The Story Behind the Story, part 2: IMAGINATION, INSPIRATION, RECEPTIVITY & SERENDIPITY.

SERENDIPITY--Lady Luck or Still Small Voice?

When an inane idea wends its way out of the murky recesses of your mind, what do you do with it? Laugh and dismiss it? Shake your head in dismay? Tell someone? Write it down? Too kooky for words...sez you, or sez who?--  too often, there's someone ELSE'S voice in our head, a critical relative/friend/teacher/tormentor, who delights in shooting holes in any and all ideas.

When someone says, "Oh, I don't have any imagination," I argue: I think it's an affront to yourself and your Maker to claim zero imagination!

"Sure you do! You just have been on the receiving end of the squelch button too many times, and now you've given up on creativity...or, you've learned, over the years, to squelch for yourself all those fun ideas that have wahoo-wide boundaries!"

Ideas for stories? Endless. Ability to sit me down and construct something out of that first flicker of an idea? Oof...that's why writing and the other creative pursuits require hard work and perseverance.

Okay, back to the story behind the story...after I wrote about the sloths of Christmas, another little nudge landed, on the same tender rib--HEY! WRITE ABOUT ANOTHER ANIMAL IN THE NATIVITY STORY!

Some nudges in the ribcage are all-caps, bold. Some nudges come with barely a size-5 font whisper. And some nudges are only perceived during times of meditation and prayer.

Others occur at very busy times and must be heeded immediately........

Oops! Buh-bye, gotta write!

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"Imagination: the unsupervised mind at play."

DLS, 2013

The Story Behind the Story, part 1: INSPIRATION--DON'T SQUELCH IT.

     Once upon a time, there were grandchildren, young and innocent. Their exposure to books--sweeping; to television--sparse.

     They were invited to be part of the Christmas pageant at church.

     "What animals would you like to be?" they were asked.

     Being well-read youngsters, they instantly replied, "Sloths!"

     Now, I don't know what the pageant director's response was--but I think the reply would reflect a great deal about the character of the adult, don't you?

     How badly we all need what I like to call the "edit function," where there's a little pause for rumination before blurting out, "Sloths weren't there. I need sheep and goats, or you could be a donkey," ...squelching the child's delightfully-imagined attendees at Christ's Nativity!

     How much better to say, "[Pause...hmm, why not?] Great idea! I bet this will be the best Christmas pageant ever, since no one has ever had the sloth family come visit the baby Jesus!"

     Now, I'll bet we've all been on the receiving end of the "skwellllchhh"...and, sadly, we've probably all been on the giving end, too. Alas. Let's vow to not stomp someone else's notions just cuz theirs don't conform to our own, preconceived answers! Oh, and, by the way--Thou Shalt Not Squelch Thyself! I think we're our own worst enemy when comes to stomping out our own eccentricities, non-conformities, and other CREATIVE answers!

     Back to the story behind the story--it was this little incident that gave birth to the first story I wrote for THE ANIMALS OF CHRISTMAS. The Sloths of Christmas were out in the boonies where the angels were announcing the birth of the baby Jesus. After hearing that wonderful new, the sloths just had to go to Bethlehem, but, being sloths, well...they met up with some difficulties along the way.

     What inspired the other stories? The sloths, of course! Frankly, the other animals just wandered on-stage and ker-plunked into place: camels, mourning doves, dogs, goats, and mice. Where would they have been w/o the germ of that idea, that little anecdote? Unborn. Squelched--an idea that never saw the light, the tragedy of an untold good story! Glad that I noticed that quiet little nudge of the Spirit.

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     Thou Shalt Not Squelch Thyself. Or anyone else.

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(Earlier blog posts may be accessed by clicking on the right-hand column...you may need to scroll down a bit. )

The writing process: ANIMALS OF CHRISTMAS

The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

 

--Aristotle. (anticipating modern art by a coupla millennia!)

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     Being neither Aristotle nor a modern artist...hmm, why do I like this quote? Because...oh, before I go there--if you have a thought or a response to this quote, why not pause for a moment and phrase it in terms of a comment at the bottom of this posting?

     Okay, I like this quote because it indeed applies to art, but also poetry and prose, where significance is the goal. Not for my writing to be significant (although that'd be nice!) but for my ability to enhance or clarify the significance of the underlying truth. Great poetry explores truth from unique angles, offering the reader a different way of looking at, or through, reality. Story-telling is expected to be entertaining, of course, but if the characters don't bump up against some profound truths now and again, well, what kinda story is it that doesn't involve love or death or heroism or the clash of ideals and reality?

     I wrote THE ANIMALS OF CHRISTMAS to be, primarily, entertaining. Along the way, as should have been no surprise to me...the characters started to take on life of their own. The animals revealed their unique insights into events around the time of Jesus' birth. Was this intentional, like writing an allegory or a moralistic tale? Not at all, I just set out to have a whopping good time writing stories for my grandkids' enjoyment. But as I mentioned--encounters with truth will occur--and that's what happened in these stories.

     In the next few posts, I'll talk about my writing process. Inspiration and perspiration, Spirit and serendipity--big themes for me.

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Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

 

Winston Churchill

A Restless Mind?

What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient but restless mind.

 

--Victor Cherbuli-something, 19th century novelist.

[Cherbuliez. Never read him, have you?]

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"...a patient but restless mind." I like that. Dunno if I've got it, but it sounds like something desirable to me. What do you think?

I see those qualities as opposites...but not quite: a teeter-totter twixt patience and impatience, between going slow enough to truly see, yet not just siting and gazing at the sunset (or television) w/o ever engaging the mind/imagination, w/o asking a question or wondering about another possibility.

Reasoning and decision-making and luck are marvelously intertwined, suggests Daniel Kahnman, in THINKING, FAST AND SLOW. He says that our minds are wonderful at not only leaping to conclusions but then in mounting a sturdy defense for those conclusions. "Fundamentally, the native decision-making process is lazy," he would say. The challenge is to learn to take a restless few steps backwards to gain a broader perspective, to ask some hard questions, or challenge some basic assumptions.

What keeps the mind "restless" yet "patient"? I've got a few ideas, but would love to hear yours before I answer my own question...as impatient teachers far too oft do!

MICHELANGELO:

 

   "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."

 

= - = - = - = - =

 

 

Now, what goal(s) do you think old Mikey had in mind?
--Sistine Chapel? check.
--David?.............check.
--Go down in history as one of the greatest...? I'm bettin NOPE on this one--it's not measurable/attainable, and reeks of narcissism.

 

But, isn't every creative person a narcissist? Ya know, "PLEEZ, look at ME and what great stuff I've painted/sculpted/composed/written!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![etc.]"

 

Anyhoo, back to setting goals...I read this a long time ago: good goals are S-M-A-R-T goals:
S--SIMPLE: you can state it inna few words, no more than a ppgh.
M--MEASURABLE: there's something you can objectively measure/assess, as in "Write 100 pages a day. Paint the south side of the barn today. Run a marathon this weekend."
A--ACHIEVABLE: you don't have to be Superman or Wonder Woman...guess that eliminates the hunnerd pages a day, huh?
R--RELEVANT: if you don't really care and nobody else does--what kinda goal is that? "Hi, I wanna be irrelevant today. Vote for me for Congress."
T--TIMELY (or, TIME-COURSE): "I wanna build the best typewriters in the world" just aint gonna cut it anymore...or, it's gotta time-line that works...such as, "I'll finish writing this chapter of my book in ten days, take a day off, write the outline for the next chapter the next day, edit for the following morning, then start the first draft of chapter two that aft."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria