Present Before the Future: Chronic Pain & Creativity (video)
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Present Before the Future: Chronic Pain & Creativity (video)

There’s been something on my mind lately about how I approach my chronic pain (migraines! 🤕) that has similarities to my approach with creative projects (writing! ✍️ YouTubing! 📽️ coding! 👨‍💻 podcasting!). It relates to the distinction between future-focused issues 🔮 and present-focused issues 🧘. And so I tried to capture it in this video…

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On Writing with Chronic Migraines
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On Writing with Chronic Migraines

My essay on chronic pain and creativity is featured in Catapult Magazine this week. 🤕 Here’s an excerpt: “It’s hard to explain chronic pain to someone who doesn’t experience it, the way the physical pain blurs together with the psychological toll it takes. I mean, the actual pain is plenty painful—sometimes so bad that it’s hard to want to live. But a lot of the time it’s more about the accumulation of the pain. It’s like listening to that leaf blower outside that isn’t too annoying for one minute but grows maddening after two hours. It’s hard to imagine that the leaf blower will ever stop. Or when it does stop for a moment, you’re just brooding, worrying, waiting for that asshole to start it up again.” 🤕 To read more about my chronic pain, and my chronic creativity, and my dislike of leaf blowers, click the link in this post.

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8 musical shorts from an insecure writer (video)
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8 musical shorts from an insecure writer (video)

About a year ago, somewhere in the dark corridors of 2021, I got stuck in my creative life. At the same time, I knew that my novel was going to come out with Red Hen Press in 2022 and I wanted to keep creating things. So what I did was take some of the basic stuff I learned about music from my friend Joey Helpish, along with some of the struggles I was feeling about the creative process… and I made eight, short, awkward, animated music videos about my creative struggles. In the past few weeks I’ve posted them on TikTok and Instagram, but since I totally don’t know what I’m doing on those platforms, I also compiled them together into one video (with some explanations between songs) for YouTube. And here it is. 📽📽📽

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Pain Scale from 1 to Fuchsia (podcast)
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Pain Scale from 1 to Fuchsia (podcast)

I suffer from chronic migraines. Every week I have to work through the ups and downs of how I feel. In this Neurotic Tornado podcast episode, my wife and I talk about how we manage our lives alongside my chronic pain.

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Writing Through Pain (video)

It's time for my yearly visit to the online surface — where I pop my head up, look around, and when I don't get enough likes (or I get too many likes), I go back into my hole until next year. This time I'd like to share with you a video I made about how I write alongside chronic pain...

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video video

The Pain in My Head (video)

Who wants to watch a ten-minute video about chronic pain and headaches!? Of course you do! In this latest video, I walk you through the experience of having a nine-month headache... I've been a little bit obsessed with trying to think about (and talk about) the suffering associated with chronic pain. And so I made this delightful romp into my headache saga. I actually do intend it to be entertaining to watch, regardless of whether you can relate -- at the very least, it'll be easier to stomach than a presidential debate. This video will also be used as a quasi-valid excuse for why I haven't responded much on social media, or gone to many social events, or been productive at my creative projects in 2015, or failed in all the other ways. Enjoy!

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