This week creative project is short, sharp and to the point. Why not reinvent something through synthesis? To do this you must take two opposing points of view and subsume them into a new design. Gandhi called this satyagraha. Synthesis is the art of creating a new design that subsumes the previous ones by  making them agree on a similar point OR you take something previously incompatible and through a redesign (changing the basic assumptions) make the conflict dissolve.  Let’s use the music industry as a case in point. . Have you heard of magnatune… that’s a good example of synthetic redesign.

The question to provoke synthesis is: how can we combine bit torrent technology and the music industry in a new design that’s legal, cost effective and fair to emerging artists? The answer: Myspace. I am joking. To create a new design you must change the conditions that cause the problem to exist. So, my challenge to you is to reinvent something through synthesis. Send me a comment and I will post it over the weekend! I am going to post a series of posts over the next couple of days (lots I want to crack the ton).

If you have an idea for redesign through synthesis send me a message or a comment and I will post a link to your blog and idea. Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: creative, synthesis, conflict

I am still quite busy so I enlisted the help of my wife Danielle to make something for this week’s creative project. See below. Enjoy!

Special thanks to Lilly the wonderdog for starring in this week’s project.

Note I have discontinued this project.

Okay so this is a cheapie. It’s end of semester… I have marking out the wazoo! A while ago I was playing around with the Adobe Premiere Elements and stock photos and thought… I will make a version of my novel which is digitally illustrated. So, here we are for this project. Enjoy.

Experimental fiction that’s digitally illustrated… oh yeah you know you like it!

The full version is available for download here if you found this interesting.

Thanks for reading.

Note I have discontinued this listing. Please contact me if you have any questions.

This is another short story. Yes, another failed entry to a competition as well. This one is based on the real events of the second world war as told to me by my late grandfather. The main part of the story was an actual event that was recounted to me about two weeks before his death. By my own personal standards this is fairly amatuerish writing and this is truly one of the first I ever wrote from the heart. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. Click the link below to read.

I also remember

I hope you enjoy it!

I am proud to announce the lukehoughton.com creative project of the week. Rather than suffering for my art (which I think is an appalling concept) I have decided to post a creative project each week to my blog. I would say day but I just don’t have that much creative energy. Those of us who have creative ability yet no means to support it that other than side business and work have this on-going internal conflict where we know we should do something but usually sit on our bums (or asses) and do nothing. I think we could easily overthrow the publishing industry for example, if we really wanted to do but we think the world should come to us.

Well I can’t wait any longer. I have ideas and almost nobody to share them with so I have to let it out. I am therefore proud to announce my ‘commitment to creativity‘ project. In order to fester that inner creativity I have I am going to post something I do each week that is deliberately creative. I am also working on making a website for daily submissions for people who are creative minded as well. The problem is getting the funding and finding the time. What a bugger! There is also the other problem of offering the project to people and having them commit their intellectual property with no foreseeable way of financial return. I am working on it as I have said so hang on to your hats for that one. It will be a cracker.

For now I am trialling my own stuff to see what I can achieve. There is no bigger fool than a hypocrite I heard somewhere. That and we must practice what we preach if we are to be considered credible. If I am telling anybody who reads this to be creative then I must first lead by example. If I don’t then all I am doing is making it up and that is a crock! So in order to be a real person I have decided to unleash my own creativity on my small readership one week, day or minute at a time. I have put the time limit of ‘one week on it’ but it will be sooner but NO LATER than that. Why? Well I keep saying I will do this or I will do that and never got around it. So I have just decided to do it.

In order to begin the festivities I have included in my fiction tab The Woman in the River. This is short story I wrote for a woman’s magazine that the bastards didn’t publish! So, my commitment to being creative begins. I am now without excuse. I am not being paid so it’s not for money it’s for the pure exercise of being me and being creative. Enjoy. If you like it give it as many people you can so we can get a community going around this thing. We could start a revolution of creativity and destroy the world! Okay, so maybe that’s a bit excessive. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Technorati Tags: creative project of the week, creative, commitment to creativity, fiction

This project has been discontinued.  The links no longer work.

One of the things I am very interested in is fiction. I love to read it and I love to write it. A while back I wrote a novel about a person called “Kimberly” who is a paranoid schizophrenic. The things she sees take on new forms and begin to communicate with her. Kimberly finds herself drawn into a world without walls or limits which is in essence what she thinks is the real world.

There are a lot of useful metaphors in this book and basically it’s not too bad. The problem is, I have not been able to find a home for it. Why not? Well maybe it just sucks, maybe the publishing industry don’t like it, maybe I am just not a good writer… who knows! That doesn’t stop me from wanting to publish it and it certainly does not stop me from having this burning desire to write. Given that this is my website I thought it might be time to experiment with it and see what happens. So here we have a ‘novel experiment’. That’s about all I can tell you at this stage because that’s all that I have. I am currently reworking it for a more suitable web style so I really do not know what the outcome is likely to be. Like I have said here there are decisions you just have to make. Does it matter that I am passionate about writing and I can’t get published? Of course it does. I could rant and rave about the publishing industry and do what I like… the fact is I have a desire and I must do something with it. So here goes.

How this works

I am going to put a small part up each day (or every other day whatever comes first) and write a blog post about it. Each page of the book will contain links and various media that I think make the novel ‘web ready’. The web gives me the opportunity to play with different styles of writing (i.e. visual/aural/oral) and play around with various concepts. The license structure I will use will be a creative commons structure (share and share alike) and I will draw on various elements of free culture to build this thing.

What’s the point?

The point of this exercise is simple… I have a desire to fulfill this so I must do it! Even if I never make a cent I have to do it! The point is because I have a desire in my heart to do it and I have to follow it. I am amazed at people who can live with the music in them but never look for a way to get it out. The publishing people don’t want to buy my work… so what! Does that stop me from wanting it? No unfortunately it does not! The other thing is that over time you learn that life cuts you no slack you sort of have to to cut it yourself. What will the end of this be? I have no idea. Navigate to my fiction page to check it out.

If you enjoy it or want more contact me and let me know. You can leave a comment or visit my contact page. If you REALLY like it… donate and I will write the sequel. I am planning to release the paperback version in the new year.