Creative vs Critical

I am the 'pullmepushyou'. I am juggling my interest in the critical and my creative writing. I am not always getting the balance right. Or possibly more importantly I keep being tantalised by critical ideas that lead me away to places I shouldn't be looking at at the moment. (Thank you Andy!) I need to focus more. But these wonderful ideas keep being waved in front of me and I just have to go and look.

I was sent a wonderful quote this morning by Delueze and Guattari which says 'We require just a little more order to protect us from chaos. Nothing is more distressing than a thought that escapes itself, that ideas that fly off, that disappear hardly formed, already eroded by forgetfulness or precipitated into others that we no longer master.' (Thank you Jen x) This is only part of a fairly long quote but it epitomises me at the moment. These ideas float in and disappear before I can grab them and mould them into something concrete and suitable for PhD work. I run after them with the proverbial butterfly net trying to catch them and recreate that moment of understanding and inspiration. I rarely achieve it but hope that one day they will return possibly slightly more formed.

I always maintain or have been taught that creativity and criticality are not actually separate things, in fact they feed off each other and thank goodness for that because they are both my passion. When I catch these floating ideas you will be the first to know - I promise.