WEBVTT
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Hey, cool friends, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way,
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I am still your host and you are listening to
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the twenty twenty four swap Athon. So you may have
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heard me mention previously that each week in the month
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of December, I am doing a feed swap with a
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show that I enjoy that I think that you would enjoy,
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which means another podcast and myself are teaming up and
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we are sharing each other's episodes. So I just wanted
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to jump on and let you know that this week's
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feed swap is with my Horror Confessional. I hope that
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you enjoy today's episode, and thank you so much to
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today's swap mont Sure for agreeing to do this. I
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hope that you enjoy this episode, this treat, and I
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hope that you have been enjoying your holiday break. I
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cannot wait to see you all in the new year.
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Until then, one more time, please enjoy this episode.
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Hello, sinners, I just wanted to drop in and tell
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you that my who Or Confessional is now part of
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the Gulish podcast network. In addition to producing podcasts, Goulish
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is also a publisher. Goulish Books has published dozens of
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horror books that have gone on to receive award recognition
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and even film adaptation treatments. Browser Spooky offerings over at
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Gulish dot rip and use discount code Confessional for ten
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percent off your order, and remember Goules Live, Spooky, Die Spooky.
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Hello everyone, my name is Miguel Myers. Welcome to My
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Horror Confessional, where every week I'll have a guest come
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on and talk about one classic horror movie that they
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haven't seen and why. We'll discuss the movie, the actors,
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and probably get off topic quite a bit. Once I
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believe they are properly a toned, I will absolve them
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of their horror movies. And today we have returning guests
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Jessica McHugh. Jessica is a three times Bram Stoker Award
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nominated poet, a multi genre novelist, and an internationally produced
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playwright who spends her days surrounded by artistic inspiration at
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a Maryland tattoo shop. She's had thirty books published in
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fifteen years, including her Elegent Award nominated Blackout poetry collection,
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A Complex Accident of Life, her sci Fi Bizarre Ramp Sorry,
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her Sci Fi Bizarre Romp, The Green Kangaroos, and her
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cross generational horror series, The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy explore the
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growing world of Jessica McHugh at mcuniverse dot com. Best
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website name ever. Thank you, but just go Welcome to
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back to the show.
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Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to
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be here and talk about this film.
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I'm so happy you chose this movie one because you know,
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I enjoy it, but it's been a while since I
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saw it. And of course we're talking about Summer Party Masacre,
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and we'll get to it a second. But the reason
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why is because I'm so excited that you chose it.
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Is for the last two out of three weeks, I did,
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I Spit on your Grave and then I did The
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Devils are both deal with you know a lot of stuff,
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and I don't want to get to get into it
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because I don't want to have to do trigger warning
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this one, because I've done trigger warning is in the
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last year, following up that with the slumber Party Massacre,
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which is basically you know, popcorn theater sort of stuff.
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It was great. So yeah, so but you last time
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you were on, we talked about the People under the Stairs,
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and it's been about a year and a half ago,
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probably two years ago.
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Yeah, Yeah, it's a great movie, and I was scared
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of it for.
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So long, you know, I remember like every now and then,
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I just remember that story you told me about the billboard.
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It seems so silly now, like back in time and
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be like you're scared of a billboard. Like it's fun.
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So people, if you haven't heard it, the episode Jessica
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is a great gus and it's a funny, great story.
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So I'm actually gonna tell you, guys that go listen
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to that episode. She was one of the first guests
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to head on and it's always just so much fun.
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So since since we've talked, obviously you are you always
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working on something. So what are you working on right now?
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Right now, I am finishing the third book in the
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Gardening guide Books trilogy. It'll be out next year from
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Grulish Books. And that one is Witches in the Warren.
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It's a nineteen eighty two glam rock horror novel and
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it is it's wild, it's it's perfect, like kind of
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eighties trash gore, like super fun time, and I think
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it's good. I think people are gonna enjoy the way
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I'm tying up the trilogy. I'm also working on my
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new Blackout Poetry collection and it is erotic horror inspired
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by Wuthering Heights.
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So and it's.
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Writing it in a play format as well, So it's
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just going to be a very theatrical, gross good time.
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And so you're talking about your blackout poetry. I recall
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because I follow you on Instagram, and I recall with
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fairly recently, maybe it was with within a year. So
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there was somebody that came out against blackout poetry and
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then you you, and like your the people around you
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were like, what the hell are you talking about? Blackout
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poetry is is great and cool, Well can you can you?
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We don't need to name names. And if it's and
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if it's something you want to talk about, that's fine
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as well. But I was just curious, what what was
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that about?
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Yeah, I I honestly I don't even remember the person
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who said it. You know, it comes up every every
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once in a while someone's just like blackout poetry is
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like lazy or it's not art because you're just you know,
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using words that are already there and whatever. And I mean,
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I think in some ways blackout poetry is uh incredibly
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difficult because you only have the words in front of
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you and the letters in front of you. I mean,
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when you're when you're writing any kind of anything from scratch,
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you have every word in existence, in every language in existence.
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You have you know, the sky is not the limit
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in blackout poetry. There's a very clear limit. Yeah, you
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can use but yeah, no, it was it was just silly.
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It's it's you know, it's artist subjective, and you know,
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obviously it's not every kind of art is going to
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be for everybody. So uh yeah, it was just someone
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expressing their opinion, uh myself and a lot of other
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people that disagreed with that opinion. And so when they
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tweeted this thing, everyone just started making blackout poetry from it.
