or because the market dictates that we have to solve a specific need.  Specifically, I have been working on a podcast (severe back burner) for two years (Record Store 2016 Baby!!!!!) and everyone tells me the same thing when it comes to monetizing the thing: “How are you going to get advertisers,” then they ask, “Who is going to listen to it”?  One, I don’t do it for money so I don’t care about monetization(I will try to get paid for the effort I put in, but I do it because I enjoy doing it).  Two, I don’t care who is going to listen to it because it is a project where I get to work with my friends and talk in a structure form; the final outcome, I have their voices preserved for all history and our crazy ideas.  I have a personal snapshot of our minds at a specific age – a portal back into the past.

Back to monitization for a moment, all podcasts use the same model for income: advertising (everything in the universe uses this except subscription services); yet, industries do the same thing (if Business A makes money doing Thing Z in way ZYX, then Business B will do their Thing X in way ZYX since it is safe and already proven to be successful).  This copycat mentality plagues all walks of life.  In order to get a book deal, you need an agent, to get an agent you need to prepare a query letter and provide certain materials based on the agent’s requirements (all utilize query letters) – this is an industry standard.

Now, the book example isn’t a problem cause it allows the writers of the world to easily move from agent to agent without killing themselves over writing a query (except each query gets rewritten, at least, that’s what I do – gotta personalize that shit).  The root of my problem is the sale of a product.  When the smart phone introduced feature X, most phones had feature X shortly afterwords.  Android looks painfully similar to iOS and vice versa.  Windows phone was unique in how it handled navigation and use (I have one, it is easy to use and is from six years ago and still doing the things I need it to do), yet, the Windows Phone OS is now dead.  Did it fail because the phone didn’t make calls?  Was it cause they were late to the party?  Or was it because it was too different?  No one will know.  In the end, we end up with X options in the world and all look the exact same with minor tweaks.

What I do know is that you have to be careful of using market research to design a product.  Unfortunately, the market only knows what exists in the market today.  So if you go to a bunch of people and ask them what they want to see in product X, they will respond with 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 but what you miss is that they can only count to 10.  While your creatives/engineers are thinking all the way to two hundred thirty six.  You should poll the market, but you should pitch them ideas they haven’t comprehended so that you solve a need they didn’t know they had.

This concept works for all creative pursuits.  The moment you start bending to the market and trying to satisfy their existing needs, you are behind the curve.  Everyone else in the world is able to read the same market as you, which means, you are competing against thousands of other products that are about to come out.  That’s the danger with building products off of the market’s desires.  So, my argument is simple, stop listening to the market and try to solve a need you have personally.  Throw your passion into it and keep revising it until you hit something people want.  Just don’t go to the market and say: “What can I build for you?”  The moment you do that, you are doing the same thing as N people. So differentiate your product by truly creating something unique that you are passionate about.

Haiku – On Clothing

Posted by Theodore Maestranzi on Jan 14, 2018 in Haiku | 0 comments

black boots, jeans, and top
white walls give way to green hills
same boots… pastel dress?

~Theodore Maestranzi

My White Whale… Document Document Document!

Posted by Theodore Maestranzi on Jan 9, 2018 in Blog Posts, Philosophical Diatribe | 0 comments

Madrid is the greatest major city in Europe.  I’ve only had fine memories of that city and perhaps it is because my young mind was bathed in swirls of rampant sexuality, a rock opera, pizza with orange sauce (I think it was a vodka sauce), carefully managing my money to make it to the end of the vacation, but most importantly, it was where my white whale lives.  As an Italian-American, who has family in Italy, I often go back to the motherland to see my cousins and they come here to visit; however my experiences in my family’s mountain village never prepared me for a modern European city.  Luckily, and being blessed/privileged enough to have the opportunity, I was able to go on a High school Trip to Europe (Paris, Madrid, and a few other towns).

To be honest, I am not even sure what memories are associated with each city/town/village.  It was a rigamarole where a teacher learned he could go to Europe for free with his family if they chaperoned an educational voyage.  So, in between eating good food, viewing architecture (Notre Dame has some fucked up sculptures above the doors – but you can get a crepe at the corner of every block), and spending time in museums (don’t see the Mona Lisa, it is depressingly anti-climatic), I was unable to really wander.  We had an itinerary that we needed to stick to for our education.  I was more aloof back then and was just enjoying my life.

So when I was in a discotheque and teenagers my age were dancing in steel cages (what the fuck Madrid), I was confused… add in the dudes who were 50 watching them and you get a strange twang of gross.  Where were their parents?  Why were so many kids making out along the walls?  Who seriously let in these old fucks?  Is this a fever dream?  Why is this soda* so expensive?  (Oh young Theodore, if only you knew that the price of beer would make that soda look cheap).

But I digress.  And this post isn’t about Madrid and the weirdness I experienced there (like that Queen Rock opera I watched when I didn’t speak Spanish… We Will Rock You is amazing – see it if you can, especially with Spaniards singing the English parts).  No… this blog post is about The White Whale… not fucking Moby Dick (I have officially met two people who have read that entire book – Hi Angelica and Jason) but specifically my White Whale which is a painting I saw in a museum in Madrid.

