Resources
Be passionate in creating your own story
By Marian Edmunds, writer
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all. Edward de Bono
Many a creative dream has failed not for lack of talent or ideas but because no start was made. A woman told me at a business meeting that she’d rather be writing novels. If you’d rather be writing novels you’d be doing it, I said.Unsurprisingly, we didn’t work together but I hoped later on I might hear of her first novel. I still might.
People often kit themselves out with the latest technology in a lovely office in preparation to be creative. It doesn’t work like that.
If you’re determined to create, you need only basic materials. You can write a book or create your plans for a business from a kitchen table or garage. State of the arttechnology is just another pillar to hide behind, says Hugh Macleod, author of the e-book, Change This, How To Be Creative. Macleod started sketching cartoons on the back of business cards as an aside from his career in advertising. They took off, as have his books. But he has always kept up his day job, freeing his drive to create from his need for a good income.
The further along in their career an artist or creator moves the fewer the tools they need, says Macleod. His best known tip, and the title of his book, is Ignore Everybody. The more original the idea, the less good advice anyone will be able to give you. You have to trust your gut feelings but it’s not easy he says. Friends and long-term colleagues may support you and believe in you but deep down probably won’t want to see you change.
Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships. That is why good ideas are always initially resisted. Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.
Often when I meet people and tell them I am a writer, they’ll say, Oh, I’ve got an idea for a book for you. Me too. Coming up with ideas is never the challenge. Seeing them through is.
Creation can flow from ritual
Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order. Virginia Woolf
Without need of tea or a morsel of food, I get up at 5am and start writing. I may be working on an article or novel, or a letter, or a morning page, where I deposit content from my heart and mind. Much depends on my mood, and pressing deadlines. Even so writing is hard, even when you do it every day. But not writing is harder.
For many, creative juices flow only after coffee, or several coffees. Or they flow from a morning walk.
I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day. Brenda Ueland, writer and renowned writing teacher.
Or creation flows from ritual, such as having a cuppa, and setting out your fountain pens, sharpening your pencils, and setting them out in an ordered row on your desk. Jim Kelly, a former colleague and now crime novelist in Britain writes every morning in a hut in a garden allotment. Sometimes you need routine, and sometimes you need to go somewhere just to think clearly.
When I need to form an idea quickly I move to another space, even if it’s just to sit on a step in the sunshine. I allow 10 minutes to scribble down what I think I want to say about the project. I was reminded of this technique at a recent workshop with David Leser, the profile writer. Set down what you have, and 10 minutes later you will have enough of an idea to be getting on with.
How we see ourselves and others
All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. - Pablo Picasso
Years ago I attended art class at the quaintly named Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and the Arts in South East London, in the UK. Most of the participants were middle-aged women with grown children seeking creative simplicity amid their busy lives. I was not yet a mother and worked nights on the world desk of the Financial Times, a fascinating but stressful job.
The pastels class was the best three hours of the week. As I made bold strokes on textured paper, I had to concentrate on what I was doing and all my worries fell away.
It was immediate, intimate, and risky because pastel strokes once applied could not be erased. Work with your mistakes, said Frances Treanor, my teacher, ash blonde and poised. If you were at art school, I would say you must use this or that technique, but here you don’t have to do that, she said.
Sometimes we’d work in the herb garden at the Royal Greenwich Park. Or we’d meet at the Royal Academy where boosted with coffee we’d view paintings. Frances would talk about the work with asides about which of the artists had slept with each other. I’d study the works and wonder at these influences.
We frequently painted still life abundant with flowers. For a short time another young woman attended the class. She had a simplistic style, her representations of the vases having little resemblance to the items I saw on the tablecloth. One day we painted self-portraits and afterwards the other young woman and I talked. It turned out we envied each other. She admired my skill at perspective, and I admired her freedom from its constraints.
In my harsh self-criticism my self-portrait emphasised the shortcomings of my skills, having never quite mastered noses or mouths, or been able to capture exact likenesses. Her self-portrait was childlike and joyful. I wished I could find the off switch for all my training and be so free. She had a passion for art and lamented at never being taught. I saw it as a gift and hoped like mad this freedom of expression would not be drilled out of her.
Frances Treanor often cuts a strong element off one painting and attaches it to other works. She also never blends her pastels on the paper. This makes her work powerful, and never blurry. It’s a fine objective for anything we create.
Marian Edmunds is a writer who has worked as a journalist for the Financial Times and the Australian Financial Review, and in public relations. She writes features, case studies, brochures, press releases, web and social media content. She produces succinct and creative copy, and helps clients identify and develop their own storytelling skills.
-
Website: http://www.thewritingbusiness.com/