Music Monday: My Top 5 Albums of 2012

If you've paid any attention to some of my previous Music Monday posts, the selections on this list shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

Alas, since it is New Year's Eve and I'm sure we've all got celebrations to get ready for and rounds of Auld Lang Syne to rehease, I thought I'd make this week's post one that's pretty easy to digest.

On a somewhat related note, I'd like to thank you all for joining me over the past several months and wish you the very best for the New Year. Hope to see you again in 2013!

1) Philip Sayce - Steamroller
Steamroller is a completely filthy mess of dirty blues licks, seductive vocals and utter debauchery, and that's what it makes it such a fantastic album. I can lose myself for nights at a time to this awesome ten-track collection of rock 'n' roll decadence.

2) Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation)
It's probably fair to say that Counting Crows are my favourite group of all time. From their early smash hit Mr. Jones through to lesser-known gems like If I Could Give All My Love, it's hard to think of a bad song they've written. This year, the band proved they're equally as excellent at recording other people's music too, with this thoroughly enjoyable series of covers by an eclectic array of artists including Teenage Fanclub, Gram Parsons and Bob Dylan.

3) Bob Dylan - Tempest
Speaking of Dylan, another of my all-time favourites brought out a new record this year, and what a joy it was. As a writer, I'm as big a fan of Dylan's words as I am his music, and on Tempest he combines both brilliantly to deliver an utter joy of an album.

4) Bobaflex - Hell In My Heart
From the first moment I heard the visceral scream of proper opening track Chemical Valley, I was completely smitten with Bobaflex. Hell In My Heart is probably the best metal album to come along in a very long time and there genuinely isn't a duff track to be found.

5) Murzik - A Cat Named Murzik
When I first heard that Minneapolis outfit would be playing at Dylan Days this year, it only seemed natural that I should check them out on record first. In all honesty, I expected to be mildly entertained, save a couple of their tracks on a playlist and then promptly forget about them forever more. Oh how wrong I was. Their 2012 offering A Cat Named Murzik was one of the most arresting, creative and enticing albums of the year, and even seven months on since I first heard it, I still can't get enough.

Weekly Round-Up: Top 5 posts of the week from around the web (Dec 22nd - 28th)

Friday returns, as does another eclectic assortment of awesome articles which have made their way into my bookmarks over the last week.

• 10 Videos That Inspired Us in 2012
  The end of another year is upon us and it's been a great twelve months packed full of inspiration stories and news that's sure to motivate us in our own Pursuit of Awesome. Here, Mashable rounds up some of the most inspiring videos from the past year that are definitely worth a watch.
  
  
• Your 3 Step Reflection and Evaluation Guide for 2012
  Speaking of looking back over the year, Cari Cole helps us to figure out what rocked, what sucked and what we can do better in 2013 when it comes to both life and our creative endeavours.  It's things like this which can be used to create  your yearly annual reviews, plan your goals and more.
  
  
• 10 Inspiring Quotes for Uninspiring Times
  More inspirational stuff comes from 'Marc and Angel Hack Life' who give us ten uplifting quotes for those moments when we really need them the most.
  
  One for us creative types perhaps? Your best music is still inside you. 
  
  
• Give Yourself an Hour a Week to Work on Unnecessary Projects for a Creativity Boost
  Thorin Klosowski of Lifehacker.com discusses a great idea that I've long been a fan of myself, without really giving it much thought at all. Working on something outside your usual projects can really help to get the creative juices flowing and keep your motivation firing on all cylinders.
  
  
• How You Can Be a Professional Musician and Still Keep Your Day Job
  Finally, one of the Almost Famous' teams favourite writers, Simon Tam reveals how it's entirely possible to persue our creative goals with gusto whilst still thriving at the 9-5.

And that's your lot for this week, and this year. On a personal note, thanks for joining me over the last couple of months and I look forward to seeing you again in 2013.

