Letter 38: September 22, 2008
Excuse my writing to you a couple of days early: I'm going to be away from the desk at a family occasion.
We're still on the Four Ps of Creativity, and to talk about the Creative Person I can't do better than to share this interesting story I came across in my adventures in block. Researcher Susan X. Day contacted four creative writers. A 19-year old writer of drama, fiction and poetry, who’d recently had a play produced at his university; two established poets in their mid-40s, male and female, both with day jobs as professors; and an unpublished novelist in his mid-30s.
She met each of them four times, first to focus on writing history and current projects; then on best and worst writing experiences; then on each individual’s writing process; and lastly for an in-depth discussion of the evolution of a particular piece of work.
Here’s what she found. Each one had felt isolated from peers as a child. Each one had a strong sense of being odd, of being an outsider. Because they were also competent and intelligent, each one managed to elevate oddity to a virtue, in what she calls a self-protecting maneuver. They also became fascinated with oddity in the outside world and integrated this interest into their identities and their writing.
So, what did these odd people say about writer’s block?
Nothing.
None of them identified block as a major challenge.
Once she realized this, she changed the original direction of her research and she wrote a report about something else.
So look, here we have a group of adult writers who don’t report that blocking is a problem. Isn’t that great? If we knew what it was that made them immune, we’d have something that most writers would trade their souls for.
Day says that
1) none of her people expect to make a living at writing. They all have day jobs. I think this hints at something important - good writing often happens when you’re writing for its own sake.
2) also, writers face rejections and disappointments: few are published in major channels. So why do we bother? Day says that you need something inside you, that creative writing must be a part of who you are. Part of how you make sense of life. And a big part - so big that it is “fully imbued in [your] sense of self, as perhaps gender is for most of us, and not to be a creative writer would feel alien and inauthentic in a most disturbing way.” The experience of writing like that, of expressing your very self, of being authentic, must be far more satisfying than what most of us find in our jobs or, let’s face it, in our writing.
Of course these are just a few cases. And if you don't want to be a poet or an unpublished novelist, you needn't let Day's remarks intimidate you. All the same, something you can try today is writing for its own sake, for your own sake, as though nothing else mattered, and not thinking about last week's "P" (if you don't remember it, that's perfect, stay there), and watch what happens.
David
David Jung McGarva
+1 (818) 707 1871
Write me: david at todayiwrite dot com
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