NANDINI NAYAR
May05 Enid Blyton II
Apr05 Enid Blyton I

PENI GRIFFIN

Mar05 Last Column
Feb05 What's In Your Notebook?
Jan05 Read A Little Louder
Nov/Dec04 Creativity IV
Oct04 Creativity III
Sep04 Creativity II
Aug04 Creativity
Jun/Jul04 Social Angst and All That
May04 Reading In Public
Apr04 Elephant In The Living-Room
Mar04 Literary Synchronicity
Feb04 The Most Important Thing in the World
Jan04
Year-End Wrap-Ups
Dec03 Editors... They Ain't Want You Want, They're What You Need
Nov03 The Secret Formula for Originality - Revealed!
Oct03 An Incoherent Message Concerning Narrative Structure; or 'Reality. What a concept.'
Sep03 Preaching to the Choir
Aug03 FanFic

on ACHUKACHAT, the website discussion board...

Creativity
by Peni Griffin

Part 2
The Anatomy of the Muse

This is a prime example of false dichotomy. Between mystic inspiration and practical problem-solving lie a myriad of graduated possibilities which may be manifested at different times and by different people - or by the same person. You can be as inspired as any angel, but if you lack the skills to embody the inspiration, it won't do any good - and skills are learnable, even if they are not in all instances teachable. At the same time, mastering the structure of the Hero's Journey, the techniques of poetry, and the motifs of mythology will not necessarily enable one to sit down and generate an acceptable epic poem.

The forced choice between inspiration and perspiration tries, absurdly, to make us privilege one essential state over another. In the absence of moral considerations, only the finished result matters, not how it was achieved. An individual who plays music by ear may or may not produce superior music to an individual who reads music and speaks the language of tone and theme; and learning to analyze his art may enable him to improve it, or may stifle his talent under a groaning weight of theory and knowledge. The results vary so wildly from person to person that I would not advise anyone, except in the most general terms, on how much to study the mechanics of one's art, and how much to simply practice it. We can use role models, we can study under masters, we can learn good work habits, we can take advice - but in the end, each creator has her own best approach to the work. No one else can write my stories. No one else can tell me how to go about writing them, either.

And please note that some mechanics are vital! An architect who does not understand the qualities of his materials will not design a safe or attractive building; but the Sydney Opera House and the Cathedral of Notre Dame attest to the magnificence that can be achieved by one who does not consider those qualities as fixed limitations. You have to know rules before you can break them, as the old saw said to the young hammer.

We still have a lot to learn about how the brain functions, but the current state of the science concurs with my experience in indicating that a lot of work goes on without our ever becoming conscious of it - whether in creating a new work or in walking across the street, processes of which we remain unaware perform the bulk of the labor. These unconscious processes will function if you let them; but they are collaborators with the conscious mind, not dictators and not slaves.

My own method of research, on the face of it an entirely mechanical job, exemplifies this. Off to the library I go, making a directed search - site reports, maps, lists of species, comparative tables of hunter-gatherer territorial sizes charted in relation to available biomass, pictures of clay faces built up over bare skulls, academic debates both civilized and savage - into the head it all goes, and then I write the story.

But I cannot possibly store all that information consciously. Of course I take notes, but my handwriting is mostly illegible even before I get caught in the rain and my notebook gets wet. Only certain specific types of information ever get referenced directly during the writing process, and I prefer to have the printed source when I can. The note-taking is more a way of ensuring that research gets stored in my subconscious, where it rubs up against what I had for breakfast and the music I'm listening to and the people I meet and the books I read for fun. When I retrieve the information during the drafting stage, it is subtly different from the information I crammed in to begin with - richer, denser, organized into more useful forms for my purposes, in some cases transformed into exactly what I need by connection with a seemingly irrelevant bit of information.

I call it composting. Other people call it their muse. Whatever. Sometimes the works formed in this way battle their way into the conscious mind, producing the blissful state of inspiration. It's always fun when that happens. If you would be a professional, though, you can't wait for that, but must consciously retrieve the altered information. You develop the work habits that make that easiest, and sometimes that looks eccentric to people with different work habits. Sometimes it looks unreasonable to them. Sometimes it makes them mad, because they don't get to work sitting on a balcony drinking chai with binoculars looped around their necks. That's not my problem.

I divide work, generally, into three stages - research, drafting, and revision. For me, research is almost a passive activity, a continous process of observing the world around me, interspersed with periods of directed search in which I hunt up specific types of information for specific purposes. I almost never ask research questions or form and test hypotheses, because that's not the type of work I do. You wouldn't want a scientist doing research in my particular way, though they also benefit from "merely" observing daily life. Stories such as that of Watt and the steam kettle, Feynman and the spinning plate, Newton and the apple (but the apple is usually considered apocryphal) illustrate that point.

Drafting is the part of the work that looks - and for all I know, feels - mystical and mysterious to others. It's also gobs of fun. You do whatever is necessary in your particular case to let the sunlight of consciousness shine on all that lovely fertile brain compost, and you let the flowers (and the weeds) that have seeded it burst out. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes it comes hard, but even the hard parts are fun. This is what other people are most likely to recognize as creativity. You're productive of visible results. You're painting or acting or singing or making the numbers dance, and it's like being in love - fear of rejection and all. You can't afford to be self-conscious in this stage. You can't afford to think about failure or quality. You have to get out of your own way, and do what you're good at, whether you're good enough or not. If that means getting away from the intimidating computer or the glorious distracting view, then you do that.

Revision is almost entirely a conscious process - for me. This is when you worry about being good enough; when you pull weeds and bury them back in the compost heap to rot down into something useful. It's all about the mechanics. Revision concentrates the faculties on the whole work and subjects each part to the appropriate analysis. What isn't good enough must be rejected or reworked. Revision is merciless. I cannot do it piecemeal. I must have big chunks of time in order to focus. For a performer, revision comes before creation - in the endless hours of practice, scales and arpeggios, practice at the barre, rehearsal. Or maybe my division of work cannot be adapted to the needs of performers and similar experiences must be organized in entirely different ways.

No one can work without the correct tools, and no one else can decide what those tools are. An individual's tools may include endless cups of tea or a garden shed or a background of Vivaldi. Agatha Christie's included doing dishes. Mine includes gardening and birdwatching. Dancers need mirrors and barres and music; musicians need instruments; scientists need labs and libraries. That some individuals may abuse this reality - may use imperfect conditions as an excuse for non-production, or exaggerate their needs in order to control others and increase their own sense of importance - doesn't make it unreal, any more than (say) a new mother's excessive paranoia about germs renders the threat of disease to babies null. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Relax, and let your back- and fore-brains both do their jobs.

September 2004 © Peni Griffin

Editor: Michael Thorn
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