Planning The Pursuit of Awesome: 4 Things You'll Need to Take With You

So far in planning The Pursuit of Awesome, we've already looked at where we are, decided where we want to be, and worked out how to get there. So by now we should be all set to go, right?

Not quite my eager friend.

As with any adventure (and trust me, this will be the best adventure you ever take), there's a few things we need to pack first. You may pack as light or as loaded as you like, but there's at least four crucial things that you can not leave home without.

1) Your Map
We've just spent the past three weeks mapping the pursuit of awesome, so it's vital that we don't leave home without it. If we leave home with no idea of where we're going or how we're going to get there, all sorts of misfortune could fell us on our pursuit.

2) Your Compass
Most physical adventures require some sort of compass, usually a small thing that slips in the pocket, tells us which way is north, which is south, and generally keeps us on course.

For our adventure in pursuit of a life most awesome, we need something different. We need a moral compass which will guide us along our path and tell us what to do and what not to do to get what we want from life.

Some people, myself included, write a manifesto to act as their moral compass throughout their adventure and guide them along the right path.

Why this is important, and how to create our own compass are subjects which require their own post. Don't worry, I'll get to that next week.

3) Your Inventory
When brave adventurers take off to explore new lands and conquer the universe, they keep an inventory of what they have to help them along; food, medical supplies, fuel and other necessities.

As we take off in pursuit of awesome to conquer new worlds of our own, we also need an inventory so that we too can tell what supplies we have to help us along.

I've touched briefly on creating an inventory elsewhere on this blog, but again, that's something we'll discuss in greater detail at a later point.

4) Your Journal
It should be fairly obvious why we need to take a journal with us; being able to record our progress, document our triumphs, tragedies and challenges not only keeps us motivated but, once we reach our destination, will serve as a great reminder of all the effort and hardwork we put in to get there. If you have room, you may also want to take a camera or camcorder.

Who knows, by documenting, you may eventually inspire other people to take up The Pursuit of Awesome too.

Again, we'll look at this in more detail very soon. Until then, hold on tight oh brave adventurer, our journey begins soon.

Music Monday: 5 Christmas Songs That Don't Completely Suck

Ah Christmas Eve, a time when we all get together to spend time with our loved ones, and a time when we're just about on the verge of some kind of breakdown thanks to the endless repetition of Christmas songs haunting our every moment.

Yeah, you know the ones; they're on every TV show, every commercial, every radio station. They play in every store, every fast food place and basically anywhere else with a license to play music. They're the tunes that follow us everywhere we go, stalking us from late-November to some point at the dying end of November.

It's not that they sucked to begin with (though to be fair most of them did), it's more that they're so overplayed we can't possibly bare to hear them any longer.

Fear not though, friends! For I have sacrificed my own sanity to sift through the endless dirges of dire Christmas music to find you five festive songs that are actually really rather good.

1) Queen - Thank God It's Christmas
Though this one may be slightly overplayed, it gets a pass because, well, it's Queen isn't it? This one starts as a slow-podding crooner, but it soon escalates into a bombastic ode to the majesty of Christmas.

2) Bob Dylan - Little Drummer Boy
Did you know Dylan produced a whole album of Christmas songs a couple of years back? Well he did, which means that, being the huge fan I am, I couldn't not include at least one track from Christmas in the Heart. And why would I want to? This is a delightfully charming take on an old favourite.

3) Low - Just Like Christmas
The obligatory sleigh bells chirping throughout this sweet little ditty may not be appealing to everybody, but at least in this track they're mostly harmless, playing second fiddle to rolling drums, tinny guitars and a gorgeous vocal that should make this an ear-pleaser at any time of the year.

4) Jet - Back Door Santa
By far the least festive-sounding track on the list in terms of music if nothing else, this stomping rocker  punches its way through the holiday season on the back of an enticingly groovy guitar riff.

5) Seasick Steve - Xmas Prison Blues
Melancholy yet somehow with the tools to fill your belly with the fuzzies, this dirty acoustic blues number is certain to have your foot tapping and your head swaying as you take in Steve's foreboding, whiskey-sodden vocals.