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So that's, oh my god, that was so good.
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And I mean, and that's that's what's great, because i mean,
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like I said, you can use the words in front
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of you, but you can also just use letters to
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build stuff. You can go different directions, you can go
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all over the page, and it's you know, it's it's
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it's a lot of fun. And anyone who thinks it's
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like not art or lazy just hasn't explored it enough.
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I don't know. Yeah, all right, so forgetting her that
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negative part, what is it about blackout poetry that draws
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you to And then I have a follow up question
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about like how you go about doing it, But first
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I do want to hear, like, what what is it
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that draws you to blackout poetry? Yeah?
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Absolutely, So blackout poetry is essentially finding a poem hidden
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within a larger piece of prose. So you're taking an
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existing piece of text. I mean you could write blackout
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poetry from poetry or you know, plays or a VCR
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instruction manual like anything that you have. But yeah, it's
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just finding a little hidden poem. Or you could think
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of it as flash fiction as well, finding something hidden
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inside and then using art in whatever context you wish
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to black out quote unquote the superfluous text. So you know,
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that can be as simple as just crossing out the
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words you don't need. It could be as complex as
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you know, removing the ink from the page using pieces
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of tape or something like that, or you know, making
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a sculptural piece. Even so, it's really up to the person.
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For me, like when I'm writing, you know, when you're
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writing and you like you write the perfect line, You're like, oh, damn,
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I am good, Like you know that moment. That's every
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time I write a black home poem. Like the payoff
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for me emotionally is is just really really high, and
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it's like three ye're threefold, you know, I get to
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I find a poem. I you know, I kind of
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perfect it a little bit because you know, there there
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really is when you're thinking about using the art later,
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you know, you maybe write the initial poem, You're like, oh,
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maybe choosing this the over here, you know, I know
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people can't see where I'm pointing.
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Is not every way they can on the Patreon on
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the Patreon, so you know, there's.
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A way to almost sculpt the words to aid the
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artwork you're going to be doing later. So you you
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write the poem, it's beautiful. Great, Then you get to
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add the art even cooler. Then maybe you publish it. Yay,
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I published a poem, or you sell it to somebody
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in a commission. Now someone has it up on their wall.
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You know.
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For me, that's that's the joy I get from it
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is all those things, But the main thing is just
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finding this this really cool turn of phrase hidden within
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another writer's vocabulary, which is so fun to play in
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because it's like it's it's like playing in a playground
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that isn't your own as far as you come to
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you know, your own pieces with your own vocabulary. And
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then then you get to see how often Luisa may
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Alcott liked using the word but whole for some reason.
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But so for me, it's it's just fun. It's it's
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a lot of fun. And yeah, and that's why I'm
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that's why I'm write, but I do any kind of
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art because it's fun.
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Yeah. Is it like unlocking so sort of like a puzzle?
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Is it like a puzzle that you just that?
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Sometimes totally? And there are different ways where I do
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it where you know, I kind of just sit there
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and it's almost like you know, one of those stereogram
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like the magic eye. Like times it will just pop
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out at me. And like there really isn't that much
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like effort involved as far as trying to create it.
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I'm like, oh, that's the hidden poem in here, or
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I can approach it where I'm like I'm looking for
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a poem to do this, you know, so I actually
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really try to use the words and letters to create
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the feeling I want and I do that a lot
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more with like commission, because I always ask for you know,
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is do you have a theme in mind? You know,
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some people want like, you know, gory horror from Charlotte's Web,
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or they want a romantic poem from where the Red
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Fern Grows, which was fun and uh, and you know,
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you you start to look for the words that are
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in that kind of miliu of like love and that
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kind of stuff, and then you I start to craft
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something very specific based on that rather than just kind
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of allowing it to I was gonna say, come upon me,
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But I don't know if that's the Sometimes it feels
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like that when you're making.
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Hard So I guess sin kind of following up with that.
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I guess when it's a commission, you know what you're
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what you're gonna be working with, like if they ask
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for a specific book or something like that. But when
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you're writing for yourself, are you creating for yourself? How
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do you how do you choose perhaps work that you're
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going to be looking at or the particular page, like
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are you going to go and pay page by page
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or do you like? How does that? How does the
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process of creation work.
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So basically when I'm doing a collection, you know, I've
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been doing kind of very specific classic books written by women,
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So that's kind of how I've been going along with those.
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But uh as far as like just kind of making
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something for myself that I may, you know, just sell
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at a festival or something like that, I really will
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just pick up one of the books I have, just
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open it to a random page, see if any words
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pop out at me. I'll maybe spend like a minute
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or two waiting for like words to pop out. I
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kind of see it as like, you know, it's just
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like a c endless sea of words, and then there
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are these little like booi's of words that just float up,
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and okay, uh so I'll spend a couple of minutes
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just kind of looking. I'll look top to bottom, left
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to right, I'll look right to left, I'll look bottom
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to top to see if anything pops out, and if
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it doesn't, I move right on, like because it just
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may not be I might just not be in the
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headspace to see whatever's on that page. I feel that
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when I did Frankenstein, and that was my first blackout
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poetry collection, I didn't find anything in Frankenstein, Like, I
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had no intention to make a collection from it because
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it was not working for me at all, And then
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one day I picked it up and I saw everything.
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So I don't know if it was just the headspace,
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but yeah, I'll spend just a couple of minutes looking
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at a page, and if nothing happens, I just move
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right on. And really it's just looking for one or