Creative Process.
What the hell do those two words mean?
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, in part because of my teaching job and in part because I hear people say those words a lot. Especially of recent. Sometimes it’s a question, as in: Hey dude, what’s your creative process? Other times it’s more of a statement: Dude, I’m having some trouble with my creative process, dude.
So, I was already cogitating about this concept when I happened to pick up a new book about writing called “Ron Carlson Writes A Story.” It’s another in a series of good books about the craft of writing from Graywolf Press (Check out The Art of Subtext and The Art of Time while you’re at it). In it, Carlson takes us through the writing of a single story and all the decisions he made as he created it. And he talks a lot about a “process” that works for him, one that he has come to trust. And it’s pretty expansive. It covers everything from the importance of coffee to “the outer story” and “personal inventory” (these concepts are more interesting than they sound).
Carlson takes an interesting track. He just talks about what works for him, while trusting the mystery and surprise that’s inevitably going to happen on the page. But he feels like there is a process that makes a story what it is.
This is all well and good, and I agree with it in theory. But then I couldn’t help thinking about how I actually work when I write. And how random and strange and totally un-process-like it is in every sense.
Maybe the problem is the definition. When I think of a process, I think of something orderly. A series of steps that lead to a certain end. Like the creation of a delicious beef gravy. Or training a dog to fall down when you pretend to shoot it. But my process does not lead to these things. Usually it leads to first drafts that make me want to die. It leads to really crappy literary gravy, the kind that’s clumpy and full of organ parts. Or a dog that doesn’t get back up when you pretend you’ve killed it.
And while this so-called process does involve a lot of coffee, I have a hard time pinning down what really goes on with my brain and typing fingers as it happens. But on a given morning (on a rare day when I have nothing to do but write) it might be something like this series of steps:
1) Wake up, and try to forget dream of being in invisible submarine.
2) Stumble bleary-eyed to my laptop.
3) Read words I wrote the day before.
4) Try not to weep or throw laptop through window into neighbor’s lawn.
5) Eat some Panda Puffs (best cereal ever, and the box is very informative about real Pandas)
6) Come back and look at things on the internet. Hey, wow, that one famous person did that thing with that other famous person.
7) Read words from yesterday again.
8 ) Make coffee. Contemplate shaving. (Note: why does my face need shaving exactly every 32 hours, but not before?)
9) Read words from yesterday.
10) Contemplate bathing. Drink Coffee.
11) Try a sentence. Watch it fly broken-winged across the page and crash to the cold cold ground below. Stare at it.
12) Try some more sentences, and try not to reward myself for actually having a paragraph.
13) Add punctuation.
14) And verbs.
15) Research some esoteric fact about old-fashioned elevators and their cables.
16) Get lost in the research for one hour and somehow find myself reading about Britney Spears.
17) Write another paragraph in similar fashion. Then decide to quit for the day.
18) When my wife comes home and asks me what I’ve been doing, say: “writing,” and try not to have a laughing fit that turns into a crying fit and then back into a laughing fit.
So, I guess, in the end, I have a 18 step system. Maybe I should write a book about writing. If you follow these 18 steps, you too can have a process. Or at the very least, you can feel like you have a process, so when someone asks you what your “creative process” is, you can say: I write like the very famous author Peter Bognanni does in his best-selling blog post: Peter Bognanni Writes A Blog Post. So, Process that!”
This sounds about right.
1. Write drunk (or stoned)
2. Edit sober.
3. Profit.
It turns out that writing English sentences is about like writing computer programs. Therefore, I can offer some well-learned advice: don’t bother with the shaving, double down on the bathing and substitute Mexican Coke for coffee whenever it’s light outside.
I am most envious of your typical day. And now I must hate you. So sad considering we had the whole “former friendly neighbors” thing going for us. What a waste.
I tried to follow your process, but when I got to step 18 I waited and waited. Your wife never came home. So I’ve quit writing altogether and now I’m going to medical school.
Thanks for NOTHING!
Step 1: stare at keyboard for three-plus hours until brimming with self hatred.
Step 2: write three sentences.
Step 3: find ice cream.
Step 4: eat ice cream.
Step 5: cry about width of theighs.
Step 6: sit down.
Step 7: repeat.
By the way, House of Tomorrow looks frikken amazing. If your still looking for bloggers to review it, hit me up: http://readingwatchingliving.blogspot.com
Okay, I’m done
I am not going to be original this time, so all I am going to say that your blog rocks, sad that I don’t have suck a writing skills
Bravo on your first thick book, or one of any size, for that matter.
Me, still seeking agent……………you, Tarzan, duderama.
Um, the last thing I do when writing is use my brain, the slave organ, I know it to be. Does what it’s told, etc. , like a vacuum cleaner, not long on imagination. Either hemisphere, really.
I’m a Fuller fanatic, have been since reading Critical Mass; gave it to my son, when he was Sebastian’s age or so. He doesn’t live in a dome, yet.
I’ve written in several genres: plays (some produced), short stories (published in Canadian ezines), and lately I paint/draw——–that last thing, I find it tightens my writing, which used to resemble Proust on Prozac. (Whoa, new title……hmmm)
Looking forward to digesting your novel, best!