Weekly Round-Up: Top 5 posts of the week from around the web (Dec 15th - 21st)

Friday returns, as does another eclectic assortment of awesome articles which have made their way into my bookmarks over the last week.

• Refer to Your Annual Review Throughout the Year to Make the Next One Easier
  Melanie Pinola of Lifehacker.com explains why it makes sense to keep an eye on your annual review and not simply cast it aside from one year to the next. Whether it's a review at your job or your personal annual review, Melanie's advice is well worth taking on board.
  
• When Everyone Has an Opinion About What You’re Doing
  One more geared to the females, this post from Stephenie Zamora nonetheless offers some good advice on what to do when everybody seems to think they know what's best for you.
  
• 10 Creative Rules Of Thumb
  Bobby Owsinski of the Music 3.0 blog offers us some great tips on how to keep our creative juices flowing.
  
• 5 Ways to Communicate More Clearly
  'Miscommunication costs you time and money. How to make sure what they heard is what you said.' writes Peter Cohan in an awesome read that we can all take something from.
  
• 8 Kickstarter Alternatives You Should Know About
  Go fund yourself. Most of us know about crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and how they can help us generate the necessary income to fuel our creative projects, but if you're looking for an alternative, Mashable has you covered.

Mapping The Pursuit of Awesome - Part 3: Plotting a Course

Imagine you're setting off on a road trip. Your plan is to get from your house to your nice little beach home several hundred miles down the coast. You know where you're going, but haven't really given much thought as to how you'll get there.  You're pretty sure that you pass an old church building somewhere not far from your home, but after that you're relying purely on the spirit of adventure and the knowledge that as long as you know the destination, it doesn't really matter how you get there.

The most likely result is that one of two things will happen:

Either you'll pass the church and then spend half an age driving around aimlessly until you eventually come upon your beach home much later than you would have liked.

Or, you'll drive and drive for miles and miles until you finally realise that you never even saw the church, have only the vaguest idea where you are and absolutely no idea at all of how to get to your beach home.

Pursuing our most valued goals can be much like our imaginary road trip. If we know where we want to go yet don't really think about how we'll get there, we'll either never achieve our goals at all or take far longer to achieve them than is really necessary.

Now you may argue, much like our road-trippers, that as long as you achieve said goals in the end, how you do so or how long it takes you shouldn't really matter. You'd have a point, and if that's your chosen method for your own Pursuit of Awesome, I wish you well.

That said, I'd much rather have a clear set of directions for my journey so that I may reach my destination (completing all my goals) faster and with much greater focus.

Creating your directions
How you go about creating your directions is  up to you. I can't stress enough how much the Pursuit of Awesome is an entirely personal matter; go with what works for you and will best help you to achieve your goals.

If you're not exactly sure what does work for you, here's a suggested plan for mapping your Pursuit of Awesome.

Assess where you are
There's an old cliché which tells us that we can't know where we're going until we know where we've been. I like to think of that somewhat differently:

It's harder to get where we're going if we don't know where we are

We've already looked at assessing where you are to help you get to where you want to go, but here's a quick recap.

• What do you hope to change about your current situation by pursuing your goals?
• What do you have that can help you with this?
• What do you (or don't you) have that might stop you?
• What can you do about the things that are stopping you?

Set milestones

One of my goals for 2012 has been to write 300,000 words over the course of the year.

To help me achieve this goal, I had to create milestones. 

• 100,000 words written by the end of April
• 200,000 words written by the end of August
• 300,000 words written by the end of December

To make it even easier on myself, I set further milestones en route for the bigger ones above

• 25,000 words written by the end of each month
• 6,250 words written by the end of each week

Setting these milestones helps me to pursue my goals in several ways:

• It makes the whole goal seem less daunting.
  It's easier to focus on writing 6,250 words than 300,000
• It boosts my confident and keeps me motivated
  If I can reach the 100,000 mark, it inspires me to work towards the next 100,00.
• It helps me to stay on course
  This is the most important one of all. If I don't look out for my milestones and drive towards them in my Pursuit of Awesome, how will I know whether or not I'm heading in the right direction towards the destination marked 300,000 words?

