how to begin again

A few thoughts on stimulating creativity


In connection with coyotecon.con, a month-long virtual SF convention, I've jotted down a few words about writers' block. At the end I include one example of a way that helps me break out of it. And I promise brevity!

When I first started writing I often had a problem coming up with a suitable idea. The blank page syndrome really cut into my productivity. This was especially bad when I switched from short fiction to poetry. I did that in 1982, when we were expecting our first child. I figured I would have less free time and needed to write shorter things. I still think I was right to make the change, but I had little experience writing poetry, so that negated most of my advantage gained from concision. When I looked at the page, I saw sentences, if I saw anything I had trouble coming up with suitable ideas that I could express in verse. (Partly because I was ignorant of poetic forms, but that's another story.) Over the years I have developed or learned about a few techniques to stimulate creativity.

One of the simplest is to write a list of words. My writing group does this collaboratively every week, but you can do it by yourself. Do some free association and then look at what you have generated. Chances are it will stimulate some ideas.

Another way is to choose a form and a subject and then just see what comes. This is probably more useful for experimenting with different forms than for stimulating an absent spark of creativity. But one way you can use this to tackle both problems at the same time is to take an existing poem in one form and try to rewrite it in a different form. If you do this with one of your own unsuccessful pieces you might come up with something that you can sell. You can also take a published poem by anybody and rewrite it in new form purely as an exercise.

Collaboration can revive flagging inspiration. Over the past decade or so Kendall Evans and I have collaborated on dozens of poems. Many of these have begun with fragments that seemed to go nowhere at first. So I might say "I have something I don't know what to do with, see if it gives you any ideas." More often than not we could achieve more by taking turns than one of us could have alone, because my ideas spring off from his and vice versa.

Here is one of my favorites. Take a long poem that you wrote. The longer the better, and it's even better if it was never finished. Shorten it drastically, and make sure you omit at least some of the main parts of the poem. Now, take what you have left and free associate for a bit. There's a good chance you'll end up with something nice that's very different from the original.

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Example of making a new poem from an old one:

Original poem, first published in Tin Wreath, 1990


Wild Horses

Agamemnon--
You look quite lifelike now
saffron in the odor of your disinterment.
Were you alone, or did your fellows
wonder at your demise?

Metal music made,
broken axle crost the dotted line,
rumors of an incident
circulating, fulminating,
impromptu
toxic waste dump on the busy I:
red light district/spaghetti snarl

After the rains came strange new
growths, born of the water's burden:
Paisley river horses foaming at the banks
called the hustlers home.
So many more of them have died--
I color the windows
in green leaves and rosethorns/chilled apricot brandy/
sunset over the ruined palace/
nightlife in another time zone/
goodbye.


The end

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Surely something else good can be made from this....

Intermediate step (after cutting)



no title

.
Were you alone,

red light

called the hustlers home.

I color the windows


The end

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New poem


Cadillac Crossing


Window rolls down.
Were you alone,
Standing in the light?

Did you wave away the smoke,
Swallow your words?
Willie remember you?

Dawn colors the windows
Turning engine catches
Did you walk away?

Cadillac coughing.


The end



Different, for sure. Better? Good? I don't know.

Oh, one more suggestion. Read poetry. (Not a bad thing to do anyway.) But ideas in beget ideas out. Just like garbage, only better.


David