If You Love It, Let It Go (from the Overlord’s Clutches)

As of Thursday (14/9-2023) the intellectual property Fables enters the public domain. Which, in itself is nothing surprising. Intellectual property tends to do that, over the span of about a hundred years (no shitting), regardless of how much the IP owners fight it. What is surprising with Fables is that this move happens on the behest of its creator, Bill Willingham, some 80 years before its time.

Why? Because Bill Willingham wants to tell DC Comics to fuck off and die in a fire. I’m paraphrasing.

In an unprecedented move, Willingham takes it upon himself to rip his creation out of DC’s claws, relinquishing his rights to the rest of the world. Apparently, his relationship with DC has been on the fritz for years, with the comic book publisher squeezing him out of his contractual rights, withholding pay, and other ass-hattery. Seeing no way out but the nuclear option, Willingham puts his money where his mouth is in this open letter, and tears DC’s exclusive use of Fables away from them.

And it is glorious.

DC Comics recently came out and refuted Willingham’s claim to have the right to release the refugee story-book villains and heroes into the wild, but whether or not they have the right to say no I guess is up to circle-jerking lawyers to contend. Copyright laws are opaque by design, because if laws are too convoluted to paint a picture, they inevitably benefit those with enough money to just throw lawyers at the problem like spaghetti on a wall.

Why does this matter?

This move by Willingham, whether successful or not, is a signal fire. A breached rampart. A banner. A hymn at the darkest hour that lets us know that no matter how heavy wallets they have, how many lawyers they can send, how far their dicks swing, Big Corporation do not intrinsically control creative works. They never have and never will, no matter how hard they pretend to.

The release of Fables (all of whom were taken from the public domain initially, ironically enough) is a proof of concept – a powerplay – with no benefit but to tear down the monstrosity that is corporate art. And say what you want about Bill himself, this is an act of mutually assured destruction of the highest honour.

Leeches do not own art (yet). Leeches do not own artists (yet). And though leeches will do everything in their power to convince you otherwise, they cannot unless you let them (ever).

/Sebastian Lindberg 19/9-2023

Amidst the Gospel of Spin Doctors

When I was
a young boy
my father…

stole away my trust in parental figures and taught me humility. Not in some grand lecture or orchestrated lesson, mind. No, rather by… example. He was not a humble man. He was an egocentric narcissist. A crude bully. A pebble who thought himself a mountain.

Odds are, he still is. I wouldn’t know.

But his example taught me well. Never to toot your own horn. Never slap your own back. Never look upon your achievement and smile, but worry it for cracks and mistakes. Not only never to rest on your laurels, but never be the person to judge whether there’re laurels to rest on at all.

In short; never be your own hype man.

Which, as it turns out, is a problem in this our current state of affairs.

Selling yourself is a fundamental virtue in our hyper-capitalist society. It matters nothing what you can do, or who you are, but only what you can convince other people of you being and doing. Seeming is infinitely more important than being. Marketing, making splashes, making an impact, is all that matters. Whether we’re talking about getting a job, getting a raise, inventing a solution to world hunger, or instituting world peace. Belief, faith, the perception of ability is the same as the real thing.

We live according to the gospel of spin doctors.

And I have never been a fan of spinning myself. Feels insincere. Feels slimy. Makes me sick to my fucking stomach, truth be told. I don’t lack for pride, oh no, not by far. But when the difference between being good and seeming good is being shit, I cannot help but to veer toward capable anonymity.

Which makes this whole self-promotion thing, when you have a published novel on your hands to peddle, a bit of a conflict of interests. Especially when such self-promotion means sitting in front of a camera for four hours, try to be entertaining, and talking about my labours like they were the second (third?) coming. Because, yes, pursuing the promotion of my book has driven me into streaming as a way of talking about it to disembodied prospective readers.

I’m proud of my work. I am proud of The Last Box, warts and all. I think it is a beautiful piece of fiction, which says things both new and fresh in a stale genre. I am proud of what I’ve made since. But in a world of integrity, I should not have to be the one to convince you of that. The work itself should, in lieu of a vanguard. But alas, we do not live in a world of integrity. We live in a world of saturation. Where it is all too easy for a book of wisdom to get lost in the wash of dregs and drivel.

Which leaves me starring as the proverbial rope in a tug-of-war between observed demand and imagined virtue. But perhaps that’s not such a bad place to be? Perhaps that’s the point? For morality to not serve as an end, but a counter balance. A tether to the other side to let us dredge for success in a modicum of safety.