I used similar milestones to help me run a marathon, start my own business and pursue other goals. 

You may be happy to just set a couple of big milestones along your journey, but the further you can break it down and the more smaller milestones you can set on your path, the easier you'll find it to stay on course.

Keep your eyes on the road
In much the same way that it's harder to reach our goals if we don't drive towards our milestones, it's difficult to even reach those milestones if we don't look out for them.

Keep track of your progress by writing down what you're doing to work towards your goals, give yourself deadlines to reach individual milestones (in the above example, 25,000 words is a milestone, one month is a deadline) and constantly evaluate where you are to make sure your pursuit is going in the right direction.

Once that's done, you'll almost be ready for take off.

Music Monday: 5 Awesome New Artists I Heard in 2012

Personally speaking, 2012 was a great year for music. Some of my favourite artists like Bob Dylan and Counting Crows released new material and a whole score of bands appeared on my radar, blasted through my speakers or performed the gig of a life time.

Though I could spend all day telling you about all the great music I've heard (and indeed have done, over on Almost Famous, today I thought I'd simply share with you five of the best new artists I heard in 2012.

1) Bobaflex
Bobaflex seemed to spring up from out of nowhere this past summer and promptly kick my head in with an epic assault of crunching guitars, tight vocals and the kind of rhythms that make your hair stand on end. Their album Hell in my Heart has been played to death and probably will do for quite some time. I really can't recommend this band high enough. Check out their awesome cover of The Sound of Silence to see why.

2) Murzik
I first heard of Minnesota's dark-folk outfit Murzik whilst over in The Land of 10,000 Lakes for the 2012 Dylan Days festival. Immediately impressed by their European influences, brooding vocals and tunes that generally stuck in your mind for days at a time, I was even more delighted to see them deliver a performance at Dylan Days that cemented them as one of my new favourite bands of the year.

3) Philip Sayce
I've no idea why I'd never heard of the mighty Philip Sayce before this year, and in many ways I regret not checking him out much sooner. Alas, I've more than made up for lost time this year. After reading a review of his 2012 album Steamroller, I had the idea that this would be exactly my kind of music and, low and behold, it was. Full of awesome dirty blues jams and monstrous licks, Steamroller is by far one of the best albums I've heard, not just this year, but for many a year.

4) Mountain Mirrors

Sadly, there's no real story behind my falling madly in love with the gorgeously dark music straight from the heart of  the Massachusetts woodlands created by Mountain Mirrors. Simply put, I was flicking through Spotify looking for something to put on in the background whilst writing, and came across a couple of tracks. On first listen, I stopped dead in my tracks, arrested by such haunting, atmospheric acoustic metal.  Since that time, this has been my go-to music when working on creative projects.

5) Five Finger Death Punch
Just when I thought old-age was starting to get to me, and that I'd drift further and further away from the heady rock 'n' roll days of my early youth, along FFDP and snapped me to my senses. Sure, they may have been around much longer than I had known about, but I got to them eventually and I'm certainly glad I did.
It's tracks like this haunting rendition of Bad Company that makes them one of my favourite new bands of 2012.

Weekly Round-Up: Top 5 posts of the week from around the web (Dec 8th - 14th)

Friday returns, as does another eclectic assortment of awesome articles which have made their way into my bookmarks over the last week.

• I Hate Social Media
  Writing on the Spinsucks PR and Marketing blog, Andy Credodina offers us 'three set-it-and-forget-it tips for people who will never use social media.'
  We all know by now that social media isn't going away, and if we want develop an audience for our creative work, it's something we need to get involved in, even if we hate social media.
  
