Muse funk

It must be said that, for the last week and a half I've been walking around with a rather woolly brain. Now, I know I'm pregnant, but that is not the reason for the fog. Rather, my muse met a superior muse! And I think mine has now gone into hiding.

We spent much of our Christmas break watching earlier seasons of Dr Who (mainly the remainder of the Christopher Eccleston era) and the first seasons of the David Tennant era. It's all great stuff, I can tell you that. No doubt that I love the good Doctor. He is amazing (and yes, I know he's fictional). But, as I found previously while watching through the Stargate SG-1 seasons, there are simply some episodes that make you go "WOW!" ... and then leave you stunned as you drink in, absorb and attempt to digest their audacity. And yes, that is the only word that is going through my mind.

And it's one such episode that currently has my muse in a funk. Oh, she knows that her ideas are as good, yet different ... but I think she's just wanting to ... pay respect to others who come up with, to put it plainly, brilliant plots.

So effortless!

How do writers make their stories so effortless?

This has been plaguing me for a while. Reading the finished product, one goes 'of course' ... but the power of the imagination that drives a novel - especially scifi or fantasy - and the storytelling ability that goes into creating such a believable world .... well, I find writing a challenge - especially when it comes to a complex storyline. Give me a simple one any day!

So: hats off to writers! (excluding this one, of course ;-) )

What catches your eye?

I wanted to chat about this image - simply because it fascinates me. It is quite by chance that I took the photo. My mind was focussed on other scenes round about, and my husband had been taking photos of two juvenile ducks who were completely unafraid to come within centimetres of a human. I suspect they were expecting food!

He had just finished photographing the ducks, and we were about to leave the riverside when I spotted this leaf. I just couldn't resist snapping this shot. And of all the photos that I took that day, this is the one that, for some strange reason, stands out the most. Perhaps it's because I love streams - the running water always calms me and brings me a sense of peace - and I can sense the movement of the water around the rock in this picture. There is also the fact that the leaf stands out from the rest of the image.

What I do know is that there's always beauty around us if we care to open our eyes and look. This piece of beauty caught my eye. What catches yours?

Does insecurity stifle creativity?

So it appears that there is yet another dimension of the human psyche, another stage of the process. While some of us succeed in being creative, but then shy away from allowing others to view it, others fail to even create something because of insecurity, fear of being judged, fear of criticism, and so on. I can well imagine that yet others create something, and then destroy it so that no-one may see that aspect of themselves.

What I'm learning from this, which encourages me, is that none of us is alone in our insecurity and lack of self-confidence. From appearances, we all feel the same way about our creative pursuits, and perhaps it's time to recognise this in ourselves - and in those around us. Time to be more sensitive to other's attempts at creativity, for we can only do as much as we know, and we all improve with time and practice.

If you have experienced this fear, or know someone whose creativity is prevented because of their lack of self-confidence, I'd love to hear from you - even if you just put your hand up and say 'Aye'.

Lost works ...

Following on from my discussion of the link between creativity and insecurity, a friend made the following observation on my Facebook page, The Reluctant Author: "I wonder how many works of art, great or otherwise, have been lost to fragile self-confidence." This led yet another friend to mention an acquaintance of hers who has stories to tell and who writes very well, but perhaps lacks the self-confidence to put the stories onto paper.

It led me to think of some of the great artists of all time - van Gogh, Monet, Rembrandt, among others; a Dr Who episode from the last series showed the Doctor and Amy visiting a very insecure van Gogh who hated his work, and those around him laughed at him. This may not be entirely accurate, though it is known that he suffered from anxiety and mental illness, but one shudders to think what works could have been lost if these men were insecure and lacked confidence in their artistic abilities.

Consider too of some of the great thinkers and inventors; Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei and Leonardo da Vinci among others. What if they had balked at writing down and studying what they did ... we would have lost access to some of the greatest thinkers and scientists of all time. But yet again, how many others failed where they succeeded and pressed on - sometimes despite opposition.

Just thinking (and writing) about it nearly doesn't do justice to the enormity of what could have been lost ... but how much else has been, and continues to be, lost?

Decorating

I just came across an email in my inbox (which is mildly out of control!), and it struck me that it discusses what I've been looking at this last week regarding creativity. I discussed God's role as creator two days ago, but this takes that role one step further - into the present. So, this is just food for thought. This was received from a mailing list, and is written by Max Lucado, one of my favourite Christian authors.


“Do good to me, your servant, so I can live, so I can obey your word.”  Psalm 119:17

God loves to decorate. God has to decorate. Let Him live long enough in a heart, and that heart will begin to change. Portraits of hurt will be replaced by landscapes of grace. Walls of anger will be demolished and shaky foundations restored. God can no more leave a life unchanged than a mother can leave her child’s tear untouched.

Creativity and God

A topic such as creativity as I've been discussing over the last few days naturally leads me to thoughts of God, since I believe him to be the ultimate creator. It is a real blessing that our creations, characters in our stories, do not have freedom of choice and an ability to turn their backs on us, to deny us as their creators. I think that it would tear us apart if such a thing were to happen.

So what of God? We read in the story of creation that everything that God created, he pronounced to be good. He knew what he was doing when he created the universe, the solar system, Man. And it was good. As the ultimate judge of what is good, I would argue that he knew what he was talking about. Nothing needed to be changed. No tweaks here, squeaks there. It was, in a word, perfect.

And then we went and spoilt the party. We turned our backs on him, denied him as creator ...

Knowing how it feels to create something, I wonder how this all makes God feel. Actually, I know how it makes him feel. The Bible tells us that, as Jesus stood looking out over Jerusalem, he wept. He likened himself to a mother hen who wishes to bring her chicks under her wings to protect them.

As much as it pierces our heart when people criticise our creative efforts, even more so, I am sure, it pierces God's heart when we turn our backs to him, trying to deny his existence even as we breathe. And yet, even then, He loves us so much that he chose to become one of us, to be killed by us, so that he could die in our place so that we could return to Him. Just how awesome is that?!

Delving Deeper

So where do this creativity insecurity leave us writers? Well, we try to laugh it off as being paranoid about others stealing our ideas - a very valid point indeed, in today's society - but not half as important that acknowledging that we're actually dead scared someone will take it to pieces. Indeed, as some of the comments have already shown, it is our heart and soul that we lay bare each time we write. Therefore it is this same part of ourselves that we expose to critics and supporters alike when we, in our insecurity, search for feedback.

Is it no wonder, then, that criticism hurts? Even when it's well-meant and constructive? To be told that something should be changed, something should be removed, or even placed elsewhere in the story ... it hurts like nothing else. Each piece of a story is like a newborn baby that cannot be taken away from it's mother - and to do so is to tear her apart. This is how our stories feel to us - we become possessive, over-protective parents.

I don't think that there will ever really be a resolution on this for us writers - and artists of other forms too. That is the nature of creativity. One works on something that one loves, that is very much a part of one - but then one has to work to clamber over the insecurities, to be strong enough to believe in what one has created, in the 'rightness' of it, no matter what critics may say.