Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

writing ideas

Creativity: generating with What If? and Why?

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What if she was real a moment ago?

It is the What Ifs that writers bring into reality. What if kids had to fight  to the death to earn a position in society? What if everybody was altered to fit into one of five personality types?  Questions and possibilities are what we build our stories on.

Questions make us search for answers, for back stories, for the first domino to fall and the last. And that search creates stories. This is nothing a writer does not know. But it is another way to dive into the creative moment.

  1. Who is the woman who lives in a cave in the earth caring for mushroom gardens and why is she there?
  2. Beneath the fallen roof which leaned precariously against crumbling rock walls, lay a child, clean, unmarked, sleeping peacefully. Who put him there, for whom does he wait, and why does he rest so well, so safely?
  3. When the man crouched down to look into the toddler’s eyes, he backed up recklessly and lost his footing, yet still he scrambled away from her, his gaze never leaving her face. Why?
  4. A snuff box lid, engraved with delicate swirls about a blue cabochon, is canted against a plain, smooth gold container. Who does the box belong to?  Why is it here, open, empty?
  5. The house slumps in the dark shadows of a long night. Occasionally, a ghostly glow moves behind the windows as though someone is using their cell phone for a light. What do they search for and why the lack of electricity?
  6. Over there, among the autumn-pruned rose bushes, something glints like a butterfly’s wings. Only it is a brightness almost too glaring for one’s eyes to stay focused on. What is it?
  7. The mud reveals the outline of footprints, pressed to impart only the front portion of the foot.  Whoever stood here wore heavily shod shoes with a deep tread as if they were cut from tires and reshaped to be the sole of some large man’s shoe. Who stepped here uninvited, unwelcome, on tiptoe?
  8. What if a teacup arrived in the mail without any indication who sent it. Who could it be from?
  9. What if over night every single person found that when they closed their eyes, they could still see what was before them.
  10. Today the phone rang and when it was answered the person on the other end said, “Finally. I have been trying for an hour to reach you.  I must talk to you about the absolute worst day I have ever had.  Sit down and just let me talk. You don’t have to say a word. I just want you to listen.” The voice is unfamiliar.
  11. Dr. Who’s tardis showed up in your kitchen blocking the doorway to any other part of your house.
  12. The young woman reached for her water bottle and took a sip. Not water. She sipped again just to be sure. It made her think of pineapples. 
  13.  

Alright, those are mine. You come up with the last one and write about it.

Creativity: where does it reside in the brain?

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Creativity: Uses your whole brain.
In the past the right brain was established as “conceptual, holistic, intuitive, imaginative and non-verbal” according to the Scientific American article “Is it true that creativity resides in the right hemisphere of the brain?”  It was later replaced by the whole-brain theory which is covered by Ned Herrmann who wrote the article. Basically, according to Herrmann, our brain is balanced.  It must use all parts to create, analyze and implement an idea.  So creativity is a holistic condition, not really a specific site in the brain.  
How can this relate to creativity pursued by writers?  I see it as recognizing the need to both explore through writing (write without reserve or even intention) and followup by demanding that we put our writing through a rigorous testing phase.  I follow my unreserved outflow of words with a more analytical, testing mind to review the work. And then off goes the non-restricted creative process again with new parameters. 
Every time I stop and reread my last thousand words, I am examining them for quality, usefulness, relatability, and connectivity. I adjust, develop, contrast and redesign my writing as I consider how it all makes a whole.  Essentially, I move back and forth between what reaches for anything and what reaches for the specific, and I parley between these two brain activities until I am content with the result.
Better storage
Back on creativity and where it resides in the brain. I suppose it resides everywhere or perhaps where it is most needed in order to solve the problem it is facing.  While researching where in the brain one finds the part marked “reserved for creative thought,” I came across an article  questioning whether creativity is a bi-product of intelligence or a quality in and of itself essential to the evolutionary progress.

Certainly, I have heard in a long ago history class that society does not have time for culture until it has dealt with the needs of survival and is able to store enough food stuffs and necessary items to carry it through seasons of low availability.  I suppose one could use that point to argue that creativity is just bi-product and creativity is not a separate necessary aspect of survival. For only after all needs are met can the people of a village find time to decorate the necessities of life with engravings, fabrics and color.  However, it seems to me and others that those abilities don’t just suddenly arrive unfostered out of the air.