  
• Write! Write! Write!
  'While treating your publishing endeavor as a business, do not lose sight of the reason behind all of your hard work' a great reminder from the E-book Builders blog on making sure that however hard we work at promoting our creative work, we musn't let the business and promotion elements get in the way of actually getting that creative work done.
  
  
• 3 Things to Keep in Mind When Making Decisions
  Decisions: Sometimes they're the most easiest things in the world to make, sometimes the most impossible. Whether easy or not, Teresa Griffith posts on Lifehack.org with three crucial things to consider when making all manner of decisions.
  
  
• How Do I Pitch an Idea That Actually Gets Heard?
  From a different life-hacking website, Lifehacker.com,  Adam Dachis helps us create the perfect pitch. A useful post for those of us looking to pitch our creative work to publishers, investors, or even audiences.


• If History's Greatest Artists Used Microsoft Paint...
  And finally, some fun from everybody's favourite digital media blog, Mashable. From Washington Crossing the Delaware Near the Toll Bridge en route to McDonalds to Juliet pining after Romeo (who is apparently AFK), here's an entertaining series of pics in which Mike Licht uses trusty old Microsoft Paint to insert everything from Ipads to fried chicken in 100+ year-old paintings.

Mapping The Pursuit of Awesome - Part 2: Where are we now?

There's a scene in the classic 1963 film The Great Escape in which Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough sum up a crucial flaw in the POWs' plans for escape:

"We have maps of Germany, in fact we have all the information we need on the escape routes out of Germany, "But what we do not have.." says Attenborough's Roger Bartlett before being cut off.

"Is a clear idea of what's five hundred yards beyond those trees," explains McQueen as Captain Hilts.

It's an exchange which can be equally as useful at describing our plans for The Pursuit of Awesome. We already have a good idea of our destination and our goals, but we haven't yet taken stock of where we are and what is immediately surrounding us.

It's vitally important that we assess our current location (that is, our life and living situations at this point) before we can even start to think about plotting a course towards our destination. 

If we don't know where we are now, how can we expect to know to how get to where we we want to be?

It's like being completely lost in the middle of a forest in an unknown country and deciding on a whim that we want to get to Hartford, Connecticut.

Thankfully, assessing where we are now isn't all that difficult to do.

What is your life like now?

When I first started to think about my own Pursuit of Awesome back in early 2011, it was important to think about the kind of life I was leading.

I took some time to make a list of not only the things I didn't like about my life, but the things that I did, so that I'd be better equipped to pursue a life filled with less of the stuff I didn't want and more of the stuff I did.

It turned out that there was more on the negative side of the list than the positive, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Simply by attempting to pursue a life most awesome, I was convinced that my life would improve (which it did, tremendously), and all I had to do was figure out how I wanted it to improve.

What do you hope to hope to change about your life by achieving your goals?

If you're really quite content with your life, have no plans to change anything and are simply setting goals to have a great time jumping out of planes and such, then good on  you.

If however, you're like me (and most people I talk to), there's certain things you'd like to change or improve as you set out in pursuit of your destination.

Some things you might want to consider include:

• Finding a better job or completely changing your career
• Being healthier, fitter, stronger
• Quitting drinking or smoking
• Having a stable relationship or starting a family
• Having more money
• Having complete peace of mind
• Pursuing a dream you abandoned long ago once the daily grind of life took hold

Whatever it is you'd like to achieve, change or improve on your Pursuit of Awesome, write it down along with your list of pros and cons about your current situation. 

Having these things written down as you set about achieving goals and pursuing awesome will always help to keep you motivated, serving as a strong reminder of the life you once lead and hope never to return to.

What do you have that can help you with your Pursuit of Awesome?

Once we've figured out where we want to go and why we want to go there, it's important to next take stock of the things we have which can aid us on our journey.

If your plan is to lose weight and you have old exercise equipment in storage or even a Wii Fit video game that you've never played, you've already got the tools you require.

If goal is to start your own business and you have a laptop and a friend who is good at accounting, there's two things that can help you out right away.

