From Pen to Pixel and Back Again: Profile with Tim Frick of MB

Having met Tim Frick in a fiction writing workshop, I knew his pen and paper and fiction writing before anything else. Soon, I came to know that Tim brings humor, creativity and passion to all the things he does, from pixels to pork and squash stew. Now, a quick byte with Tim in our arts and creative profile series.

Q: Tim, tell me about what your personal artistic passion is?
Tim: Personally, I think entrepreneurialism is one of the most creative things anyone can do. Constantly thinking on your feet, reinventing yourself, staying ahead of the curve, devising creative solutions for problems, refining your expertise through education, communication, collaboration, etc. It’s rather analytical but also engages the right brain a good deal as well with all the creative on-the-fly thinking required. That’s probably why it appeals to me so much.

Daniel H. Pink talks a lot about how right-brained thinkers are taking over business in his book A Whole New Mind. We are always going to need doctors, accountants, and so on but I think the future of business innovation lies in the hands of the creatives. Just ask the Neo-Futurists. Their popular creativity workshops for business are a perfect example.

Q: How did you get involved with it?
Tim: As far as specific artistic passions go, I’ve been rather media-obsessed over the years. I was a VJ/DJ* while putting myself through school for film and video. I got an English degree and worked on the staff of a literary magazine for a while. I did some publicity writing and journalism (both broadcast and print) as well. Somewhere along the line my obsessions turned digital and I dove into computer animation, design, and interactive media, which kind of led me down a new (but somewhat related) career path.
(*Interviewer’s Note: Tim reminded me that he never needs to hear Salt-n-Peppa’s ‘Push It’ again…)

At the end of the day, however, what drives all my creative endeavors is good storytelling. Jill Pollack and all the incredible folks I’ve met at StoryStudio Chicago are responsible for my return to writing—both fiction and otherwise—so for all the hardware, software and digital tools I have amassed over the years, I often get my best work done with just pen and paper.

Q: Tell us a little about your own creative process?
Tim: Most of my writing is done at coffee shops around the city, so the creative process usually starts with donning my iPod to drown out surrounding noise. Memory Cassette, Neon Indian, Belleruche, and a lot of the electro-funk stuff coming out on the Timewarp Music and TruThought labels figure prominently in the headphones these days, but that changes with the wind. Music definitely plays a role in getting inspired though. It always has.

I jot down ideas wherever I can and for a while had notes scattered across stickies (physical and digital), my iPhone, sketchbooks, journals, cocktail napkins, you name it. Now I use Evernote for organizing a lot of that stuff, which helps a great deal.

And it typically ends with revisions. Several rounds of them.

Q: What upcoming personal projects are you are working on?
Tim: I’m currently neck-deep in writing my second book, a field guide of sorts for using social media, RSS, viral video and other digital tools to create relationships and build communities. It’s called Return on Engagement and will be out next Spring from Focal Press. Helping Travis Chandler with video and animations for the Terrible Spaceship shows has been a ton of fun too. Eventually I’ll get back to that memoir I started at StoryStudio years ago too.