Just coming up with the idea that increases production of necessary foodstuffs counters that theory.  For the idea of how to store product long enough to gain excess time to give over to less essential activities is proof of creativity.  Painting, carving, decorative weaving and embroidery are extensions of already necessary skills which means that creativity and its various supporting brain characteristics come part and parcel with all other thinking demands. 
creativity: lovely and necessary
The point of all this questioning over the location of creativity in the brain is to focus on the fact that we need all that our minds encompass to be strengthened.  Read, argue, examine, consider, connect, research, reach, etc.; do all brainy things that challenge and develop our thinking.  Creativity doesn’t recline among the brain cells eating chocolates; it searches, gathers and prances about.

Another study deals with the location and quantity of dopamine which apparently is the key chemical ingredient of creativity according to a variety of scientists.  But there are so many approaches to examining this key chemical and its interaction with the brain.  A study in Sweden linked dopamine D2 filtering in the thalamus to creativity based on the degree of filtering. Two groups have this feature (a greater number of unusual/unfiltered ideas could slide through): “highly creative healthy adults” and adults suffering from schizophrenia.  (The actual paper on this study is located at this site.)  I love the statement that this lower filtering could be described as “Thinking outside a less intact box.”  I had this image of my ideas looking out of a mesh at the active real world beyond (slightly ironic as we are talking about writing in the creative form, not reality), waiting in line to slip through and become part of a story, poem, etc. The assumption is that “highly creative healthy adults” know the difference between reality and a created world.


More studies: Yet a second study linked high concentrations of dopamine as a sign of high creativity.  They were tracking what parts of the brain have high concentrations.  Presumably creative people tended to have more areas of greater concentration.  Also a theory presented in Alice Flaherty’s study supports the idea that creativity occurred along these “dopamine pathways.” I suppose when combined with the previous study, one could say high concentrations encourage more “divergent” ideas which then were lightly filtered, providing more creativity to the individual.

Creativity does not have to worry about being a wall flower in the scientific study party.  I found numerous papers discussing all sorts of research on how it works, where it is and how to get it to be more active.  So I am stopping here on the various articles I read.  But if you wish, Google “dopamine and increasing creativity” or check out this link on a study of the writing mind.

So what are you doing to channel your creativity? How do you incorporate your whole brain?
Extra credit value: Herrmann also said that male and female brains go
about idea generating differently, so it is necessary that research groups have
both sexes present.  Hmm, so writers, here is yet another argument you
can use to encourage your spouse to participate in your writing as both
muse and criticizer.  
#creativity
#whole-brain
#writing

Creativity: get it in capture mode

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Be ready to pounce on the writing moment.

So last week I blogged about how creativity can be dependent upon routine.  I do use this to a degree during the summer months, but I am just as likely to use the capture mode.

This is when you sit down to do one thing and inspiration hits.  It stops everything: “I have to write now” time. This happens to me fairly regularly. It is not that I have the kind of life that I can put things off any time I want to sit down and write. I don’t, far from it. But I have learned that when I feel the need to write, I better look around and see if I can arrange it without delay.

I teach English, probably one of the most planned, graded and time-consuming subjects to teach. I happen to enjoy teaching it, but it is a life eater. So if there is a moment free, the first thing I do is sit a quite moment and see if anything has been waiting to bubble up. There will be a rise of excitement in my chest, much like when I know there are only three more days before I am heading out on a long-awaited trip. I listen for a stream of dialogue running through my mind, look for an image rising out of the silence and words playing bumper cars between my ears.  Time to sit down and write.

This is capture mode. Grab it while the grabbing has a chance at nipping at the heels of a plot, post, character sketch, etc. I once stopped my husband mid-drive to a bicycle race to buy me a notebook and pencil. I needed to write that moment and had potentially hours of quiet writing time ahead of me between driving to the race and back over the mountains to and from Eugene’s Tandem Classic (the Burley Classic, I believe now defunct, and before you ask, this is before the invention of the laptop).  When the urge is there, take advantage of a ready mind.

This is writing on the run and has the likelihood of being intensely productive because the time could disappear at any moment, so there is no room for sharpening a row of pencils, finding the perfectly flat piece of paper or the cozy niche no one is likely to stumble into. You may have to sit in the stiff- backed wooden chair with the tippy corner; ignore the seat belt, blasting radio and kid kicking the back of your seat; lean against the wall, hair whipping in your face, paper leaping up where your fingers can’t stretch to hold it down while you write. Yup, you don’t even have time to hunt; just pounce and land on the scittering, scattering words, grab with straining claws, pull them to your chest, and start laying out one word at a time (though if any one knows of a way to simultaneous set out words in lumps I want to hear about it).

So that’s capture mode. What examples of capture mode have you experienced?  I’m sure you’ve had a few wild writing stories you could tell, so share them here.

Next creative post: building desire to write.

Feel free to follow me here, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest. There are means to this end about this blog.

#creativity
#writing
#inspiration

Creativity: the routine of it can be inspiring

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Be ready to write

Creativity is such a personal experience.  No matter who we are, we search for it. A kid wants to say something funny to his buddies, a man needs a good line to catch the woman’s attention, a painter dreams of that perfect aesthetic impression on canvas, the computer programmer must revise for simplicity, clarity, reduced expense. Let’s not forget the writer who seeks a killer plot, equally killer characters and amazing killer dialogue, not to mention variety of diction. We are all in search of the creative moment and its reliable, reproducible inspiration.

Routine has long been tauted as the writer’s key to inspiration.  You know the drill:

  • write at the same time every day
  • create a space dedicated to writing
  • set yourself  up for the muse by having little routine steps: sharpen your pencil, restack your paper square, sort through your list of ideas, sit down and make your mind quiet, whatever
  • don’t tell anyone your idea until after it is down on paper
  • always leave your writing with a sense of urgency to write the next scene, or leave notes to pick up with next time you sit down
  • don’t stop until you have 1000 words down (or however many)
  • stop after 1000 words no matter what (That will certainly leave a sense of urgency to get back to the scene, unless of course you have been telling yourself, like a bonking runner, just 167 more words and I get to stop.)

Routine certainly has is good points. You know when, where, for how long, and how you are going to write, so there are no excuses. Bang you’re off and typing, scribbling, recording, etc.

It frees you up for inspiration to fly in or roll on.

When you are in your “place,” everyone knows to leave you alone.  That does not mean they will, just that they know.

And routine has other perks as well.

  • It’s already scheduled into your day, so work, kids, spouse, laundry, Twitter have already been factored in and can be controlled and worked around.  
  • Laundry can be done at the same time, brushing your teeth and showering can be brainstorming time, and you have an excuse not to watch that mind-numbing TV show everybody is talking about.
  • And when you are done, you can tell yourself, “I wrote today,” just as others might say, “I exercised before breakfast.” Be the first to pat yourself on the back.
  • It is scheduled into your “most creative work” time because you have worked out that you write best from 5 AM to 9 AM, or 10 PM to midnight, or etc.
  • And all those inspiring million-words-a-day gurus often provide very specific routines, and it works for them, why not you?

All very well, but this post was imagined just as I was starting up my school laptop to begin lesson planning for the new year. I had to shut the lid, send it into sleep mode and restart my personal laptop and begin this post I had scheduled into my day tomorrow.  Routine, I like it best when I can break it into a million pieces and around 500 words.

What is your routine or non-routine? Do you mix and match?

See me next week when I approach creativity in capture mode.  Don’t know what that is: see me next week, maybe I’ll know then, too.
#writing
#creativity
#routine

Reading the Heinlein biography, part 1: an immersion in the writing process

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I have been a fan of Heinlein’s for more than forty
years.  When he was alive, I watched
constantly for his next publication, and I have read nearly everything he has
written and a great deal of what has been written about his work.  Learning only recently that there was an
official biography about him leaves me rather late in following up my past
diligence, but I am glad I didn’t find these two volumes by William H. Patterson, Jr.,
until this month.  Now was the time for
me to read about Heinlein’s writing experience and process. 
I learned so much more about writing and my favorite author
reading these texts. I found numerous levels of understanding about the
process, organization and publication of writing, working with agents and
editors and publishing in general (though, of course, there have been changes,
the human element should not have altered much).  There was also the personal element of being
a writer, champion of ideas and role model that was just as provocative and
informative, but that will be for another post.
Below is a list of what I found important to Heinlein’s
process, important to any writer’s effort to write well.

