I have been reading a book by Jonah Lehrer entitled Imagine How Creativity Works. (Canongate, 2012). It, as you can see by the title, explores creativity and some of the processes. It is about 'the ability to imagine what never existed.' I have since found out that it has been discredited as a book. Even so, one point that resonated with me was the idea that just before inspiration arrives we can have a crisis or hit a brick wall. It is at this stage, when we are giving up, that the solution will appear. The example that is used to explain this idea relates to Bob Dylan and his experience leading up to writing 'Like A Rolling Stone' (See below to listen to it). He had given up music because he felt burnt out and was planning on writing a novel, but the song took over and just had to be written. What a success it proved to be too! This may or may not be true but was an interesting example.
It is an intriguing story and one that I could empathise with on a basic level. I often see it happen with my students, particularly when working on their dissertations. On a personal basis though, in the summer when I was trying to rewrite Trafficking I had a real crisis. I couldn't work out how my story was going to end - what was the denouement? I got so frustrated and angry I was ready to throw my lap top across the room. Instead I decided my laptop needed to be saved so I 'walked away,' I decided to read a good book for a bit of escapism. It wasn't even a piece of young adult fiction. It was everything my story was not. But it was whilst reading this unrelated book that the answer came to me in the form of a 'what if' question that answered all my problems.
I know I am not the only one to experience this and I am sure I have spoken about similar ideas in the past. I could probably fill several pages of examples and I am sure you can all recognise these moments in yourself. I actually believe it goes beyond this. You can have these answer moments but you have to be able to make the connections. Creativity is as much about connections as it is about inspiration. It is about making the links which allows the narrative to flow and to keep the readers' attention. These connections need to move from your brain to the page and then to the reader. They need to be able to understand what you are saying. Adam Phillips, the psychologist, believed that stories are all about making the connections and that these connections can help you understand the world. As a writer, therefore, you need to get them write [sic]. Happy writing everyone.
Sometimes when working in HE it is too easy to become swamped by all the pressure. We live in an atmosphere of government enforced financial cuts and ever increasing expectations. We are meant to be research active but finding the time can be incredibly difficult. Consequently it is too easy to lose sight of what we are actually doing.
Yesterday was graduation day for the students I taught last academic year. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go into the ceremony as I was teaching but I raced down afterwards. With another colleague we stood at the entrance to Winchester Cathedral and waited. Soon a long winding line of excited students, all dressed in black, purple and cream flowed out of the double doors to the applause of lecturers. It is the most wonderful pageant.
They were as excited to see me and Mel as I was to see them on their special day. I was amazed and delighted that despite their excitement every single one of them said, 'thank you for teaching me, I had the best time ever.' Yes, I must confess that was a thrill to hear but what I didn't expect and what totally blew my mind was the number of their parents who came up to me and shook my hand saying 'Thank you for taking care of them. I have heard so much about you. You supported them so much. Thank you.'
I apologise if this sounds like I am blowing my own trumpet but it made me realise how the little things can matter. The taking time to listen when things aren't going great. To share in their joy when they are. They are all simple things that I don't think we even think about as lecturers, its what all of us do. But it can make a huge difference. Thinking about it afterwards I thought that I should know and understand this of all people. I wouldn't be a lecturer with a PhD if it hadn't been the fact that I too had had lecturers, who have now become friends, that supported me and encouraged me throughout my degrees. They gave me the world and I hope that I have passed that on to my students.
Congratulations to the 2012 Creative Writing graduates, you were a fabulous lot and I am proud of every single one of you. Thank you also for reminding me how great it is to be a lecturer.
It just had to be - an oldie but a goody - 'Winchester Cathedral
It is a year ago since this photo was taken. Again it has been an amazing year. I have two jobs now that I didn't expect to have then. I am involved in a fantastic project which I also knew nothing about then - there will be more information about this in the next few weeks. I had my first independent article published. I have had a chapter in a book on teaching creative writing published. Plus I have given papers and I worked on collaborative paper/chapter with a great friend and colleague from the other side of the world - Skype is a wonderful thing. I have a book proposal in and I have been asked to write a chapter for a book with a colleague. On the creative side my novel is being read by an editor - what more could anyone want. All potentially mind blowing experiences, particularly if they all come about. At the time of my graduation I wasn't sure anything could beat that feeling but life is pretty good, if exhausting these days.