Think of it like an inventory broken down into several parts:

• Material possessions (computers, furniture, anything and everything)
• Books, software, reference materials 
• Assets (cash, credit, house, car, valuables)
• Friends, family, colleagues
• Anything else you can think of

Write down anything and everything even if it doesn't seem like it will be useful right away so that you know everything you can possibly work with to help you achieve your goals.

What do you (or don't you) have that might stop you?
When you've worked out what you have to help you on your journey, you must also take note of any obstacles in your path.

Keeping in mind that you don't need absolute perfection to pursue your goals.

For example, a couple of my goals require a fair amount of money to be spent, yet when I started planning my own pursuit, I was in debt by several thousands. It was an obstacle, but one that I could (and have) overcome.

Some things that might stop you from achieving your goals may include:

• Time
• Money
• Skills
• Equipment
• Knowledge
• Health
• Relationship

Or a lack of any of the above. By surveying any obstacles which may arise, we can plan ways to overcome them.

What can you do about the things that are stopping you?

If money is an issue, did you note anything in your inventory that you could sell to get more? If time is holding you back, is there any activity (like watching television  that you can cut back on to free up more hours? If a lack of skills or knowledge is stopping you, how can you acquire these things?

To go back to my own example of money and debt that I mentioned earlier, I asked myself the questions above.

• I wrote down that one of the biggest negative aspects of my life was that not only was I in debt, but that I was also pretty terrible at dealing with financial matters.
• I wanted to change this so that I would be debt free, enjoy financial security and be better able to handle my finances.
• I took an inventory and noted that I had several items that I could sell of to help me pay off some old debts, and that I had several friends who could help me put my finances in order.
• I realised that it would be unfair to my friends to simply let them deal with my money matters for me and that I had to take responsibility for own affairs, yet didn't have the knowledge or confidence to do so.
• I did something about this by reading books on managing money and attending a course.

As a result, I now have more money (and a better way to manage it) to help me continue on my path of awesome.

Try it yourself, figure out where your life right now, and you can start to use that next week to figure out how you're going to get from here to your awesome destination.

Music Monday: 5 Awesome Acoustic Songs to chill out to

Another year is winding down, and at this point that's exactly what we should be thinking about too.

The final days of December should be a time for unwinding, relaxing allowing our mind to wander over the year that was and the year that will be.
Need a little background music to help you out in such an endeavour? Here's five acoustic tracks perfect for the job.

1) Julia Stone - It's All Okay
Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a huge fan of Australian siblings Angus & Julia Stone, so I was at once intrigued and delighted when I heard Julia was branching out on her own, even more so when I heard this delicate, beautiful track. It's almost impossible not to drift off into a relaxing state of mind and body when this one plays.

2) Andrew Belle - The Daylight
Playful and yet tender, this simply luscious tune, with its quivering keys and whispering drums is everything you could ask for at those times when you arrive home from a hard-day's slog and just want something to chill out to.

3) Emily Jane White - Sleeping Dead 
This is a very gorgeous song indeed, packing perhaps more punch than some of the others on this list, the quirky guitars and hypnotic vocals nonetheless make this an excellent acoustic chill out track.

4) Leonard Cohen - Suzanne
Some relaxing songs are perfect for nodding off to into a comfortable nap, some are ideal for lying beneath a warm sun on a sandy beach and some, like Cohen's Suzanne were tailor-made for those moments when you get home, turn on the fire and chill out with a hot cup of something tasty.

Which is exactly what we all want to do at this time of year, right?

5) Richard Thompson - Hide It Away
Warm sunny beaches aside, this brooding yet entirely charming track from Thompson's You? Me? Us? album could fit pretty much any of the categories above. Indeed, it's actually a staple of what I like to call my Naptrack, and yet also keeps me warm on those ever-so-chilly evenings.

Weekly Round-Up: Top 5 posts of the week from around the web (Dec 1st - 7th)

Friday returns, as does another eclectic assortment of awesome articles which have made their way into my bookmarks over the last week.