Either case, now I’m not just a published author, but also a fucking streamer to boot. Another drum of mine own to beat the shit out of and provide some more wash to the media flood.

That fucking tether better have enough tensile strength…

/Sebastian Lindberg 11/7-2023

Bottles of Trash and Treasure

It turned out to be deceptively easy to create a way for people to give me money. Almost as if it was expected of me. Expected of everyone. Just like we are all, our bodies and souls and spare time, just products to be peddled for the entertainment and distraction of the rest of the world.

You’re a product. You’re a brand. You’re always on, online, hooked up, performing, dance monkey dance to the mad piper at the centre of the internet. You are content, and all content must be monetized.

I mean, it makes sense. Doesn’t it? You make something, for someone, for some reason. You send your creation off, rudderless, to sail a black lake, no knowing who’ll pick it up. Why not get something for it?

When I was a kid, a friend of mine found a bottled message, preserved and forgotten, penned some 30 years past in a neighbouring country. Just to see if it ever got anywhere. It got somewhere. Three decades later. It got into the hands of a ten year old kid sitting by the dockside of his family’s little cabin in the bay. Much ado about nothing erupted. The message was irrelevant. Nothing of import it contained. What rattled the local papers, and made the kid a five-minute-celebrity, wasn’t what was in the message. But that someone found it.

We never really stopped putting messages in bottles, did we? We just switched out one kind of silicon for another. Bottles for hypertext transfer protocols. Paper for binary. And we throw them into a sea infinitely vaster than the Baltic. With a vain hope to be paid for our efforts.

So what? What’s the problem? Reel it in, monkey, and tell us what your point is.

My point, I suppose, isn’t a criticism. There’s nothing wrong with sending rudderless messages out to sea. Who knows who might pick it up, or when. There’s a romance to it, to be sure. Nor is my point about the all-consuming hunger for content. I’m a story teller. I love telling stories. Which is all content. Always has been. Long before internet was birthed, certainly as it lives, and no doubt long after it’s been found dead by autoerotic asphyxiation to a thirteen-part yiff snuff film.

My point is fear. For while you tell stories by the virtual camp-fire, sending your little bottles out to blackened seas with no return address, you can imagine that they’ll someday, somewhere, attain meaning to someone. They are invaluable, because they have had no tangible value attached to them. They are, and forever will remain, priceless treasures of an age.

But the moment we place a price tag on them, as soon as we attach a little note asking a reader to send money and a peanut, we place a tangible value upon our messages. We rip them from the heavens and their radiant kin, shackle them with a price, and set them loose to rally dividends. And if they fail, if the trawling masses aren’t charmed enough to be charged 8.99 excluding tax, we have effectively turned our sea-bound treasures into ocean-clogging trash.

And who wouldn’t fear when exposing their little creations, their little bottled treasures, to the risk of such a dreadful fate?

/Sebastian Lindberg 2/5-2023

An Imposter Spectre

She shuffled from side to side, anxious and self-conscious. She twiddled her thoughts, wrung them dry, and bit her lip.

”It’s not perfect”, she lamented. ”There are hundreds – thousands – of singers that could sing my song better than I can. So what’s the point?”

And just like that, at the drop of an insecure concern, I lost my shit. And I didn’t find it again for a good few railing minutes.

My friend is a burgeoning singer-songwriter. Right at the cusp of her career, with her first original music cast out into a gaping maw of public opinion. A scary prospect. A small practical step with monumental connotations. And in a passing moment of terrible apprehension, something that any creative creature faces on a regular basis, she worried that just because her work could perhaps have been done better by some other songwriter, some other singer, some other producer, hers wasn’t good enough for entering into the world. Warts and all.

It is a frustrating fact: There is always someone out there in the world that is better than you are at any particular thing. It’s as close to a statistical truth as you’re ever going to get. And in the competitive field of artistry, that truth is galling. I know.

Which is perhaps why it pissed me off so fiercely. I hear the same nagging taunts at the back of my head. No one wants a second-rate, or third- or fourth- or millionethed, version of Poe or King or Palmer. Why make the effort when there’s someone better out there, that probably does the same thing you do but better. Or at least could do the same thing you do. But better.

But you know what? Fuck that spectre of inadequacy up in a truck-stop rest room with a broken toothbrush that you found in a mouldy crack between the tiles. Puncture that fucker right in its galling fucking face. Because that haunt is an irrelevant cretin that has absolutely no reason creeping around a truck-stop in your mind on a lazy Thursday afternoon.