  • Use index cards to organize and maintain ideas. Sure there are numerous electronic
    organizers, but I like the inspiration that comes from being able to shuffle, redistribute and overlap
    ideas on a 3×5.      I am definitely going to work with this
    approach. Heinlein used index cards to jot down ideas and even carried them around with him when working on a story. When enough ideas started to
    come together, they were kept in a group, and he would refer back or add to them
    as his story grew.  The system gained
    structure as his ideas and completed writing grew.  So they (his wife Virginia Heinlein came up with his indexing
    structure) set up a filing system that
    categorized the ideas and identified each published or work in progress.  Each book or WIP acquired its own indexing
    number. I am going to use his system to
    build one that will work for me.
  • Gather research: he was constantly researching
    science, technology, engineering, etc., to ensure accuracy in his writing.  I do
    research, but I think I need to develop this process more and in a less
    isolated manner – both broad and deep so there is more overlap and more
    connections built and therefore more material for writing.     
  • Read up on a lot of topics: Heinlein was not
    afraid to read a tome far above his level of understanding. He was known to
    seek out specialists in his field of interest and have them teach him what he
    needed to know so he could understand in-depth writing in the field he was
    curious about. This is an area I need to
    work on.     
  • Gather a cadre of authorities to tap. No explanation needed here. 
  •  Let ideas stew, even for years.  Some books half written sat around waiting
    for the right idea, the new understanding or experience before they were ready
    to be completed.  He fought for every
    piece he wrote to get to its end, but he also was ready to recognize when
    something just was not ready for prime time. 
  •  Have an overall plan for a book.  For some writers this is not a useful tidbit.
    But for me it is. I realize more and more
    that I am playing catchup with my stories about two thirds through.  I knew where I wanted to start and where I
    thought it would end.  I often have a set
    of events I expect to fill the middle with on the way to start and finish, but
    I realize at that 2/3rds point that I failed to consider the reader interaction
    that goes with the connecting of these two points.  I think that is what that overall plan means
    to me.  I need to have the bones
    organized earlier for my books.  Even if
    I deviate in the process of writing, I will have still worked out much of what
    the intercourse will be between the story and the reader that is essential.     
  •  Use mythologies and connecting images or
    principals in a work.  The underlying
    pieces are so essential.  
    Heinlein would work out what mythology or images he wanted to imbed in his
    stories to link events and ideas together within a work.
  •  Making use of personal experience. I suppose
    this falls under “write about what you know,” but I think it is
    deeper than this, and I think writers naturally incorporate their own
    accumulated bundle of tragedy, comedy and drama. We all can take an experience
    and pick out the magic pieces that add depth and authenticity to our work. 
  •  The benefit of a participating spouse: providing
    ideas and feedback and being a resource of information.  Heinlein was fortunate that both ex-wife
    Leslyn Heinlein and his wife Virginia Heinlein were willing to be a part of his
    writing process and business. Not all writers have a spouse who is willing to
    provide this deep of a commitment. Mine
    hits at about the 5 percent when it comes to involvement, but he is
    tremendously supportive. He uses the word “work” when he asks what I
    am doing as I am typing on the computer. 
    He’ll say, “Is that for school or are you working?”  I love that. And he’s growing in this
    area.  After all, he is the one that made
    sure the plans for our house included an office for me.     
  •  Reading inside and outside your genre.  Heinlein kept up on both scientific writings
    as well as contemporary fiction.  He believed it
    advanced his writing quite a bit and resulted in his hybrid Science Fiction
    style which ultimately changed the scope of the genre. I write also contemporary short story and poetry, read for pleasure and
    read for study, but I could still enlarge on this. (I read three biographies in
    the last month, and that is more of that genre than I normally read in a year.)     
  •  Don’t be afraid and even seek to write something
    different, challenging or disruptive. 
    Several of Heinlein’s works, according to his bio, he did not expect to be
    accepted for publication. They were just too different:  Stranger
    in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love,     and Number of the Beast. But they were accepted and each were met with near instant success. 
  •  Don’t be afraid to create your own genre. Heinlein
    moved away from the strict confines of what constituted Science Fiction. (What
    was new and different in his time is very much the norm of our own.) 
  •  Submit to small presses and lower-end magazines
    to begin with. Submit?! Okay, I am
    working up to this. There is a time commitment here because of the research,
    selection process and keeping track of what is out and where it has been. I am
    going to squeeze it in. I promised myself and I am going to do it.     So
    Submit! 
  •  Submit repeatedly and continuously. Since we’re
    on the subject, Heinlein just kept things heading out the door until it found a
    buyer. Just keep flinging them off the
    merry-go-round until they land on their feet.     
  •  Take all criticism under consideration and
    follow what feels right.  I like this
    especially about Heinlein.  His stories
    had to meet his internal critic and his external (spouse).  Once it passed those two road blocks, he
    fought for it.  He took criticism that
    would make a work better but routinely refused to castrate or turn a work into
    weak milk. None of my current work is a
    challenge to society being largely written for entertainment, so this mandate does not apply too heavily to my work.
    But should I write something that pulls hair, I won’t let myself be forced to
    back down in order to keep a segment of society from having to take off their
    rose-colored glasses.     
  •  Join groups that augment or support your
    genre/subject/intentions.  Heinlein
    wasn’t much for writing groups, but he did form his own quasi-feedback
    groups.  Lucky stiff, he had Pohl,
    Azimov, Savage, the Smiths, Bova, the Sturgeons etc. They talked shop, shared ideas, helped develop
    plots, kept each other informed of new technology and writing aids.  Heinlein once bought another writer a
    typewriter because he felt it had been such an aid to lightening up his work
    load and time spent in production. 
  •  Keep organized files and sift through them.  This is much related to an earlier point, but
    the reason why it is separate is that one must do more than just organize the
    works and ideas.  You must review them,
    add and combine.  If they sit in a drawer
    than all they will ever do is sit in a drawer.
#writing
#Heinlein
#writingprocess