• Why Facebook Just Turned Your Subscribers Into 'Followers'
  We'll start with a little bit of social media news this morning. Apparently Facebook is heading more and more towards emulating Twitter by turning our subscribers into followers. What does this mean for us? Mostly it means that if we're using Facebook to promote our work, we need to make sure we're using the right lingo to keep in touch with our fans/subscribers/followers.
  
• How to REALLY Let Go of a Resentment
  On a completely different note, Jessica Ruane, writing on Lifehack.org gives us some great advice on how to let go of resentments so that we can all go on to find peace within ourselves and go on to lead happy, productive lives. Whether we like to admit it or not, resentments are the one thing that hold most of us back and even get us into trouble from time to time, so this is well worth a read.
  
• The New Science of the Birth and Death of Words
  This is a fascinating post from The Wall Street Journal in which men of sciene claim to have triumphed where so many lexophiles have failed in indentifying the "universal laws governing the birth, life course and death of words." A great read for anyone interested in writing, reading, or language in general.
  
• When to let go of an unsuccessful project
  Read a great post from Chris Guillebeau this week looking at what happens when you lose your passion for a project and consider calling it a day. Well worth reading.
  
• Protip: After Successfully Stealing A Car And Robbing A Bank... Don't Brag About It On YouTube
  And finally, something which simply made me chuckle this week. Yep, apparently people are that stupid. 

Mapping The Pursuit of Awesome: Part 1 - Where are we going?

So far, we've all agreed that The Pursuit of Awesome means taking a path through life which allows to work hard, have a blast, and add value to both our own lives and the lives of others.

We've also agreed that each of our individual pursuits are going to be incredibly different, and that what matters to me most likely won't matter to you.

That's all well and good of course, but the real question is this:

How do we start this pursuit?

The answer is really quite simple: We need a map.

Much like a real map that gets us from A-Z across the geography of the earth (or our nearest convoluted city), if we don't have a map for our Pursuit of Awesome, we'll have no idea where we're going, or what we're supposed to look out for along the way.

Also much like a real map, we first need a destination before we can start to plot our course.

Where are we going?
Before we go any further, let me reiterate an important point: The Pursuit of Awesome is more about the journey than it is the destination.

It's the things we'll experience, the people we'll meet, the knowledge we'll gain along the way that really matters here.

That said, if we don't have a destination in mind, we'll only find ourselves wandering around aimlessly and miss out on most of the opportunities to do experience, learn and meet other awesome folks.

So yes,we need a destination, or in this case, a list.

The List of Awesome
You may choose to call it a Bucket List, a Life List (my preferred term), a List of Awesome or anything else. Call it Bob's Super Epic List if you like, it really doesn't matter, as long as you call it something you're happy with.

The point is that our list will be our destination, the Awesome we're pursuing. When we've done everything on this list, we will have pursued awesome to its fullest and can look back knowing that we lived a remarkable life.

Hopefully, once we've achieved everything on this list, we can make a brand new one and start the pursuit all over again, but that's another post for somewhere way down the line.

Deciding on your destination: How to make your list.
Keeping in mind at all times that this is your destination and nobody else's, it's time to start thinking about what our list is going to look like.

How? By allowing yourself to day dream.

Set aside some time when you're going to write your list, and allow yourself proper time to think before that time arrives.

Preparation
In the days leading up to List Building Time, you may allow your thoughts to wander, finding spare moments here and there to let your thoughts wander away and imagine yourself pursuing all kinds of awesome adventures.

You may decide to set a time a specific time to lie back, relax, close your eyes and go through the same process;, really letting your mind come up with all the things you want to get out of, and give back to, the world.

It doesn't matter how silly they may seem at first, nor does it matter if you don't feel their achievable right now. Remember, you're probably better, and more equipped, to pursue a life most awesome than you really think.

