Matt W Cook

writer.former fundamentalist.christianly fellow

Tag: creativity

January 11, 2012

The Writer’s Home

     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.

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December 14, 2011

Things That Make Me Creative

Things that aid my creative spirit:

  • Quiet. Peace. Silence. Stillness. There is something holy when you are alone and still. And when things gets holy, wild stuff happens.
  • Noise. There is even more holiness in noise! The bustle of a coffee shop. The movement of traffic downtown. Kids in a park. Noise is a product of life and it gives some of the best creative energy I’ve tasted.
  • Mysticism and Meditation. I’m a spiritual person. When I retreat into prayer and mindful meditation, I connect myself with the Divine. Sometimes I verbally pour out my spirit. Sometimes I merely sit and breathe with mindfulness. Sometimes I use a mantra. Whatever path I take, touching God is a beautiful, energizing thing.
  • Wandering. Literally. I wander around the house. I wander around my neighbourhood. No plans or goals. No thinking. Just wandering. And, as I go, my muse starts walking beside me. I say ‘hi’ to her. She says ‘hi’ back. And suddenly she’s telling me about all the neat things she’s been thinking about.
  • Tea. Green. Steeped for two minutes in 80 degree water. Any longer and it’s bitter. Green tea does wonders for my soul.
  • Diet. I cannot do anything creative or useful after eating something deep fried. A (relatively) consistently healthy diet has energized all my creative endeavors.
  • Reading. I can’t produce if I don’t consume. All the great writers disagree on how writing gets done, but they agree on this point: If you don’t read, you won’t be able to write.
  • Doom II. Quick, mindless, plotless video games. I unplug for ten minutes and come back to my work refreshed and sated.
  • Yellow Notepads. When I’m stuck, out comes the notepad. Things become unclogged when I’m scribbling and drawing arrows and lines and plotting things out.
  • Sleep. Sometimes it’s not about laziness or a lack of drive. Sometimes I’m just tired and I need a nap. And I refuse to feel guilty about it.

What drives your creativity?

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October 25, 2011

Steven Pressfield on Sin

     To combat the call of sin, i.e., Resistance, the fundamentalist plunges either into action or into the study of sacred texts. He loses himself in these, much as the artist does in the process of creation. The difference is that while the one looks forward, hoping to create a better world, the other looks backward, seeking to return to a purer world from which he and all have fallen.

     The humanist believes that humankind, as individuals, is called upon to co-create the world with God.

     – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

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October 12, 2011

It’s Quiet … Too Quiet

     I’ve heard preachers claim that noise is the music of hell. Have you heard that before? Silly, eh?

     I used to try writing in the library. I went nearly every day for a month. I think I managed a couple hundred words a day. A pittance. Good enough to keep the dream alive but not enough to give it breath.

     The problem with writing in a library is that it’s too quiet. And when it’s too quiet, it gets really loud. I can hear the gentle tinkling of the air conditioner. Down on the other side of the library two people are having a conversation in hushed whispers that I can hear perfectly. The employees are gently putting books on the shelf. And they’re all so damned quiet that the noise is overwhelming.

     One of my favorite places to write is the mall food court. There is not a drop of quietness to be found.

     Teens yelling and goofing off at the table next to me. Janitors cleaning up spills and emptying garbage bins. The loud smells of food and coffee dancing throughout the place. Always movement. Always life. Always noise.

     When everyone is special, no one is. When everyone is quiet, no one is. And when everything is loud and chaotic, in truth it is peace and quiet of a purity that is hard to manufacture.

     When there is noise and movement all around you, it’s easy to sink into that special place where all the good things flow. But when everyone around you is trying to be quiet, then the tiniest change in the artificial stasis is jarring.

     Don’t seek for peace and quiet. It only exists in places where there is no life. And don’t dare try to create art in a place where there is no life. Noise is a gift, not a curse. Embrace it. Love it. It charges your art and soothes your psyche if you let it. And if you’re writing at home and your wife and kids are trying their best to create an environment of peace and quietness, tell them to watch a loud movie and listen to music and wrestle in the next room. It’ll make your process that much better.

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October 7, 2011

Writing in Coffee Shops

     My brother showed me that after he caught me writing in a coffee shop.

     Thankfully, when I write in tea stores and coffee shops, I don’t do it to be watched. I do it to create a place where I can feel alone, isolated and nurtured with a hot drink.