Because even if Freddy Mercury is a better singer than Mick Jagger, no one wants that moustachioed marvel to front the Rolling Stones. Because people still enjoy Catch-22 even if Paulo Coelho didn’t write it. Because street art can still be a trippy revelation even if Dali didn’t sign it.

The point is, it doesn’t matter if someone else could have done what you just did better than you. They haven’t done it. They didn’t do it. You did. It’s yours. And comparing your work, your glorious creation, to the works of others isn’t your job. It’s the job of critics; those that can’t do what you or other “more talented” artists have done.

Your work may not be perfect. Maybe it never will be. Maybe there will always be a plethora of other creative creatures that you envy the shit out of. But none of that matters. Because you do you. You did the thing. Maybe someone else could have done it, your music or your manuscript, but they didn’t. You did. It’s yours. And that’s what’s important.

/Sebastian Lindberg 21/10-2019

Fruitless Labours

Trying to become an artist is a soul-wrenching thing. I can only assume that being one is no bed of roses either. When you’re in the zeitgeist, you’re assumed to be infallible. When you’re not in the zeitgeist, it doesn’t matter how good you are. So why would anyone in their right mind want to make the gargantuan effort?

It’s a difficult endeavour, getting into an artistic profession. Unlike a job, a career, an education, there aren’t many forces behind your artistic pursuits other than your own inner fire. Your limping, withering passion that needs to be utterly dauntless. Society doesn’t give a damn about another bohemian artist. The government would rather that you produce taxes like a good little cog. And your friends, your family, well… they may support you, but even the most fundamental relationships are difficult to maintain without some ”practical” life choices.

It’s a scary thing. The empty page. The unstrung lute. The blank canvas and the unsculpted clay. Unrealised potential demands so much of us.

Because today, as an artist, you need to be provenly commercially viable before being allowed to prove it. You need to be controversial without offending a single porcelain soul. You need to be visionary without straying from anyone’s comfort zones. And anything less than the next Just-Kidding Rowlings, Garotte-Revered-Rabble Martin, or the reincarnation of Mister Mercury is considered an abject failure.

There is no room for ‘good-enough’ in a world of stars and gods…

I’m yet to be published. I do not know what success looks, smells, or feels like. To me it seems like an amorphous pipe-dream, and I’m unable to take the possibility of it seriously. Thus, I don’t rightly know if it’s all worth it. I don’t know if the potential for accolades, royalties, or the prospect of having touched another human soul is in the end worth all the misery, sacrifices, and hardships getting there…

Maybe not. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why depression, substance abuse, and general mental unwellness seem so rampant within the artistic fold. Maybe the pursuit of the creative dream isn’t worth the effort at all. Not worth the tangible struggle against mortgages, bills, debts, and rent. Not worth the constant stream of rejections and disheartening responses.

But despite lacking evidence thereof, I have to believe that it is worth it. If only for one solitary reason: What ever would the world look like, whatever would our disparaging civilization amount to, if not a single one of us made that struggle? What would our world be like if no one ever lifted the pen, the plectrum, or the brush?

Because this, whatever we want to call this mess of world affairs that we have on our hands right now, has got to be better off than it would be without the artist’s thankless struggle.

/Sebastian Lindberg 24/8-2018

Procrastination as Art

I’ve written a lot of angry shit these past few weeks. No-no, I’m not apologizing. If anything, it’s the world and all you fuckers living in it that should apologize to me. For what? For doing all the stupid shit that piss me off. What did you expect would happen when you elect madmen (and madwomen or madpersons) to rule your existence? Of course you’ll piss me off.

No, this week, I’m going to take you through my creative process. And that decision has nothing to do with me not knowing what else I should pen to paper. It’s not like there ain’t material around for something more incendiary or alienating. I just feel like writing something a bit more up-beat before next week, where I’ll bludgeon you with them truth-words yah’ll be lacking so fiercely in your regular every-day lives.

Okay, first thing you’re going to need when you want to create something, more specifically write something, is an idea. It doesn’t have to be much. It can be anything. Like, for instance, a discussion you had the other night with someone twice your age and half your weight, that smelled like roasted carrots and week old feline feces, while going home from a party with the last tram. Or it can be a horrifyingly visualized phrase that you can’t get out of your head in any other way than with industrial grade bleach. Or a pen.

Now, what you want to do is sit down. Bring up your paper or equivalent word processing software and try to nail your thought or idea into one solitary sentence. This will be your foundation. Or load bearing wall. Change it however much you want throughout the process, but always have one up.

