More on creativity

Elizabeth read my blog about creativity and send me a video clip by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. Speaking to a good-sized audience, Gilbert said the "freakish success" of her most recent book had caused others to regard her as doomed, because they doubted she could ever match the success of that book. At 30, with at least 40 productive years ahead of her as a writer, that's a pretty daunting thought. But it is, she seemed to say, part of the tension or anxiety of being creative. And then she discussed various theories of creativity through the ages--Greek and Roman eras when creativity did not reside in the soul but came as a message from an outside source. Hence the artist, writer, whatever, was not responsible--that outside source was. Today, if I was hearing Gilbert correctly, she believes that artists are indeed inspired by a muse or whatever you care to call it. We, as writers for instance, have to show up to do our daily work, but the muse has to contribute too. She cited the instance of a well-known song writer who had an inspiraton for a song as he was driving on a freeway--he looked up at the heavens and said, "Can you not see that I'm driving and can't do anything with this? Could you come back at a more convenient time?" And she had an imaginary conversation with a muse of her own, saying in effect, "I'm here, doing my part. I'm working, slaving away at the manuscript. I've shown up. Could you at least do the same?" An artistic creation, as I heard her words, is a collaboration between the artist and the muse.
It's a fascinating theory but not one new to me. Elmer Kelton talked about characters who took hold of stories, like a horse with a bit in its mouth, and took them places he never dreamed. And Dorothy Johnson (author of "A Man Called Horse," "The Hanging Tree," and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,") once wrote me that she'd had a terrible shock: the man she thought was going to be the hero of her WWII novel about New York, "The Unbombed," (never published) was going to be killed in the war. I've even known that kind of insight myself, when suddenly I knew the main male character was going to ride off and leave the protagonist behind. It's almost a cliche for writers that your characters tell you where the story is going, but I did hear one rather successful novelist once say that's balderdash--they were his characters, he created them, and he was going to by damn tell them what to do. I felt sorry he didn't have a muse.
On a much more mundane note, Jeannie and I went to the church bazaar today. When I was a kid, I loved those Christmas bazaars, with pomander balls and all sorts of homemade items. Today was a disappointment--the bazaar has gotten increasingly sophisticated, and some of the vendors whose work we liked best weren't there, like the woman who had creative, instructional, hand-made toys for children. Or the scrapbook expert, though I'll never be into the current craze of scrapbooking. Jeannie, who's much more of a shopper than I am, breezed through quickly, and we left for lunch. She and my good friends Betty and Jean went shopping in Waxahachie earlier in the week, and I excused myself due to work obligations--Jeannie and Betty both told me they all talked about how I would have hated it, not being a shopper by nature.
Betty and I had dinner at Chadra tonight--I had a kids' portion of spaghetti marinara, which was still a lot, and a small salad. Came enough in under points I could eat a bit of choolate!
A pleasant day but like all those of this week, so crowded with things. I am busy all the time but Lord knows with what!

The contradictory dilemma of creativity

I've been thinking a lot about creativity, especially when I do my morning three pages of free writing (I do this as many mornings as I can, though I don't come anywhere near the seven days a week recommended in The Artist's Way. This writing is supposed to enhance your creativity, but how do you measure that? And if you measure it, aren't you applying the rules and forms that are the opposite of creativity? Similarly, retirement is supposed to be freeing my creativity to write the great American novel--or at least the great American mystery. But if I do as everyone says you should in retirement, move at my own pace, it takes me most of the morning to do my free writing, exercise, shower, answer emails, read the paper--I get precious little writing down. I admit that didn't worry me much as long as I was waiting for an answer, but now that I've had a rejection, I feel I need to move ahead (I did send out two queries today). Writing requires self-discipline (argh, so does dieting!). But aren't self-discipline and creativity polar opposites. I don't want to be one of those artists who creates larger-than-life canvases at three in the morning, but I would like to strike a happy balance.
I know that now, more than ever, I'm good at putting things between me and writing--manuscripts to read for TCU Press or other sources, social events, etc. This morning, while free writing, I had an epiphany of sorts (I used to have a friend who had an epiphany every day and the rest of us giggled about it). The things I put between me and writing bring me tangible results--sometimes money, often the company of good friends. So today I also finished a novel I'm reading for TCU and arranged a potluck get-together for ten or 12 neighbors for Sunday night.
I'll cook the entree, which is a funny story in itself. I'm doing a radio interview Saturday on a local station in a small town not far from here, and when the host got the review copy of Cooking My Way Through Life, she emailed that she was going to make gorilla casserole that night. I think it's really called meat and pasta casserole or something, but the last line of the recipe was "You could feed ten gorillas with it," so the kids and I always called it gorilla casserole. Next day, the radio host reported that it was yummy but even when she halved it, she had a lot left over. So that's what I'll make Sunday night--haven't made it in years.
And here I am back to food again. Last night I opened one of my special cans of Pisces tuna, fresh caught on the Oregon seacoast (no dolphins endangered), canned immediately, and only cooked once. I sauteed it in some olive oil with onions, a couple of anchovy filets, and some capers, and added it to a small amount of pasta. Really good, but I used less than half the can, so tonight I made a tossed salad with tuna (still have about 1/3 can left), leftover green beans that Jacob didn't want, some green peas from the bag I keep in the freezer, grape tomatoes halved, and a bit of lettuce--actually would have been better without the lettuce. Got to get over thinking lettuce is essential to a salad! I dressed this with a vinaigrette that had--you guessed it--some of that open can of anchovies in it.