creativity – Page 2 – Patricia J. Parsons

The genesis of an idea

Posted on 18 Oct 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

I’m not a literary writer in the artistic sense of the word. I don’t write literary novels or short stories. I write both fiction and non-fiction stories (and make no mistake, the non-fiction is based on story-telling in its best sense) that result from an active process of looking for ideas. Oh, once in a while I stumble on something, or I end up using an idea in a very different way than the way I started out; but on balance, finding ideas is for me a very proactive process. And although I am not part of the high-brow literati, I can still appreciate that those who are might be able to articulate an idea in a different way – not better or worse, but differently.

Emily Dickinson, a literary-minded writer in her own right of course, put it this way: “Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.” I wish I had written that – I didn’t but I identify with the concept. I open every door to see where those doors might lead.

The idea of inspiration, and what it is, has shown up here before; being open to inspiration is a kind of internal process. There is clearly a relationship between the ethereal notion of being inspired to create something – whether it’s a piece of choreography, a new theory, a strategic plan or a new book – and the idea upon which that creation will be based, but in my view they are not exactly the same thing. So, finding ideas is an external process – or at least requires interaction with the external world.

Being open to inspiration requires a certain frame of mind that makes that mind a fertile place for that idea generator to take root and grow. The question now is not how to keep your mind open, but how to find that genesis.

So, where does an idea for a creation come from? I’ve gleaned ideas from any number of places over the years. Some of these have included the following:

Long conversations over wine (this is essential) with my husband and sometime collaborator. Never underestimate the power of those meandering conversations with someone whose ideas you respect. Putting your two heads together even without the goal of finding a writing idea often results in transformative ideas.
Newspaper articles. This is a no-brainer for writers no matter what kind of writing you do. It might be that headline story (you’ve heard of the ripped-from-the-headlines type stories), but my experience tells me that more often the idea is likely to come from a small piece, the piece that you might easily have overlooked. I’m currently working on a contemporary piece that is based on a ten-line article in a newspaper. This is when you take up your trusty scissors or those newspaper cutters that should be beside your reading chair at all times, cut it out and paste it in your journal. Or if you re reading electronically, use a select and paste tool (but I do need to point out that often these ten-line gems of stories that fill up column inches often don’t make it to the electronic version).
Interviews with both celebrity types and every day people. Sometimes you’ll be watching someone being interviewed on television, or hear it on the radio while you’re driving your car and one line might get you thinking. You need to have a way to capture those lines – a journal if you’re not driving, a voice recorder if you are.
Conversations overheard. Everyone expects writers to be slightly odd, so eavesdropping isn’t as far off the radar as you might think. If you take public transit for example, you are awash in a sea of possible writing ideas. I’ve sat on the subway in Toronto more than a few times and overheard snippets of conversation that seem to evoke a sense of character or even a story. (I don’t live in Toronto and never take public transit at home – so I really feel I’m missing out on that one!). And what about listening to other parents when you’re waiting for your children at school? Or at the school concert? Or audience members around you at the ballet, the theater or even the movie? The hockey rink? On a beach while on vacation? At a bar?
Online conversations “overheard.” This is a bit more controversial, but nevertheless full of juicy material. If you lurk around on social media sites, people might think that you are spying, but practically everyone does it to one extent or another. Reading posts on forums without actually participating in the conversation is the definition of lurking and it has its controversial side – but it can be for the greater good. For example, if you are interested in women’s health issues and you lurk around a social network focused on these issues, you might very well be inspired to write an article or book that will help people. So, it’s not all bad!

And finally, my personal favorite…

Academic articles. For anyone who happens to read academic articles, you’d be surprised how often one of them can contain the germ of a story. I once read an article in a medical journal back in my medical writing days about how Edgar Allan Poe died (or what wasn’t known about it to be more specific), and that ignited an idea.

These are just a few places where ideas spring forth. Ideas come from everywhere and often coalesce to form that big idea that eventually becomes the genesis for a story. It then takes on a life of its own as the settings, characters and plots take over the writing. Ask a writer where his or her idea actually had its genesis, and sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint. But for me, I can usually tell where the germ actually comes from.

And when it comes to my historical fiction work, the idea is usually as a result of an unanswered question from history.

GRACE NOTE began to take shape many years ago. In the late 1990’s, there was a resurgence of interest in a little-known Roman Catholic mystic who lived in 12^thcentury Germany. Her name was Hildegard of Bingen.

Hildegard was born in 1098 and when she was about fourteen years old (the historical dating is inconsistent) she was tithed to the church and walled up in a hut attached to a Benedictine monastery, proclaimed dead to the world, to live her life as an anchorite. Of course, history tells us that she didn’t stay walled up forever, rather went forward and accomplished a great many things in her career as a nun and abbess. She has been proclaimed a feminist (!), physician, mystic, teacher, and very prominently, a composer, often referred to as the very first female composer to live. The problem is that there isn’t hard evidence of the actual authorship of her music and in 1998 an article appeared in the journal Early Music provocatively suggesting that there is no evidence that she accomplished so much. That’s where my story began. And GRACE NOTE is the outcome of the idea genesis followed up by lots of research on what is known and what is not known.

Where have you found your ideas?

Sabbaticals, Writing rituals

One writer’s sabbatical

Posted on 7 Sep 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

It’s September again. That usually means some new school supplies and back to the classroom for a hard-working university prof. But not this year. This semester I’m on sabbatical. It’s funny how people respond when you tell them you’re on sabbatical. Usually they say something like: “Gee, must be nice.” (With just that slight edge of sarcasm.) Or they say, “You university people have all the perks.” Well, let’s just say that there are few people who would not like to be in my shoes right now regardless of how much they like their jobs. So, what’s a sabbatical for anyway?