The next part of the process is open to individualization. Personally, I stare at the watch for about ten minutes. It is feasible to stare at it longer than this, as long as you don’t stop doing it between the twentieth and the twenty-fifth minute. This is a vital detail that is easy to forget for the layman.

Now you should be ready to write down a paragraph or two. Get your project started. This is the part of the process where you will create the next best work you have ever produced. If that’s not the case, you’re doing it wrong. If the words that you put down on paper at this junction are not next-to-perfect, you’ve failed following my instructions, and the only advice I can responsibly give you is to erase everything you’ve scribbled up to this point and start over. Preferably with a bit of bourbon in your coffee. Or with less coffee in your bourbon.

If you have cleverly avoided this very dangerous pitfall in the creative process, you can read on. These next steps are crucial to reaching perfection.

I usually notice a little tumbleweed of hair and dust making a pilgrimage towards the kitchen. What follows now is a variable multiple-choice response that you need to get on-top of without a moments hesitation.

Option 1: If the bundle of skin, hair and murdered textile fiber reaches the end of your kitchen, you need to pick up the closest unopened envelope and start examining every line of text and graphical design of it. Memorize every detail. This will become very important later in the process. But if the envelope is for a bill, you’re not allowed to pay it. Not until you’ve finished your writing project. If you do, you can regard that act as a failure state.

Option 2: If the bundle of skin, hair and murdered textile fiber instead makes it’s way out of the kitchen, you need to stay there and check up on the contents of your fridge. Whether you end up having a snack or not, it’s imperative that you open and close the fridge door, no less than three times and no more than seven times. The doors to dry storage, cabinets and a possible freezer are included in this count, but be sure that the fridge door is the first and last door you open.

Option 3: If the bundle of skin, hair and murdered textile fibers latch onto a carpet, threshold or the leg of a stool and/or chair, you will need to clean your house or apartment. All of it. You will need to channel your innermost methedrine-fueled housewife like a shamanistic spirit animal, and whatever spiritual effort that is required of you to achieve this higher state of being will be worth it. This is the most dangerous part of the creative process, and perhaps the most important one. All the floors need to be vacuumed, including shelves. You can ignore the top of bookcases or window sills, but other than that you will need to banish every mite of dust. Do not enter your bathroom. If you do, you will also need to scrub the toilet and make insincere plans to wash your shower curtain. If you do not have a shower curtain, you will need to spend at least five minutes figuring whether or not you need one. The results of this conundrum are not important to the process.

Once you have completed either of the three options, you may resume writing. But before you do, you should re-read what you have already committed to text. At this moment, you will find your scribblings to be less than ideal in quality. As such, you will erase it. All of it. And start from scratch.

Do not lament. You will feel pride in yourself. In that you can make such an executive decision with your work. Not only that, but the words will pour from you like ambrosia from a goblet of the gods. It is possible that you will find distractions throughout this step, but those will be minor ones. Like a collection of the hundred cutest cat-snake or river-puppy pictures on the internet. This is fine. In no time whatsoever, you should have finished your project. Well, the first draft that is.

You should take some time away from your project now. Take a walk. Outside is preferable. Have dinner. Do not watch television. You should be away from your work for at least two hours. And when you come back, you can really get elbow deep in the literary carcass you now see before you. Because at that moment in the process, you will find that at least a third of what you have written is worse than what you started with. And it will have to be erased. Do not fear. This is perfectly natural for a creative creature. The devastating panic you’re sensing shall only fuel a mad dash, for circa thirty minutes, as you try to restore what you have erased. And to fill all the narrative or rhetorical holes that litter your production.

I feel that I must warn you that you may feel obliged to clip your toenails or trim the hairs in your nose at this point, but do not listen to that bitch of a siren’s song. That self-conscious harlot-specter of grooming will try to rip you away from finally finishing, but you cannot listen to her musing. Push her out of your mind. Preferably under a bus. You’re close now.

While ignoring the ghost of inadequacy, re-write a third of your sinking ship of a writing project. Do this right before your deadline. These panicked and fearful words shall be the best you have ever or ever will produce, and you will never ever feel proud of them.

You lean back. Breathe for the first time since you sat back down. Stare with abject horror at this patch-work homunculus of semi-literate word-garble. You look around. Look back at the screen. Sigh in self-critiquing defeatism and hit the save icon. And then you’re finished.

/Sebastian Lindberg 16/5-2017