Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, gave a great TED Talk about where creativity comes from. Watch it.
For years I have thought that genius and creativity was from the outside. The artist does not generate her art, she translates the whisperings she hears onto page or canvas or sound.
Usually I don’t like getting advice. Mostly because I think I’m already the cat’s meow. I guess most of us are like that.
But when it comes to stuff I write, things are different.
Most of my beta readers have started getting back to me. And every time I find one of their reports in my e-mail or glance at the hardcopy they’re marking up, I get chills of happiness.
Some writers might not feel that way. Some feel slighted when a reader crosses out half their adverbs or doesn’t click with the protagonist or thinks your hero’s name sounds silly.
Those writers are shooting themselves in the foot.
I love criticism in my writing. And you should, too. Here’s why:
When thinking about the best place to write or do whatever our creative spirit moves us to do, there are phases.
First, we picture the perfect environment as a place of seclusion with ample lighting, classical music in the background and an expensive mahogany desk. Or something like that. Probably something with a bunch of quotes on the wall. And maybe a poster. And an espresso machine.
If we’re unlucky enough, we might even be able to manufacture such an environment. And we sit there, in our expensive chair made from baby cows, and frown.
Because it didn’t help. Writing is still hard work.
Then we figure that the environment counts for nothing. We force ourselves to adapt to every and any situation. We try to work at home, despite the screaming kids. We try to work at coffee shops, despite the noise. We try to steal a few hours at work on the night shift, despite the eerie silence and darkness. And things get better.
But it’s still hard work.
Since we’re versatile at this point, we end up doing our work in a variety of different places. And, if we’re mindful, we start to notice that our productivity levels are higher at certain places / times / settings. I, for example, discovered I work best in a public place, surrounded by people who don’t know me.
And then a temptation arises.
Because we suddenly realize that there is an ideal writing environment. It’s just a little counter-intuitive.
This is a dangerous realization to touch, because it tempts us into thinking that all our bad days are due to the place we sit.
My life does not allow me to sit at the coffee shop every day. If I’m lucky, I get there a couple times a week. And my work is certainly best there. One day at the coffee shop is worth four normal days. That stat makes me look at my normal days and question why I bother with them at all.
But that thought fails to take stock of the inter-connectivity of … well, everything.
What I do during the week touches my coffee shop weekends. If I spend the week in discouragement and idleness over my inability to transport my coffee shop environment to my night shifts, what sort of energy will I be passing on to the weekend? I’m pretty sure that the moment I neglect the hard, inefficient grind of the weekdays, I’ll start to fail even at the coffee shops.
Because the writer’s home is not a room or a desk or a shop. It’s where the story is.
You might be tempted to think that a writer deserves a break once he or she has finished a project. I don’t really think so, though. Writing is a habit. And there’s no reason to kick a habit in the shin once it’s started to pay off.
So I started my next book already. It’s neat to stand here, staring out at the ocean of blank pages to fill.
It’s scary, too.
I’ve got amazing plans and visions and ideas. A billion of them. They’re everywhere. And they scare the shiong mao niao out of me.
Sitting down to write a book is like deciding to procreate. It’s generally a pretty easy process to get started. But it’s a terrifying one to see through. Getting ideas is as easy as having sex. But turning those ideas into a good and true story is as hard as raising a son or daughter to fulfill all the infinite and beautiful possibilities they are born with.
So, yeah, I approach this new book with a healthy amount of trepidation.
But if writing a book is scary because it’s like raising a kid, then it’s exciting for the same reason.
My kids are wild. Ask anyone who knows them. They are bursting with personality and ideas and that wild, creative spirit that makes them little snapshots of God. And they have hardly even begun to show the world what they’re really capable of. I try to guess what they will turn into, and I can’t. Sometimes I think it’s blasphemy to even try. So I sit back, tweak things here and there, and let them run free.
Starting a novel is like that. The idea was mine. The initial acts were mine. And I retain control even as the story progresses. But, in the end, it goes wherever it wants. And I’d be a fool to hinder it.
So I stand on the brink, looking down at a virgin world, and wonder what will grow there when I start plowing and planting. It scares me, because I could screw things up royally. But it excites me, too, because the possibilites are endless. And I know, deep down, that if I just let the story be what it is, it’ll turn out fine.
Things that aid my creative spirit:
What drives your creativity?
I’m neck-deep in polishing my nearly-finished novel.
It’s surprising how much of the first draft is, as Hemingway put it, shit.
But as the revisions continue, the bad gets washed away and there is something shiny underneath. Something I’m proud of. Something I can stand beside and say, “Look at this thing I have made!” That’s a good feeling.
I should be working on it right now, so I don’t have much else to say. Here’s a tiny excerpt. It’s the open paragraphs. The opening used to be a massive, gaudy info-dump of religious liturgies, boring histories and other world-building things that were sure to turn readers away. I think this is better:
Pari’s cousin did not get a funeral.
Her tiny body was heavy in Pari’s arms; so much heavier than it had been last month when Pari bounced the child in her arms. That had been a happy day. The child was a year old. Pari had just become the hakeena’s apprentice. Her relatives came with cakes and dates. Her parents laughed and smiled. Pari skipped around the house with her baby cousin.
She was smaller than her brother, though the same age. Pari never wondered about that. Never wondered when the girl refused to eat. Never wondered at the way she slept so very soundly.
She got sick two weeks later. And then she died. And she didn’t even get a funeral.
Pari stood over the open, tiny grave alone. The Karvan said that a soul comes to a person once they are named. And the baby was a year from her naming day at least. So the family had not come to see Pari put her into the ground. She supposed she should not have wept so much over such a tiny baby. But there was no one to watch or rebuke her, so she wept freely.
Even in the tiny grave, Pari’s cousin seemed too small. It was a long time before she began filling it in.
The unmarked graveyard was outside the village walls. So was the real graveyard, but it was different. The real graveyard had markers and names and a tiny fence to keep spirits out. The unmarked graveyard was simple and hidden, unless you knew what you were looking for. Tiny bumps in the earth, some with dry grasses growing on them. None of them with flowers or sweets. None with any sort of marker. None with names because people with names were never buried here.
Pari looked up and across the horizon. The sun was threatening to set. She had to fill the hole before dark, or else the child might turn into a demon or rakshasi. That’s what the elders said. Her back was to the village and she gazed south to the wastes. The wind played on the grasses and thorny bushes that grew in the hard, dry dirt. She took off her glove and rubbed the soil with her hand. It had been dark and soft when she dug the grave. It was dry now and crumbled at her touch. In the grave, her cousin waited.
She buried her cousin before the sun set. She wanted to vow never bury a child again. But she was the hakeena’s apprentice. And she knew it would not be her last.
Here’s how a night of writing typically goes:
Okay, maybe that’s not a typical day of writing. I don’t really have typical days. But the wild roller coaster of feelings is real. In one night I’ll both despise and adore my work. I’ll both despise and adore myself. But most nights end on a higher note than they began. Which leads me to believe the higher emotions are the more authentic. Which, further, leads me to believe I’m on the right track.
How about you? What strange things does your creative outlet do to your heart?
Matt W Cook 