Talking about creative writing.

Them as can, do.
Them as cain't, teach.
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Hmmm. Saturday was my day to teach about writing, focusing on the large, complex work (novels, screenplays). I suggested that we are grounded by the theology of creativity.

I focused the first part of my talk what creativity means, theologically, drawing a lot from Dorothy Sayers' THE MIND OF THE MAKER. This is a subject that I love to talk about (so bear with me!): since we are created in the image of God...just as He spoke and the world leapt into being...so, too, our creative use of words brings new worlds, new characters, and new stories to life.

I frequently referenced a favorite book, Stephen King's ON WRITING...as in this blog posting: http://davionwriting.blogspot.com/2013/05/immense-possibilities.html


If interested, link to my handout and notes. Link to my own writing.

Okay, enough with the links and references. My talk yesterday was intended to both encourage my fellow writers, and to offer some instruction and (what I hope were) some tantalizing ideas, concrete ideas such as:

--let your characters be themselves, don't force them into a mold of your own making. Just because I like to read doesn't mean all my characters need to be book-lovers. Just because I have a certain belief system I shouldn't force my story line to hew to my own theological preferences.

--let your characters be real: they are opinionated, scruffy, and nobody is ever a hunnerd percent good or evil...even a bad guy still loves his ____ (mother, cat, elementary-school chum)!

--let your story emerge from your characters: trying to predict a story is hard when you have strong characters who mayn't react exactly as expected, desired, or planned.

--write about what you know, sure...but, what you know may be as broad as "love" or "just being doggone human."

--write so that the reader still has room for their own imagination--don't over-describe. If I tell you that the man's charcoal pinstriped suit drapes his slim muscular frame perfectly, and that the pucker in the knot of his pink tie is aligned precisely with the midpoint of his button-down collar soft charcoal shirt, with the glimmer of silver cufflinks appearing as he gestures broadly to accompany his slow, drawling speech...well, I have painted a picture, 'tis true. However, if I told you, "Look up the words 'elegant' and 'gentleman' in the encyclopedia, and you'd find this pin-striped Southerner's picture"... well, I've left you room to see an image that YOUR brain created--you'll know exactly what he looks look without wading through my excessively descriptive prose.

--write so that the reader can see/smell/hear what's happening...but, again, use broad brush-strokes, not fussy fine strokes that, while lovely, slow the reader down.

--chaque-un a son gout...to each their own.

--read lots, write lots.

Have you read a poorly written work lately?--that's one of the best ways to learn good writing, I've discovered. (I'm hoping you're learning bad examples from other than moi!)

Have you read something excellent? Do tell!

Immense Possibilities.

     After reading the story that I'd admitted to basically copying, my mother was disappointed. She gave me back the pad and said, 'Write one of your own, Stevie....'

     I remember an immense feeling of possibility at the idea, as if I had been ushered into a vast building filled with closed doors and had been given leave to open any I liked. There were more doors than any one person could open in a lifetime, I thought (and still think).

 

--Stephen King, ON WRITING.

 

=-=-=--=-

 

I love that "immense feeling of possibility" that is frankly open to any and all creative pursuits. Gosh, when you look at nut-case artists like Jackson Pollack (famed for his "splatter" paintings) or crazy writers or musicians--golly, all we need to do is put up our best effort and then keep refining.

 

Overwhelmed by too many possibilities? Nice problem to have--pick something and get started. Can't get started? Well, take your favorite excuse and stand it on its head. One guy who wanted to be a painter...couldn't afford to. Or so he thought...until he found scrap wood, begged some left-over house paint...and, there he was, painting and having himself a fine time, creating, learning, and recreating.

 

Painting, like writing, is great--don't like it?--paint over it!

I love King's image of that vast building, full of doors. I'd like to find a room with a view and a comfy chair next to a bookcase...and my computer on the library table right beside me. Buh-bye, world...after I read for bit, I'm going to write about a new world, one that I'm creating, right now!

 

Got any immense possibilities looking you in the eye?

Passionate pursuit, or passionless platitudes?

The path to God’s pleasure in life is not to have less fun and serve more.

The path to God’s pleasure is to follow our Lord into the passions He has given us and use them deliberately to glorify Him and to bring others to meet Him there.

=-=-=-=-=-=-

The above quote was an easy pick: it doesn't quite fit with our preconceptions, does it? Too often, worship and praise fall under the label, "Less fun, more work at things that don't wow me." Platitudes of praise are exactly the opposite of what God wants for us. "We are destined and appointed to live for the praise of God's glory!" Eph. 1: 12. Too bad we don't look/feel/act like it.

The real question that needs to be asked is, "Well, what does wow you?"

And, next, "What are you gonna do about it, to please your Creator?"

Beautifully open-ended, isn't it?

