Welcome Poets & Writers
12 Jan
First, this is NOT the cover to the January/February 2010 issue of Poets & Writers magazine, which is all about INSPIRATION. That cover was designed by Chip Kidd and is pretty rad, but for some reason the P & W website is not letting me rip the image.
So I went into Flickr where I found the photostream of Stephen Poff. He did a series on INSPIRATION and so I’m Creative Commons-ly using his work instead. We all cool/clear?
That said, I’m very happy to be part of the aforementioned Poets & Writers issue in which I have an article called “How To Get Unstuck.” The piece uses psychology research into creativity to (hopefully) help writers of all stripes become more emotionally intelligent about writer’s block.
There are also jokes.
So far I’ve received some very nice feedback on the piece. Since it’s not available online I thought it would be helpful to create this post in the event people stop by and want to leave a comment.
To kick things off, I offer this e-mail I received from writer Emily Calvo:
I LOVED your recent Poet & Writers article about creative thinking. Having spent 20 years paying the bills by writing ads and marketing pieces, I can’t wait around for inspiration or I’d starve. Your description of the process of unlocking the brain is perfect. I’m also a psych major and a poet, so this topic is particularly interesting to me.
One additional thought I’d like to share with you. In the many brainstorming sessions I’ve conducted, I’ve noticed that the ideas generated eventually become grossly inappropriate. Politically incorrect, humorously nasty and just plain X-rated. Too often, that’s when the participants want to “cash-in.” They assume that they’ve reached the bottom of the barrel. However, I’ve noticed that when they keep going, the best stuff decides to finally pop out of their heads. It’s as if the inappropriate ideas have allowed them to open the door to greater flexibility and less fixation.
I have seen this happen as well in brainstorming sessions. Not necessarily nasty stuff, but definitely silly, jokey, nonsensical, etc. It happens when people have had so many of their names/ideas/concepts rejected that they finally say “F— it… as long as I’m coming up with losers I may as well have some fun.” And then you have to make that choice to “cash in” (love that usage, btw) and go with what you have or keep pushing along. Often you have to get to the f-it point before you can really start thinking flexibly.
Throwing out your first ten ideas is scary stuff. I think if you give yourself permission to work them over, realize how they won’t do, and then keep thinking, then you can find the prize. And silliness helps. In my writers group we have an old theater major and he does stuff in voices. Cracks us up and we always seem to be able to move on well from there.
I’m attempting to write romance — for cash hopefully. But there are a heap of boundaries I worry about crossing, especially because I am a dude writing under a female name, so I pussy-foot around what I think is appropriate for an audience of women. The best material however, seems to come from the most vile and audacious plot and character twists, largely because I previously underestimated what conservatively minded women like to read in private. Once that fearless kind of flexibility begins to develop, the genre cuts much deeper than you ever imagined such trash was capable of.