Creative Channels

When an author writes or says something unique, humorous, weird, and/or especially apt, other people often say, "How do you come up with stuff like that?"

While I haven't done a survey, I'm guessing that talented doctors, lawyers, pilots, and brokers don't hear such questions as often.

The best and the brightest in all professions are praised--even marveled--when they do a good work. Quite often, those who do the best work love what they do, have a passion for it, and are often said to be natural or intuitive about what they do.

And yet, doctors are seldom asked how they figured out how to set a broken arm and pilots are seldom asked how they learned to start up their aircraft's engines.

When I'm asked how I was able to come up with one phrase or another, I really want to say, "because I trained myself to do it."

This answer seldom satisfies anyone. Folks want to know the "mysterious secret" behind a writer's work because what he or she does is considered very different from the routes to success in most other professions.

Writers, I believe, do what it should be very natural for everyone to do: we know how to open up creative channels and then translate what we see, hear, taste, touch and feel into a novel, short story, poem, feature article, song, nonfiction book, or essay.

Much has been said about the way mainstream society and mainstream education brainwash children at a very early age to believe that feelings, an active imagination, daydreaming, and other similar pursuits are either "wrong" or simply a waste of time.

Writers don't listen to such drivel. Or, we try not to.

Consequently, we have in most cases held on to some or all of a very natural talent that others lost when parental, societal, institutional, and religous injunctions finally eroded the inner dreamers away.

Dreamers, psychics, mystics, singers, dancers, actors, writers and other creative people are often praised for their art but regarded with suspicion because they are "different."

Some of that "difference" is an act. In a recent episode of Navy NCIS, one of the characters wore a turtleneck sweater beneath a tweed coat and carried a pipe on his day off because--as a would-be author--this costume seemed to be part of the role.

Personally, I've never identified with writers who constantly say they are "talking to their muses" or with those who think writers must carry a pipe, remained stoned or drunk, sneak away to a mountain cabin, wear black clothing and look emaciated, cut their hair in strange ways, or live in unheated apartments.

Looking at all that from the outside in, I wonder how much of it is simply "walking the stereotypic walk."

But I cannot criticise walking the walk entirely because I know that in a day-to-day world where creative pursuits are frowned up, one often needs rituals of one kind or another to open up his/her creative channels and cause the ideas, notes, images, and words to flow.

Most people believe or sense that writers are "different" even when there's no pipe, no turtleneck sweater, and no weird haircut to attract their attention. The difference simply is that writers are still tuned into subjective/creative/imaginary/psychic impressions that others tuned out in kindergarden or grade school.

Writers open up those channels in a variety of ways. For some, place is important. They've set up an office, a den, or a worktable that is used for their writing and research. When they sit down, they're ready to write...and the creative ideas begin to flow. Many of us daydream or think about our works in progress while doing other things. Many years ago, studies showed that one of the attractions to repetitive assembly line work came out of the fact that it allowed a great deal time for daydreaming. Writers are apt to treat the rote parts of their day in this fashion and figuratively fly off to other worlds while they appear to be washing the car or pushing forms in a tax office.

Quite often, "intent" alone will get the ideas flowing. Prior to opening up a document file, I may have only the slightest notion about the words I'm going to use or even how the piece is going to be organised. Opening the file starts the process going. I often enhance this process with music.

While writing The Sun Singer, my "signature album" for the novel was Deuter's Nirvana Road. In part, I was writing book about an individual on a quest and found the idea of a Nirvana Road apt and delightful. More importantly, the music seemed to speak to me in the time and place where I was when my first novel was my primary focus. The music started the ideas flowing when they weren't flowing and made them better when I felt especially creative before sitting down to work.

My current novel-in-progress Garden of Heaven has "required" different music to open up the creative channels. This time out, I've used multiple albums including Deuter's Earth Blue and Hands of Light, and Mary Youngblood's The Offering, Feed the Fire, Beneath the Raven Moon, and Heart of the World. Again, there is a logical component to this. The novel includes transcendent concepts and Deuter's music is closely linked to new age themes. The novel includes Native American characters and ideas, so Youngblood's inspiring flute music is a natural.

I don't question the primary reasons why the Deuter and Youngblood music works. Why should I? When I sit down to write, the music opens the door to my imagination and allows me to see and hear the kind of things people are asking about when they say, "How do you come up with stuff like that?"

This kind of creativity isn't unique to me or to the authors of your favorite books. We all have the same birthright, though we may have different callings. We can all learn how to listen to the "still small voice" within or to discover within ourselves wilder imaginations and wilder dreams than we thought possible--if we train ourselves to do it.

The word "train" makes it sound like all of this is going to be a lot of work. Learning to be more creative is NOT like spending two hours a day in a gym with a high-energy, no-pain-no-gain exercise program, and it's NOT like having to practise the piano five hours a day before you're allowed to watch the latest episode of Boston Legal or Desperate Housewives.

Creativity is something one allows to happen, not forces to happen. The route to creativity is similar to the route to effective meditation: getting tense--as though you're cramming for an exam--is the worst thing to be doing. When people are learning to meditate, they're often told to set aside a room or a portion of a room where they will meditate. This not only sets the stage but helps establish a willing and ready frame of mind. One usually picks a place that's quiet and a time when they won't be disturbed. Sometimes, candles, incense, a mandala on the wall, special music, or a guided meditation CD are part of the exercise. One typically approaches meditation without an agenda or even a conscious intent. Once the skills are natural, one can be more proactive.

Likewise, the journey toward greater creativity need not begin with an agenda. Nudge those creative channels open gently and see what happens. Sitting down and staring at an empty sheet or paper or a blank computer screen with the notion that you MUST write a poem during the next 30 minutes isn't going to cut it. If you need a lake or a mountain, find one and go there and let your mind wander. Find the music that speaks to you, the place that speaks to you, and the time of day that speaks to you. Maybe it's rap music and maybe it's country. Maybe you like warm baths and candes and inspiring books. Maybe it's dawn and maybe it's midnight. Or maybe you prefer a long country drive that ends with a stop at Burger King.

Sure, you can call all these things crutches or part of "and act," but the point here is not to NEED the music and become addicted to it; and the point is not to NEED to look different and act different so that you're posing as a creative person rather than being one. The point is to stop the world, so to speak.

Writers and others "come up with stuff like that" because they: (1) Believe they can come up with stuff like that, (2) Have learned how to keep those creative channels open, (3) Have learned how to tune out the chattering inside their heads about fixing dinner, getting the car serviced, what they're going to do tomorrow, and what they did yesterday. Most writers don't have to ignore the world on a fulltime basis: they simply have to stop it (tune it out) long enough to sit down and write.

Some of my colleagues keep those creative channels open by keeping journals. Others take their morning cup of tea or coffee out into the garden. Some work best in a noisy room with a lot of people in it. Others thrive on tight deadlines and some work with Headline News, the Weather Channel, an old movie, or the hotest radio station in town blaring away in the background. We've all found what worked best by experimenting with it: we either did something on purpose and it worked or we happened to do something and found that it worked.

Getting those creative channels open and keeping them open is a noodling-around, trial-and-error kind of process. Today, I'm listening to Mary Youngblood's flute. Tomorrow it may be Wynona. I don't really have a clue exactly how and why all this works, but over time I've learned not to question it or to look for any logic in it.

Writers are different only because they listen (so to speak) to the things others have forgotten how to hear. Fortunately, finding and tuning into those creative channels is easier than everyone believes.

Literacy: Each One Teach One

While researching my latest Editor's Desk column about newspaper book reviews (or the lack thereof), I came across a discouraging literacy statistic: 45% of America's population doesn't have the reading skills to read many of the novels and other literary books published each year.

One doesn't need to be a writer or an avid reader to be constantly stunned by the United States' appalling literacy statistics.

Yet, according to a survey conducted by Proliteracy Worldwide, 18% of Americans consider literacy a small problem and only 42% rated adult literacy problems higher than a ranking of 3 in a 3-out-of-five scale.

I'm not sure whether we are simply unaware of the problem and its attendant social, personal and financial consequences or whether we wrongly equate illiteracy as the expected and deserved result of bad study habits in school.

How else, can one be immune to facts like these?

44 million adults in the U.S. can't read well enough to read a simple story to a child. -- National Adult Literacy Survey (1992) NCED, U.S. Department of Education.

More than 20% of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level, far below the level needed to earn a living wage. -- National Institute for Literacy, Fast Facts on Literacy, 2001.

Since 1993, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12th grade level without having learned to read at a basic level. In the same period, more than 6 million Americans dropped out of high school altogether. -- "A Nation Still at Risk," U.S. Department of Education, 1999.

I suspect our first duty here is awareness: what's happening here, why is it happening and how can we help? Since we know how to read, we can read about this problem.

Since literacy organizations such as www.firstbook.org, www.theliteracysite.com, www.getcaughtreading.org, www.read2kids.org, www.proliteracy.org and local school system initiatives may account for the lion's share of the research and program development, perhaps our second duty is donating funds and telling our friends about the need.

Many years ago, literacy pioneer Dr. Frank C. Laubach coined the phrase "Each of Teach One." This highly successful program spread out across the world because it showed those with very little training how to teach others to read. Dr. Laubach went on to form Laubach Literacy International to co-ordinate programs and research. (Laubach Literacy International merged with Literacy Volunteers of America in 2002 to from Proliteracy Worldwide.)

When I met Dr. Frank Laubach briefly at Syracuse University in the 1960s, I knew immediately that I was in the presence of an inspiring and humble man of great vision. He not only knew how to help, but had great certainty in the value and impact of the work. With the help of his son Robert, the Laubach Method would continue to help millions.

Whether one uses the formal Laubach Method as it has evolved today or participates in another literacy initiative, the Each One Teach One concept describes our third duty. This is our sharing and proactive duty that acknowledges that the literacy problem and the literacy solution is not a matter that belongs to somebody else.

The problem impacts us all. The solution uplifts us all. And the results of our active participation will far exceed the teaching of one other person how to read--though that is a very good start.