South by Southwest: "c" is for create

Sunday, March 18, 2007

"c" is for create

The inspiration
for today's post came from "Jayne Lyn Stahl" at The Huffington Post, who authored a very clever piece titled "The "C" word." It is the kind of writing that reveals the author's prowess as a very creative political wordsmith. At the moment it has garnered 10 creative comments. It begins,

In a week that witnessed so-called Al Qaeda "mastermind," Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, at his military hearing at Gitmo insist that he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z" and, indeed, claim responsibility for everything but sinking the Titanic, the letter "c" repeats itself like a bad case of acid reflux.

My first step in creating today's post was to search for any of my previous posts containing the word "creativity," a subject of fascination with me since I started writing seriously as an adult. This answer helped me to remember what I have said in the past, and how I went about creating each little essay. Twelve posts were listed, including the following:

My Sentiments, exactly! In it I connect with the aspect of fun in the blogosphere. It closes with this,
"Each of us enjoys having our biases reinforced by others, particularly those whom we see as smart and incisive. We can say to ourselves, "ahaa, I was right all along." That is part of the fun of being a blogger who is never short on opinion."
Drawing on Creativity. The post discussed the possibilities of visual as well as verbal creativity. It began,
Just a tool? When I got my first computer my creativity blossomed. I played with Photoshop and "drew" the (polygon) image that anchors this blog . . .
The Creative Process and the News. My thoughts were on the difficulty of regular creative writing. It begins,
Missing you. I have noticed recently that a number (6 of 19) blogs I regularly visit have no new posts . It would be risky to assume I know the "why" of it. Not writing a post could be for absolutely different causes in every case. Logical reasons might include travel, illness, holidays or circumstances in one's family, job or school. All those things have certainly been causes for me not posting.
Essentials on writing. It focused on some of my favorite creative writers, and what it is I like about their work. I say in the end that,
Body, mind, spirit and heart coming together is what makes a piece of writing wildly successful. I love to read, and I think I must have recognized the power of the printed word from early on.
Peace Makers. It includes the risky act of sharing the first poetry I posted online, "Make War No More" written in January of 2004, well before I started this blog.

My next step was to click on the "create" tab of Blogger's posting page. And there the blank page stared at me. This is the most daunting moment of every day in a poster's writing life. Each time I sit with myself to see what happens with one of several aspects of the creative process.
First is the idea - Each time I decide the point of the post or choose a theme. I decide how to begin and end my argument, and what ideas or thoughts reinforce my reasons for writing about a particular subject. Editing toward a powerful lead and for a logical order of ideas is crucial.

Creative quality will remain unfulfilled if my readers get bored or put off by inepitude. Thus, looking for succinctness and good form, correct grammar, punctuation and spelling, and for links that work well, is the next step. I like to credit authors, date articles, write good paragraph headings, and limit block quotes to three paragraphs. I work to carefully lead my readers through the post, from an enticing beginning to a well-formed conclusion.
For creativity, I might return to a recurring thought, something that is "bugging" me or something I want to know more about. I ask, "what's in the current news," or what are others saying about the issue; how do I feel about this? And I will surf to find something that generates an idea. In today's case I used a structured method, my label list, to remind myself of what I usually post about on this day of the week: Spirit-Psych-Personal-Sun.
What I have yet to achieve is a style that regularly encourages comment and dialogue. What it is that draws me in and keeps my interest involves creativity. Tools might include a finely tuned balance, tight language, emotional color, a good turn of phrase, avoidance of cliche, knowing the audience, and the logical progression of ideas. Creative writing is marked by cleverness, humor, honesty, readability, incisiveness or wisdom. And in the case of South by Southwest my commitment to creativity has been marked by a gratifying increase in readership, for which I remain very grateful.

References -

"Creativity" in Wikipedia is an excellent exploration of the entire subject (also title linked above)
Creativity for Life.com - interesting website that encourages submissions by authors
jpb.com - "Ten Steps for Boosting Creativity" by Jeffrey Baumgartner
optusnet.com - "Creativity Web" links list by Charles Cave