Artist: any person who creates any thing: a poem, a novel, a drawing, a song, a symphony, a computer program, a garden, a cocktail.
Corroborative Evidence: any work that illustrates the fundamental Precept of TASK AVOIDANCE, in that we think the artist would have been better off procrastinating more and ABANDONING to an AUDIENCE less.
Cras melior est: the motto of the Lichtenbergian Society, meaning "Tomorrow is better." One Latin scholar has suggested that it should be Cras melium est, but 1) those guys will argue over anything; and 2) the t-shirts were already made.
Draw the Circle: the part of RITUAL where you organize/create/arrange your time and space to work: arrange your brushes/palette; set your word count; turn on the background sound.
Invocation: the part of RITUAL where you announce your intention to create: turn on the lights in the studio.
King of Hearts Fallacy: the (incorrect) idea that an artist creates a new work straight through from beginning to end; so-called from Alice in Wonderland, where the King of Hearts instructs a witness unsure of how to testify: "Begin at the beginning, go until you reach the end, then stop."
Lichtenbergian: an adherent of the proposition that Tomorrow Is Better; procrastination is key to creativity
Refractory period: That time after finishing one project and before you start the next; a lull of inactivity and indecision; also called "the turning of the tide"; best not to fight it.
Scenius: a group of like-minded creative individuals who reinforce each other's creativity; a group "genius"; see The Inklings, the Fauves, etc.
Shinyperfect hypothesis: Posits that the reason our ideas look perfect in our head but crappy on the page is that the brain has an incomplete idea, fills in the gaps with mysterium, gets a shot of dopamine as a reward, then quits. In other words, the shinyperfect idea in our heads is an illusion; hence the Lichtenbergian ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS > GESTALT > SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION cycle. [see also: King of Hearts Fallacy]
Take the Path: the part of RITUAL where you actually are at work; taken from my backyard labyrinth, where we say that you have to get up and leave the fireside and walk the labyrinth in order to gain anything from it.