     But art sometimes has that showy temptation to it. That shadowy urge to front and say ‘Yeah, I’m creative and making things that few mortals can make. I’m kind of a superhero that way. No big.’

     We need to ask ourselves an important question. Do we love being called ‘artist’? Do we love the attention we receive because of our product? Do we love the good reviews and the accolades and the recognition and all the other perks that come from making good art?

     Or do we love the creation itself?

     One of those loves is mercenary. The other is born of Imago Dei. One moves us toward becoming celebrities. The other moves us toward becoming creators.

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September 28, 2011

The Storyteller as Translator or Calliope Mumbles

       Creative people debate about where creativity comes from. It’s either something born deep within us that we painstaking bring out. Or it’s something on the outside that we reach out and touch. For the most part, whichever view helps you be creative is probably the best.

       I’m in the second group, though I think the first group is on to something. I think the stories come from an outside Source. I believe that muses are spiritual thingies (yes, thingies) that whisper our stories in our ears. And I think that they’re always whispering.

       Have you heard them? You probably have. Whenever a brilliant idea for a story or a painting or a recipe or a dance forms in your mind, that’s the muse poking you. You’re filled with excitement and you rush to your computer or sketch pad to throw that idea into the world. But as you pick up your pen, you stop understanding. Your muse is mumbling. Or she’s speaking a higher tongue. Either way, the story is not as clear as you thought it was.

       Two choices, at this point: (a) Decide you’re not really an artist after all and the story sucks and throw your tool away and walk because it was a stupid idea to begin with. Or (b) write it down anyway. Move forward. Trust that you are not being given a crap story and commit to seeing it through.

       (b) is, of course, better.

       The muses always give good stories. Alas, they speak no English. As creative people we are meant to listen deeply to their sublime tongues and work out the story they want us to tell. It’s a hard, harsh discipline. But if we’re faithful to the story, the muses will be faithful to us. The universe wants her story told, after all. But she needs a translator.

       Stories are from the Outside. But it’s our painstaking translations and revisions that show them to be the glories that they really are.

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September 15, 2011

Who Are the Music Makers?

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
– Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy – ‘Ode’
Full text here.

     Who are the music makers?

     Who are the dream dreamers?

     Do you want the job?

     It’s not an easy role. You are forced to wander alone by the cold, infinite sea. You will have to pitch a tent in the dark, sacred desert. Your dreams will give birth to Nineveh and Babel, and then you will find your prophecies tearing them down again. You will have to give up the world and be willing to have the world give up on you in return.

     Can you do it?

     Are you willing?

     There is much in store for you, should you take this heavy yoke.

     You will become a mover. A shaker.

With wonderful deathless ditties,
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.

     The path turns itself dark. And that makes the light of your music all the brighter.

     Is it worth it?

     The pain? The loneliness?

     Tell me this, instead.

     Is life worth the pain of living?

     Are children worth the pain of birth?

     Is gold worth the flame that makes it?

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September 13, 2011

Sweat the Hard Stuff

        The hardest stuff is always the best.

        I’m tired right now. I gave a sermon on Sunday. It was inspired by a conversation four angry Baptists had that I overheard. I’m always wrecked two days after giving a sermon. Preaching is, honestly, one of the funnest things in the universe. Stressful, tense, but fun. But it drains every drop of emotional, mental and creative energy I have. Come Tuesday, I have an IQ of 60, lack the imagination to draw a circle and nearly weep when I see an ugly cat.

        So it’s hard to do the hard stuff in the week following a sermon.

        Which sucks, because the hard stuff is the best stuff.

        When you have to sweat a bit to create or consume something.

        When it’s tough, but you’re still good enough to pull it off.

        Reading a profound poem.

        Writing an emotional scene.

        Cooking a pot of palak paneer that makes your Pakistani wife go ‘Hai Allah!”

        Those are great.

        Those are hard.

        Especially after draining myself on a Sunday morning.

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April 18, 2011

Innocence Lost

I used to stare at this painting every time I visited my artist friends in Peterborough. It’s the kind of painting that grabs by the throat with silky fingers and demands to be gazed at.

My wife must have noticed, because she secretly bought it for me this month.

