Creativity, Discipline, and Space
While the writing craft and visual arts might appear to be quite different enterprises, I have found a number of interesting similarities. I now think all creative enterprises more like a river with ebbs and flows rather than an isolated event. Just as rivers are a symbiosis of earth and water, I find creativity balances discipline and space.
Of course, as Flannery O’Connor tartly pointed out, “Creativity consists in showing up at the typewriter every morning just on the off chance the muse might show up.” Putting one’s arse in the chair to write or hands in the studio to work on a regular basis turns out to be a daunting challenge. Without delving too deeply into “man’s basic nature,” I can say that if given a choice between almost any diversion and the hard work necessary to hone my writing or drawing, I will consistently opt for the easy. These habits of the craft, the daily writing and drawing, occur despite my feeling that I have nothing to say with words or line, and become akin to prayers uttered despite a premonition that God might be deaf. I write in the early mornings. More days than I care to admit both my prayer time and writing appears more like a liturgy of desperate hope than any imagined beautiful creative effort.
Writer Bret Lott has suggested writing is a “sacramental” act. When I first heard him say this I was quite taken by the thought, repeated it often—and, I still believe that writing is an outward sign mysteriously linked to an inward Divine grace. But the truth is, most of the time my early morning encounters with the “blank page” feel more like a solo hike across the Mojave Desert–without water—than a spiritual experience. I slog-on most mornings because I have, despite occasional outward bravado, no where else to turn except to the God I hope exists. I have no other strategy on offer to satisfy my obsession with creating beautiful sentences except more stoical effort, the same kind of effort proven unsuccessful in the past.
But, I am beginning to think while discipline is necessary, it is not sufficient for creative growth. I find I must intentionally work on space. I think of this space (with a significant nod to writer Jeff Goins) in three ways. First, there is physical space. The older I get the more I find “place” is reflected in my thoughts–clutter on my desk seems to breed unclear sentences. I am a life-long slob, so this confession comes at some cost. (The pandemonium you hear would be my mother, wife, and college roommate raising their glasses and shouting, “There is a God.”)
But this space also contains a mental component. Who can eliminate deadlines and stress? However, viewing my time writing or in the studio as a vocation, a vocation equivalent to when I wielded a scalpel, has improved my ability to put this creative time–no matter how “unproductive” it seems to others or me–at the top of the ever present “to-do” list. More practically, I need separation from family and others. Insisting on isolation is often not received well by friends or family–but it is necessary.
These days I reluctantly realize I must also insist on electronic isolation. While not a teckie, I do indulge in Facebook/Twitter/and the Blogosphere. After more failures and recriminations than I need, I now enter the studio and my writing time disconnected from the internet–I cannot, it seems, resist the seductive clang of an email hitting my inbox.
Finally, this space has a spiritual side. Space is not emptiness. Anne Lamott reminds us that sometimes when we feel “blocked” in our art, we are, in fact, empty. Space is something you make in your life, amidst the busyness, so that you can fill it. Emptiness is a spiritual void that cannot be filled no matter how much you create. ” Goins suggests that if you find yourself empty, it means your life is “lacking ” space. Space to dream. To think and reflect. You will have to face some demons and slay a few dragons before you can create.”
I was not much good as a physician when too much anger, too many desires, or too many agendas–mine and other’s–squeezed and pushed me into empty spaces, dark places where I couldn’t breath, my thirst remained unquenched, and I thought mostly about what I didn’t have. Today, I no longer answer to the tyranny of an on-call beeper or my obsession to be the first surgeon without complications or the only doctor who “met and exceeded” all patient expectations. But, the tyranny threatening my spiritual space hasn’t left the building; it remains hidden within the reaches of an incipient perfectionism and seemingly unlimited need for acceptance. I sadly conclude that despite changes in my outward circumstances these silent threats to my spiritual space remain unchanged. These days when I ignore my spiritual space I don’t do any better standing before a white canvas or blank page than I did teaching medical students.
On a practical level, I try to work on at least two projects at the same time. Not only do the ideas bounce off or between each project but, I am not bored–and I am easily bored. Also, I try to have one of the two projects be something new or beyond what I think are my capabilities (oh yes, great can be the wastage, disasters, and “never to be seen by another human eye” results) but on the other hand, I don’t get in a rut and surprise myself more often than my sometimes “half-empty” personality expects. Einstein put it best, “An expert is a person who has few new ideas; a beginner is a person with many.”
Two days ago I wrote to a fellow writer in order to answer her long ignored query: What was I working on? By my standards or any other generally acceptable (read: friends or colleagues) quantitative measures I have not been creative or productive these last six months. Have I been writing regularly —heck yes. Would I show anyone the period’s output? That is, would I expose the writing and art not already in the trash? I think not. But, I realized I did have three or four worthwhile projects that through this time continued to command my attention as well as my frustrations.
For the first time in months I realized I had enough space, a sufficient space that allowed me to write her of the projects and not include jokes or laments about my limitations. I wish there were more to show for the time, stories to submit or a novel to revise. I admit that seeing the new publications of my friends still prompts anxiety and not a little guilt. And I don’t know how I will answer, “the question” when I see my former mentor and teacher next month. But, I can take deep breath. And just now, that is enough.