Naturally, the web is full of definitions. Let’s start with the etymology of the word (where the English word has its source).

The word itself derives from and is related to a bunch of words in other languages. The Latin sabbaticus, the Greek sabbaitkos, and even the Hebrew Shabbat, all have similar meanings. They refer to a hiatus from work. This is interesting to a university professor, I’m sure, since a sabbatical does mean a break from one’s regular teaching and administrative responsibilities, but the requirement to produce work related to the other components of a prof’s contract is even higher. That part, of course, is the research and writing part. A university professor on sabbatical is supposed to be researching and writing. The idea, though, that one can be freed up from other daily responsibilities to focus more fully on the kind of work that really is done better with single-minded focus from time to time, is a forward-thinking one. Everyone should have a sabbatical once in a while. But not to lie around slothfully and vegetate, in my view. So, what kind of productive work can a writer produce when she is on sabbatical from other work?

Believe it or not, there is a web site called YourSabbatical.com that provides services for employers and employees regarding sabbaticals. Who knew? According to their web site they partner “…with businesses to implement customized sabbatical programs that attract, retain, and accelerate top talent through personal and professional enrichment…” They do, however, have a useful blog for people on sabbatical, and I was especially interested in their interview with a “prolific writer” who has the following tips for productive writing when taking a hiatus from your regular work. According to Casey Hawley (author of 10 Make-or-Break Career Moments: Navigate, Negotiate, and Communicate for Success, a book that I cannot recommend since I have not read it), we all need to…

Have a schedule for our writing. To tell you the truth, this is a no-brainer for me. I think that if you can’t even make a date with yourself to write, then you’ll never get a project finished especially when you have so much more freedom than usual.
Reward ourselves. She suggests that if you set a word goal, for example, then you reward yourself – perhaps you can go out to lunch. Whereas I do agree with this suggestion, I also think that you need to revisit tip #1 and add that your goals should be realistic, and also more than the minimum. I can write thousands of words a day but that doesn’t mean they will be the words I should write. On the other hand, if I were to set my goal for 500 words a day and then went out for lunch as a reward, not only would I be under-performing, I’d probably be fat!
Have writing rituals. Lots of creative people tell us this. Twyla Tharp, world-renowned choreographer and author of The Creative Habit (which I can and do recommend), says, “It’s vital to establish some rituals – automatic but decisive patterns of behavior – at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back…Turning something into a ritual eliminates the question, why am I doing this?” She then provides numerous examples of artists’ rituals. Evidently Igor Stravinsky always did the same thing every morning as he entered his studio: He sat down and played a Fugue by Bach. Then he got to work. These days we’re more likely to check email or a Facebook site – but that little ritual can get you into a whole lot of trouble as the act itself begins to consume ever larger portions of your day. I suggest leaving the online rituals until later. Perhaps make them the reward! (see #2 above)

So, those are the three tips for being more prolific in your writing. I better move on and set my goal for the day which will be followed by my reward, but not until I perform my ritual. That ritual is setting my goal for the days and deciding on what kind of a reward I’ll have if I produce. A bit circular, non?

Off to San Francisco tomorrow for a wedding and a bit of a reward for all this writing.

Creativity, creativity generators, Ideas generation

When inspiration strikes

Posted on 11 Aug 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

North Atlantic sunset — Finding inspiration from a sunset somewhere over the North Atlantic, way out at sea

I’m just back from a summer vacation that has engendered seething jealousy from friends and colleagues alike. The jealousy stems in part from what several have called its “inspiration” value. And based on the story I told you last time, I should have my next book completely outlined with loads of snippets of narrative and dialogue in my little purple Moleskine notebook.

Inspiration it was – but I’m not quite ready to write yet – historical fiction requires more than an inspirational story line – it takes significant and detailed research. We’ll get to that research process, but today I am fixated on the notion of inspiration.

In medical terms, inspiration means breathing in ad breathing out. In a way, artistic inspiration is the same. The writer (or choreographer, or painter or even corporate strategist for that matter) has a sudden burst of creativity – the genesis of that moment might not even be discernable at the time. We don’t always know the source of our inspiration in the moment. We know only that something has triggered action. So in a way, it’s like breathing in and breathing out – the creative fodder is breathed in, and the creative output is breathed out. Over the years, however, various creative individuals have had differing takes on just what it means to be inspired.

Leonard Bernstein said this: “Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time…The wait is simply too long.” Lesson 1: Don’t just sit back and wait for the muse to strike. Find ways to seek inspiration in the meantime. I found this writer’s blog entry that has a laundry list of things to do to fill that gap between sudden bursts of creativity.

Picasso’s approach to the creative process is echoed by many other artists: “Inspiration exists,” he once said, “but it has to find us working.” Lesson 2: Just get down to work. Write about anything around you and eventually, the creative muse will strike and you’ll be inspired either to trash everything or to use it in new and innovative ways.

QM 2 champagne — A glass of champagne aboard the Queen Mary 2 is an inspiration in itself!

American businessman Nolan Bushnell has been quoted as saying that “the ultimate inspiration is the deadline.” Lesson 3: Set deadlines and stick to them. Better yet, have someone else set them for you. Try this: tell your significant other or someone whose feedback on your writing you actually appreciate, and tell him or her that you’ll have a few chapters to be read in two weeks. Even that kind of a deadline is inspirational. Then, when you have a deadline from a publisher, you’ll know how to seek inspiration from knowing it has to get done.

So, here’s what I’m up to: I’m looking at my vacation photos and seeing what stories they hold for me. I’m writing about a number of things in several different genres. I’m doing research on two new ideas. I’ve told my husband that he’ll have a few more chapters for him to read in two weeks.