Drafting your list
When the time comes to make your list, grab a pen and piece of paper and let rip. Write down everything you could ever possibly hope to do in your life.

Write down whatever you feel will make you the happiest you can possibly be in life.

Need a few suggestions? How about:

• The countries you'd to visit
• The people you'd like to meet
• The skills you'd like to learn
• The things you'd like to own
• The things you'd like to see
• The things you'd like to do
• The movies you'd like to see
• The projects you'd like to learn
• The amount of money you'd like to have
• The things you'd like to do to repay the world for helping you in your Pursuit of Awesome

And anything else you can think of.

How many things should I have on my list?

It doesn't matter. I started off with around 175 items, whittled it down to about 120 and then gradually built it back up again to the point where it now stands at the awkward number of 153 items, though to be fair, this will either decrease to 150 or increase to 155 the next time I do a proper evaluation of my Life List.

You may decide to only put down ten things, or a thousand, it doesn't matter. This is your list and you can do as little or as much as you like with it.

Making the second draft or 'Working Copy' of your list.

You'll notice just then that I mentioned evaluating my list. You may have also noticed that the last subheading was drafting, not writing your list.

That's because things change; your priorities, your financial circumstances, your environment and a whole bunch of other things.

It's for this reason that it becomes crucial that your Life List (or Awesome List, or whatever), isn't a stiff, rigid and inflexible document.

It needs to change as you change, grow as you grow, evolve as you evolve.

I recommended first drafting your list with pen and paper, since personally I always find that a better way to indulge in creative thinking than at a machine, but now it really is time to sit down at your computer.

Open up a word document, or a fresh blog post if you're making your list public, and type out your list. 

You can print this out if you'd rather have your list as a hard copy, but having an electronic copy somewhere on file will make it easier to edit or expand your list whenever you feel it's appropriate to do so. 

After all, your Pursuit of Awesome may change its route over the course of your life and you'll need to be able to alter your list, or destination, to make sure you're still heading in the right direction.

But that's something we'll discuss at a later date.

Music Monday: 5 More Awesome Songs to write Sci-Fi (or horror) to

After last weeks post looking at five songs that helped inspire me when writing a sci-fi novel,  I found I still had a bunch of awesome songs left on the playlist I began curating for that very purpose. 

Without all the usual fanfare then, here's five more great songs that you might want to check out when writing science fiction, horror or similar themes.

1) Blind Guardian - Valkyries
Yep, I listened to an awful lot of power metal when writing my novel. Again, it's the speed, the action, the energy, the penchant for over-dramatic tales of the far-off lands of fantasy that make songs like the swooping Valkyries so ideal for this kind of writing.

2) Iced Earth - Birth of the Wicked
I remember, back in the long-haired heights of my heavy metal worshipping youth, being quite the fan of Florida's Iced Earth. Then, after I got a bit older and started listening to Bob Dylan instead, I forget about almost completely until it came time to dig out some inspiring background music for my story. Songs like Birth of the Wicked, and indeed much of their catalogue really gets the adrenalin pumping, and no matter what it is you're writing, songs like this should easily keep you motivated.

3) Sonata Arctica - Black Sheep

I couldn't tell you with any certainty what it is about Black Sheep in particular that stood out from the many inspiring, anthemic tunes laid out by Sonata Arctica, but needless to say it did it's job; carrying me away to another world entirely and helping me to roam loose in my own imagination.

4) Helloween - Where the Sinners Go

It's probably fair to say that I listened to Helloween more than any other band whilst working on my novel, and for good reason; the mix of genres, styles and influences they incorporate across their catalogue means you're never too far from the perfect writing song. In this case, for some of the more violent scenes of my story, it was Where The Sinners Go.

5) Sabaton - Coat of arms

And we end back on the power-metal theme with the mighty Sabaton, their music as powerful, fantastical and able to transport you to another realm as any on this list. Like a lot of these bands, I could have picked any of Sabaton's tracks, but nothing gets my creative juices flowing quite like Coat of Arms.