My answers include: I love to read and write and sing. I love to learn, to teach, to preach, and to encourage others. As I pursue these passions, I hope that I am pointing others toward the Giver of these gifts...tell me about the passions that you are pursuing.

In Pursuit.

God wants us to grow and discover...and He accompanies us as we pursue deeper knowledge and understanding of Him and His world and His people.
     --Loyola Press, daily retreats.


"...but we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. 2:16.) So what? If we don't hone and use the wisdom that comes from spending time in Christ's presence...I repeat, so what? Making any diff in your life? In anyone else's life?

In growing we discover, and in discovery, we grow. If, that is, our internal compass has us pointing in the right direction. Otherwise, our "discoveries" are weeds in the garden.

Okay, and what is the "right direction"? To me, that which creates order out of chaos and logic out of a heap of facts. And, since we know that this universe is running down like a clock you could only wind up, once...then, the order must be imposed, from the outside. Logic only then emerges from order. Otherwise, we're asking that order magically appears out of disorder, that chaos somehow "learns" to organize itself rather than, like your unattended cupboard, closet or garage--it only tends toward one direction: ever-increasing disarray.

Huh? But, I thought evolution was the way order arose from chaos.

Count me a doubter that blind chance, multiplied by any number of years, would somehow result in complex order emerging from raw ingredients. Nope, disorder breeds disorder. Period. Only way to organize anything complex is for an intellect that is even more complex to be there, supervising the order.

When I write, I am taking the disordered thoughts and observations, the daydreams and experiences, the sounds and the smells and the tastes that I can only imagine, and I endeavor to impose some creative order upon them. The thoughts do not sort themselves into a plot, and the letters do not sort themselves into words.

                          * * *                                                

Ahhh, that reminds me of a story.

   The story is true, and, delightfully, involves monkeys and typewriters. Okay, more accurately, macaques and word-processors.
   A researcher decided to actually put to the test that assertion that if you put enough monkeys in front of enough typewriters over enough time, eventually Shakespearean plays would emerge as a product of sufficient randomness over time.

   First, the researcher had to stop the monkeys from destroying the machines with rocks.

   Then, he had to stop the chimps from urinating and defecating on the machines. After eventually training the primates to not destroy the machines, their marvelous output, not unpredictably, looked like this:

q]0ijknqmg vcsz-]j[kpnoqdgasv xz]ipjknqdwafsj'nqdfwk-a;sfnmqrt-]khqdg'jlqt2g2a4gd
jnq3reli4q3-o83iughoafdbn[j{)HIPO*UIE
")FPv
1\FjhÓ14RIT

   But, later, the chimps had a breakthrough, and were quite taken, nearly mesmerized, in fact, by pages and pages of:
    eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Um, so much for order emerging from disorder...the experiment was halted.

Isn't it funny--one assumes monkeys would only type characters, and that randomness would only involve letters and words and not rocks and urine and feces. You see, true randomness is not at all predictable or orderly or productive...and that is why I believe that the order we see in our universe is derived from an Organizer. Indeed, a Creator.


[For more info on monkeys and typing, try page 190 and a few pp before and after in this ref in Google books.--DS]

How Do I Look?

Survey everything with "beginner's eyes," as experience may numb and blind.
--Nikki Heat.

=-=-=-
A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
---Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.


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Sometimes I start writing just by sitting down and starting.
     I poke and prod at my idea from one angle,
         then mentally stand up,
             move around,
and poke and prod and ask the same questions,
    then any different questions that the same questions just provoked.

Sometimes, after looking at things from several angles, the overlapping of my views is rather high...which may mean I'm encountering a good idea and need to run with it.

But, that may mean that my thinking is very narrow and I'm just attacking the problem with the same set of tools and expectations from a two-foot different starting point in what will turn out to be a marathon!

But, if my overlap is really minimal...then, there are probably several more good ideas or answers lurking out there, so I go back and mount another assault, starting again with a clean page and pretending I'm somebody else, say, some European great-aunt to whom all my dithering and doodling is profoundly a) interesting b) stupid c) completely off-target d) el bajar y subir de las ondas del mar que le hacen mareada.

Some questions only have one right answer--when tumbled to, all other answers pale into varying degrees of half-truths and out-right errors. Here lies the issue--what if the question doesn't have just one right answer? What if one singer sings a song fast and loud and the second vocalist is soft, slow, and compelling--is one "wrong" and the other "right"? Perhaps it's like a math problem with multiple variables (what did those kind of problems ever do to you to make you hate then so?)--there are sets of answers that are all "correct."

And so, stumbling forward, I look and listen. I look again. Later, I muse, I ponder, I write, edit, and re-edit. Then, all of us, work in hand (and as works in progress), we come together, merging our ideas, discovering harmony at sufficient points of overlap that the music of life emerges.