Even standing in the crawl space of what will be my office is enough to inspire me

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foundations for a writing office

I’ve been tweeting about the lovely little getaway house my husband and I have been building for the last three months. I am pleased it’s coming along, but what I really care about and am excited about is my office.  Sure the house is going to have bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, two baths, but I am going to have my own office, and that is what’s important.  The room is about 10×9 at the back of the house off the kitchen and dining room, but it’s an open floor plan, so I can look into the living room if I want or close the door.

I wouldn’t care if it was 6×6.  It is my space and will contain my things and has a door.  It is the only room in the house I will not have to consult or agree with my husband about if I don’t want to.  I have a few ideas.

  • A desk ~ probably my current old oak desk, though my husband talks of replacing it.  I don’t mind it.  The desk doesn’t write, I do.
  • My desk will be right in front of the window with the amazing view of the lake through the trees.
  • One whole wall will be blank, though in the plans it shows a window.  My room ~ no window needed on that wall.  We’re talking 10×9 here.  What do I need with three windows?  Two are fine.  That wall is my story organizer whether I use sticky notes or a white board or printed sheets of paper taped together.  It will make it possible for me to see and alter the arc of each of my stories.
  • Behind me is a storage cabinet running wall to wall, hopefully built in with a counter for the printer, shelving above and cabinet doors below.  
  • To the right is the wall with the door as tight to the cabinet wall as I can make it.  So there will be a small wall immediately to my right when I am at the desk.  Pictures, plagues and such will go there.  I can start with all those diplomas I have so it does not begin blank.  I’ll shift them out as I go.  Somewhere in this lot will sit a file cabinet.  We actually own three cabinets but only one is dedicated to my writing.  The other two can go begging for space elsewhere.  Files not writing related will not be welcome.

So we have been building.  My husband is a do-it-yourselfer, and this includes my having very little to do with the placement of building materials in the form of a house.  I hold a nail in place, and he carefully avoids hitting my fingers with the hammer.  I locate the hammer when he misplaces it.  And a lot of the time I sit in a chair with my Kindle reading.  But I sit in my office, okay, for precision here, I sit beneath my office in the crawl space as the decking for the floor is not in yet.  Still, I cannot explain the absolute peace and satisfaction I feel sitting in the space, my space, my office-to-be.

When I am not sitting and reading or holding a nail, I stare off at that view, my elbows balanced on the ledgerboard mounted on the stem wall.  I am usually standing rather precariously on some concrete overflow from the stem wall pour as I am not quite tall enough to look out without the added inches it gives me.  But as I stand there, the book I am writing comes to me in splashes of scenes and dialogue.  I keep running them through my mind adding imagery, direction, character details. 

My office is already useful, already generating ideas.  Just standing in it is enough to make me want to write.  What will a floor bring?  Walls, a door, my chair at my desk?  So much to imagine and look forward to.

If you can design your office, what would it be like.  Is it just a little space of your own or a full blown library?  Does that desk need to be something special or is any flat space your computer or writing pad can lay enough? Will a window add or detract from your island muse?
#writing
#imagination
#inspiration
#officespace