Now, I am a person who believes that art should speak to you on a fundamental level.  No matter what it is, when you look at it, you should be reduced and unable to comprehend why the painting is making you feel things.  You should just have an emotional response.  It should lodge itself in your mind and never relinquish its place to another memory.  No, a true painting is not something that can’t be deduced by art history or technique.  A true painting is something you see and can never forget.

Which is why a painting in Madrid is my White Whale.  I’ve forgotten everything around that painting.  All I know is that the painting is a double perspective with the Last Supper on one end and an arch on another (which arch?  only god knows or an art historian or an architect).  Wait, let’s rewind, a double perspective (if I am saying that right) means on Side A of the painting the focus is Object A but on Side B the focus is Object B; therefore, as you walk from Side A to Side B, Object A should shrink and become secondary to Object B.  Which means, you can twist what matters to the viewer by simply having them walk to the other side of the painting.  According to our tour guide, the painting was placed against a wall by the painter so the patron wouldn’t notice that the arch was the true focus of the piece.

Thus, the painting was subversive.  Instead of just painting the Last Supper, the artist went painstakingly out of their way to paint a double perspective that shifted to highlight an arch instead of the supper.  I will avoid the philosophical implications of an artist correlating Jesus to a piece of architecture because that is its own nugget to unpack.

So I am rambling, and I guess the outcome of my post is simple: take notes.  If something impacts you, don’t assume you will remember it, you won’t.  I don’t even know if this painting was in Madrid or Paris.  All I know is it was on that trip in Sophomore year. It isn’t some famous painter that you can search for on the internet (I’ve tried) or a painting that everyone knows… no this painting was a magical thing from my teenage years.  Everything that happened on that trip is inconsequential when I think of that painting.  So go out there and look at art, you never know when it will grab you and make you its servant.

One final note: the most recent piece to slap me upside the head was an intense piece of graffiti, and luckily, I had my notebook and took notes that later turned into the inspiration for a painting in Bohr’s Bathos.  You never know when inspiration or art will grab you… so be prepared.

~Theodore

*I’ll never use a brand name on this website.  Go drink some tea… soda is poison.

I am Back – End of the Year Update

Posted by Theodore Maestranzi on Jan 2, 2018 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

So this blog post was originally slated to come out on December 23rd, 2017, but I was involved in an accident where a person ran a red light and t-boned my car.  As such, I haven’t had time to focus on writing up a blog for the end of the year.  Finally, the insanity of scrambling to solve my automotive issues stabilized with an eleven hour work day today.  So, as I sit here listening to Norah Jones, I am wondering if I should wax philosophical about life and how quickly you can be snuffed out, but I won’t do that.  Instead, I will focus on what this post was supposed to be about: the end of my year.  I will probably discuss the accident later, but for now, just make sure you have side impact airbags and wear your seat belt the second you get into your car.

Now, let’s get into 2017 for me.  Specifically, it was a rough year with a lot of focus on polishing old pieces, reading, short stories, fighting for the oxford comma, and not having time for life.  In terms of writing here are some things I did this year:

• Finished Bohr’s Bathos (maybe last year | 2016)
• Polished Bohr’s Bathos (four major revisions)
• Wrote the novella: Gaia’s Revenge
• Cranked out a crap ton of short stories (see the post on my output for dates and times: State of my Writing 2017)
• Got my blog post output up there (over four per a month)
• Increased my Haiku writing
• Started Manuscript 8 (Nasty little nugget – research began at the beginning of the year and is still ongoing with 12,000+ words being written).
• Began a project called Project Grim
• Wrote a screen play with two other writers
• Further defined a two year old podcast and narrowed down what I think it will become
• And probably some other stuff I am forgetting

But what has been important is clearing the fog from my mind.  On December 23rd, 2017, I was super excited to have a blog post go out and mention that I hadn’t had a cigarette in two months.  While I still haven’t had a cigarette since September 23rd, 2017, I really wanted it to be on that date.  Yet, I survived an accident and still didn’t smoke.  I dropped booze from my life simultaneously (a beer here or there, but living that clean life yo).  And basically straightened out everything that has been a distraction from my writing.  Even eating healthy regularly has replaced the five dollar specials from my local bar.  Then I began working out regularly and my body is now falling into line with my mind.  All of this happened well before my accident, so it wasn’t some “see the white light and fix your life” moment for me.  I am just glad I didn’t slip back into old habits due to that event.

Now, I just need to get back to the basics of writing everyday.  My goal is to have a schedule that follows:

• Write
• Read
• Edit
• Workout
• Study Italian
• Cook
• Clean dishes
• Spend time with friends and family
• Veg out

Here is to 2018! Fuck resolutions, I plan to keep crushing it and cranking away at this writing thing.  Wear your damn seat belt and remember it’s those that you leave behind that suffer.