Yesterday I bought the little man in the picture his first shoes. He seems to be growing up so quickly. His idea of bliss is to sit and take every one of his books off the bookshelf so they all surround him. He then spends hours 'reading' each and every one of them. (there are a lot and those are just the ones downstairs). Some are old traditional ones, others are brand new and innovative, all are respected and loved by him. One of his all time favourites at the moment is Old MacDonald Had a Farm. My daughter and I would love to know why because the actual illustrations are not the best I've seen. It intrigues us. Perhaps it is in part because he loves the actions we all do when we read it to him. The most important point is he loves books - what more could a grandmother ask for.
I believe I have said this before, but as children's writers we are lucky, there is a perceived ever growing market for us. At the moment people still love giving books to children. They love the tangible feel of a book. I am also aware as I watch my grandson work my phone and my daughter's tablet that the current generation will probably get as much out of ebooks as they do 'traditional' books. Is this really a problem as long as they are reading and we (children's writers) are writing these stories? Does it matter what media it comes in? Not really I suppose but I confess I do love a good book to hold in my hand - showing my age I imagine. I will just keep writing my stories and not worry about what format they will be produced in. Having said that I do sometimes look at my stories and think, would this make a film? Does anyone else do that?
I was reading a bit of Al Alvarez's The Writer's Voice and this one phrase struck home: '...prose is never quite finished.' (London: Bloomsbury, 2006 p.44) How true is that? For me it goes along with the idea, which I know I have mentioned before, of Blanchot who suggest that the writer leaves questions on the page for the reader to pick up. Thinking of both these ideas seemed to highlight that a story is never ours alone, it belongs to everyone. Every reader will interpret it differently, influenced by their own cultural space and experience. In the same way, and we tried this in class the other day, if we gave every one the same sentence to start with or sat them in the same place and asked them to write about it, every story would be different. (And it was, some brilliant pieces came out of the exercise) That is what is glorious about creativity. We all have different stories to tell even if we start in the same place.
A TED talk worth listening too is by Chimamanda Adichie and the danger of the single story.
Cathy Cassidy put this up the other day and I feel it is quite appropriate. It is Elvis Costello's 'Everyday I write the book'
But wandering around Winchester also allowed me time to think about my new work in progress. I had had some great feedback from my critique group, which I was delighted about, but it definitely needed work. I had already decided earlier in the week to kill off one of the characters. She was surplus and had nothing to say so there was no point having her there. Whilst I spent the morning people watching as I walked around another new idea came to mind. It was one of those surprise moments I mentioned in the post before last. I realised I wanted to start the story earlier and there needed to be a heightened sense of risk and tension. These kids were in danger and up until now I hadn't let the reader know that. I was the only one who knew.
It is a problem I often see with students and something I think we can all be guilty of at times. You read the story and it feels a bit flat and one dimensional because the important bits of the story are still be in the writer's head. We, the writers, know exactly what is going on in our story but have failed to put those hints on the page to enable a reader to work it out as well. It is all about layers. Creating characters that are fully rounded, settings that lift off the page and a plot that engages the reader - making them want to keep reading.
There is an art to going back over your work and making the links, developing those layers so that they all make sense. There is no easy route, it takes time and effort and is all part of the editing/rewriting as well as the actual writing process. But it is worth it. A good idea, when you are rewriting/editing, is to analyse your chapters and break them down ensuring that plots and sub plots are supported throughout and don't just drift off somewhere without conclusion. Also checking that your characters' behaviour and attitude is consistent and appropriate throughout. It is all in the small details that can ensure that the reader willingly suspends disbelief (check out Samuel Taylor Coleridge for this idea) and embraces the story.
Here is Zoe Keating playing Optimist. Watch how she creates the piece of music by creating layers - just like writing.
This is just a very brief post to celebrate a life and many others as too many wonderful writers and musicians have disappeared off our world this year. In particular it seems to have been a large number of children's authors - or perhaps I am just conscious of them as emails go around announcing the latest death and we all start remembering the first time we read one of their books.
Music is the same. I am certain I have a soundtrack to my life. There are so many songs which relate to particular moments in my life, it is always sad when one of those musicians are taken. It seem to make the memory fade just slightly.
This is actually for Michael Marra who I have just heard has died. He is someone that sadly I have only recently come across and for me, therefore, has definitely been taken too soon.
This sign has suddenly appeared in the fields just outside our village and following a large explosion last week. (Thank you Debbie Found for allowing me to use her picture) We have all been walking through these fields for years and we had no idea. What a surprise that could have been!