Paintings used to confuse me. I can look at stories and film and draw meaning from them pretty naturally, but I couldn’t do that with paintings. Until one day I was asking my artist friend what the rules were.
“What rules?” she said.
“The rules in interpreting art. How do I know what the artist is trying to communicate? Do colours mean something? Shapes? Help me out here.” Can you sense my desperate need to have everything defined and quantified?
“No rules, silly. Don’t try to figure out what the artist was trying to say. What is the piece saying to you.”
Sounds simple, eh? Probably something you already knew. But it changed everything for me. I could suddenly see life in an art form I hadn’t understood. I think that’s when I really fell in love with this one.

Go check out Needle and Nest Design. Buy something. Leave an encouraging comment. Pick up some inspiration for your own journey. I sure did. Love you, Ben and Mel.

I looked up at the sky
    for I was innocent and fearless
And the sky opened herself to me and showed me glorious things.
    Things of sunshine
    Things of green
    Things of life and light and lovelies uncountable.
And everything was bright and beautiful.
    I looked with the longing on a child, my scarlet hair flying in the wind.
    I drank with reckless abandon, caring not for the cliche.
    In my hunger.
    In my desire.
    In passion, pure and pleasured.
Oh, it was good.

I looked up at the sky
    feared.
For the sky had died.
    Grey.
    Dark.
    Cold.
Silent stony streams with flowed dryly beneath me.
    I tilted my head to the heavens, lips parted in desire for something loved and lost.
    Hair torn by unknown hands, dipped in oil I could not rinse.
My thirst abandoned me.
    and my hunger
    desire
    blah.

Twit. Twitter. Tweet.
    Red, flitting and flying about.
    It landed before me, upon the crooked finger of a branch clinging to life.
    I wanted to touch.
    I wanted to reach.
    But I remembered the taint upon my head.
Twit. Twitter. Tweet.
    It bore its own mark
    yet was beautiful still.
    Yet was beautiful still.
    Yet loved still.
Am I still lovely?
    (yes)
Am I still beautiful?
    (yes)
I am pale and thin. I am sick and stained. But do you still look upon me with desire?
    (for the good is greater than the taint)
    Yes?
    (and the root is purer than the branch)
    Yes?
    (and dare not say otherwise, bride)
I looked up again, the bird was full of love and taint together.
    May I touch your bird?
    (darling, it was for that reason i sent him)

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February 9, 2011

A Free Conversation

Do you know what it’s like to sit alone and free?

To have before you every tool could could possibly need?
A handful of high-quality pens.
A pretty pad of yellow paper.
A computer that rivals Deep Thought.
Even a clunky old typewriter from Goodwill, complete with upper-middle quality paper.
Peace and Quiet.
The knowledge that you will not be disturbed for hours to come.
Complete freedom.

Only to see that you have bound yourself.

An address to the choking chains:
Ho!
From where did you come?
I did not see you before!
Chains: Nevermore.
Me: Your ham-handed reference frightens me, though it hardly seems to fit.
Chains: What do you expect? I am choking out your wit.
Me: This I see clear. And your childish rhyme makes it all the clearer. Begone! I sit in my time of freedom.
Chains: And I seek to steal it from you.
Me: Why? Does my suffering bring you profit?
Chains: Nay, for I have no true existence to be profited.
Me: Then are you sent by a higher power to hinder me?
Chains: Nay, for I am so very low that the High Things always distain to deal with me.
Me: Then what are you? Answer me!
Chains: I can only gives answers in my native tongue – silence.
Me: That is no answer at all! At least no reasonable answer. For it implies you speak silence – an oxymoron if ever I heard one.
Chains: Nevermore.
Me: Again with that awkwardly inserted yet deeply frightening reference! What mean you? For the black bird spoke it to drive home the permanence of the loss the protagonist had suffered. Why have you spoken it?

And here the chain only rattles against itself. And I take hold with my left hand to settle it.

A thought: The chain, or course, cannot give up its secret or purpose. Neither can it bind or free of its own power. No. For it is a non-thing. Without power. And so I must find its source. The chain master.

So with my deft left I feel the sordid, lack-wit chain in the dark. And I follow it, aiming for its mighty source. How does it feel?

Long
Cold
Angry
Unliving
Unfeeling
Bloody
Guilty
Ashamed

I stop, for I have reached an end. I have found the source.

A hand.

I hand gripping tight. Callous and cold. I try to pry it off. But I cannot.

I grasp the wrist.

Arm

Shoulder

Neck.

Suddenly I feel warm fingers on my throat and a sickening truth shines in my mind.

I hold the chain.

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