Thursday, October 27, 2005

Creativity - Train, Plane or Boat?

This morning I started reading Dylan's Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks, an examination of not only the presence of the seven deadly sins in Bob Dylan's music, but also the four cardinal virtues and the three graces. (Can you name them all? I couldn't.)

The book presupposes that the reader has

1) something of an appreciation of Dylan
2) something of a knowledge of Dylan's music

In the first chapter, Ricks mentions that while he obviously believes Dylan is a superb writer/poet, Bob's probably not conscious of all of the subtleties and shadings present in his own work. He includes this quote from Dylan:

"As you get older, you get smarter and that can hinder you because you try to gain control over the creative impulse. Creativity is not like a freight train going down the tracks. It's something that has to be caressed and treated with a great deal of respect. If your mind is intellectually in the way, it will stop you. You've got to program your brain not to think too much."

This is very much in line with what Jeffrey Ford taught us as Clarion. I constantly labor to shovel coal into my little train, to follow the track, to make all the proper stops at the proper time. Jump off the train. Instead, jump into a boat (no motor, no oars) and let it take you where it wants to go, at least during the first draft. Maybe this is so hard to do because I spent so many years teaching, analyzing what a student is doing wrong and trying to fix it. It's a perspective shift that's hard to overcome.

But overcome it I did, at least for awhile – The first draft of my short story "Fingerpaint" is finished, coming in at just over 3,000 words.

Now let's see where this boat is going.


Now Playing = "I Looked Away" – Michael Nesmith
Still Reading = Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman
The Best American Short Stories of the Century – John Updike, ed.

1 comment:

Andy Wolverton said...

I can't tell you how many times I've missed trash pickup or come out of my study to see Bullet frantically circling the kitchen table. (His way of telling me he needs to go to his "area.")

Hey, six more days!