~Theodore

Be Dynamic and Change

Posted by Theodore Maestranzi on Dec 18, 2017 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

To say I’m a structured individual is honest but would also be a potential misunderstanding.  Yes, if it’s a Monday, I can tell you exactly where I will be at 6:45 PM.  Same thing for every other work day.  On the weekends, it is more of a crap shoot, but in general, I live a structured life.  Now, I do this for a clear and concise reason; I’ve got too much shit on my plate and I gotta gobble it all down.  In order to be a successful writer, I believe I should be working roughly forty hours a week on some sort of writing activity.  When you calculate the amount of time available in a week, you quickly learn that two full time jobs is extremely difficult to manage (throw in the fact that my occupation requires me to work about fifty hours a week, and the timeline gets tighter).

For example, if we assume 7 hours of sleep a night, with an hour to get ready and fall asleep, you have a 16 hour day.  Now, rip out 8 hours for work, tear off 20-40 minutes for the commute (round up to an hour for easy math), don’t forget cooking time, work out time, or cleaning the apartment/dishes, and now remove 40 hours for your other fulltime job, carry the one, and you end up with  8 hours of time to do something else.  In order to justify reading in my schedule, I count it against my 40 hours a week of writing (I am researching the competition?).  So, maintaining a highly structured life is a necessity.

Now, it is important to understand that I structure my world but I don’t let the structure dictate my life.  I allow social obligations to override my plan.

I wrote the following three paragraphs months ago.  Since then, I’ve changed my ritual again – I do less journaling but I’ve maximized my time for fiction writing (who cares about their own life anyway) and re-added morning reading to my schedule (part of my previous previous morning ritual).  So if you want to know my old schedule, take a gander below.

I have an expensive morning ritual.  I wake up, drink a water, shower, take my lunch and laptop down to the car, and then stop on my way into work and have an espresso.  Now, I have a few things I do without caring about the ramifications – this is one of them.  It is costly since I do it every day, but I do it because it grounds myself.  It forces me to get out of bed when I don’t want to.  I’ve used it to trick myself into thinking I have to be at a meeting (but really I am grabbing an espresso, journaling, and then driving to work).

Personally, I find it weird that our society treats coffee like a necessity.  I believe if you are spending the money to drink an expensive coffee, you should sit your ass down and enjoy it at the café.  Have a conversation with the baristas, see how their day is going (and truly give a shit), and then maybe read a short article/journal.  Ever since I started this ritual, I began to slide out of my slump, I began working out again, and wrote a shit load of short stories while editing my old manuscripts with a new vigor.

As such, enjoy your rituals and use them to maintain your drive.  Mine is actually cheap compared to other people’s habits.  The only issue, watch out for feelings.  Interacting with someone weekly and bonding with them on a personal level could compromise the safe place you’ve built – but I am not talking from experience or anything because my pigheadness will never let me stop writing even if the person I like is standing a foot from me as I write this post.

Haiku – On Rare Events

Posted by Theodore Maestranzi on Dec 13, 2017 in Haiku | 0 comments

warm – soft vegetation
through the ground cover – a mushroom
earth quakes – excitement

~Theodore Maestranzi

The Twelve Brothers

Posted by Theodore Maestranzi on Dec 5, 2017 in Blog Posts, Project Grimm | 0 comments

“And now a great fire was lighted in the courtyard in which she was to be burnt, and the King stood above at the window and looked on with tearful eyes, because he still loved her so much.  And when she was bound fast so the stake, and the fire was licking at her clothes with its red tongue, the last instant of the seven years expired. Then a whirring sound was heard in the air, and twelve ravens came flying towards the place, and sank downwards, and when they touched the earth they were her twelve brothers, whom she had saved.  They tore the fire asunder, extinguished the flames, set their dear sister free, and kissed and embraced her. And now as she dared to open her mouth and speak, she told the King why she had been dumb, and had never laughed.  The King rejoiced when he heard that she was innocent, and they all lived in great unity until their death.  The wicked stepmother was taken before the judge, and put into a barrel filled with boiling, oil and venomous snakes, and died an evil death.

~Brothers Grimm

I’ve noticed an ongoing theme and I believe it will continue throughout many of these fables – blood is thicker than water.  Those who are family by blood are trustworthy.  Perhaps, the trope with the stepmother being a villain began at this point, maybe, it was forged into our societies collective consciousness by this single short story.  For, this entire short story you see the brothers and their sister work together to survive and make sacrifices for one another – their love is pure and based on an invisible bond (even the quote above calls this out: “The King rejoiced when he heard that she was innocent.” because she could have talked at any point and saved herself by dooming her brothers).  Even though the king married her out of love decided to kill her at the stepmother’s behest (not sure if the stepmother is the king’s mom or not, but if she is, then the king chose blood over love).  In the end, she gets her comeuppance (see the last line of the quote above).  But, while this over arching theme/moral is great, I need to analyze it from a hero/villain moral standpoint.  [Click “Read More” to see the more detailed analysis]