Anyway in this blog I have previously spoken about Meg Rosoff and her idea of 'throughness' when writing - that moment when you feel totally connected. (If you are interested she wrote a brilliant article about it in Write4Children) It is the most wonderful feeling when it happens, though I am sure we all know as writers, it doesn't happen that often unfortunately. Further to this I was talking with a good friend this week about how our respective writing projects were going. He told me about a moment when a character just suddenly appeared complete with name. It took him totally by surprise. He had no idea where they had come from. And it certainly is a very different character but I am not going to tell you about them, that is his story to tell.
What I am interested in is this idea of our writing taking us by surprise. We think we plan it, sometimes to the nth degree and that we know exactly where any story is going. But then suddenly it takes this about turn. It can be a new, unexpected character appearing, or even, and this has happened to me, a character turning round and saying 'But that's not what I would do!' Or they go to a place you had never thought about. Or do something you had never considered. Often all of them making the story better and stronger. I find these moments can happen when you are so engrossed in your writing and I do wonder if it is our unconscious selves stepping in with ideas we didn't know we had because we hadn't taken the time to think about them.
There are other times when these surprise turns can happen. They are moments when you are doing something totally unrelated to writing. I have been stuck before now, not sure quite how to solve a plot problem or a character issue and I can almost guarantee that the answer will appear in the shower, when I am driving, doing the ironing or anything that means my brain is not really thinking and I have nothing to write with! There is a wonderful story, that I may have told before, of Tom Waits, the American singer-songwriter, who was driving along and ideas for songs kept coming. He apparently shouted to the sky, 'can't you see I am driving!' I think we have to have these moments in order to allow space in our over-active brains to let those ideas in. Unfortunately it is not that easy to contrive these situations, they just have to happen.
I was watching a glorious TED talk (I do love them) by Amy Tan on 'where does creativity hide?' She was talking about how she found when she was writing she would see hints everywhere. And this is something I also find. When I have an idea for a story I will often suddenly start seeing things that are related to it and that I have never noticed before. I always thought it was chance and it was a secret message to me that I was right to write the story. She, more logically and, I think probably rightly so, believes that it is because we are more focused. I do love the romance of chance though....
I am struggling to find the time to write at the moment let alone have wonderful surprise moments but maybe this week will be the week again. There are so many ideas buzzing around that need to be dealt with. I hope you have some wonderful writerly moments.
I heard this and fell in love with it. And it does what it says on the tin, it makes you feel like you are 'Wrapped in your arms' by Fireflight.
We have just come to the end of the first week of teaching in Semester 1 and I have to confess to being a little tired. However prepared you are it still takes you by surprise. One of the delights of this week for me has been that every group of students I have had have been enthusiastic and engaged. It has been an absolute thrill to teach them. Add to that that yesterday we found out that Creative Writing at the University of Winchester had been voted number one in England for overall satisfaction by the students in the National Student Survey. This is a big deal for us. And, I admit, we are elated.
As lecturers we are always told to keep an eye out for plagiarism, luckily in creative writing examples of it seem very rare. In fact, in the five years that I have been lecturing I have not come across any but I know others who have and we do come down hard on them. Do they really think we don't spot it? But I have been watching with interest an email conversation that has been going on in one of the elists. I am not going to be specific and you will see why. It has been about a book that was self published and reviewed by what appears to be a very reputable source. What apparently has come to light is that this book bears more than a slight likeness to another book published many years ago (but still within copyright).To the extent that some of the same phrases, plots and themes etc have been used and are definitely recognisable. Plagiarism and copyright infringement- who knows?
The person who wrote the self published book does not appear to be being malicious, it was more a case of naivety. They wanted to produce the book so that they could share the story with others and apparently also thought it was a fable not an actual book. This made me ask myself several questions - if we are contemplating self publishing do we also need to do a quick Google check to make sure our perceived original idea is not a direct copy of a book we loved as a child? I have not self published anything so am not sure of the processes. Do the organisations that self publish assume you have checked all copyright issues? Where does the responsibility lie? The other thing that came out of this was it was suggested that reviewers should consider checking books to make sure they are not infringements. It seems to me that something quite apparently innocent has taken on all new proportions and to a certain extent quite rightly so. It took me back to some discussions held on facebook recently about images that are used on blogs if you don't own them, what actually gives you the right to use them if you have not sought permission?There was in fact a legal case about it. Someone also quite rightly pointed out would we be so dismissive if it was our writing that someone had taken and used without permission.
I have no answers to any of this, am just really thinking out loud.
And just because I am in a Paul Buchanan type of mood....
vided that full and clear credit is given to me, Vanessa Harbour, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This is my personal blog and as such these are my opinions. The information provided here is on an as-is basis; I make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this blog and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its use.
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