Creativity Defined

According to my blog log, I’ve waxed poetic about the subject nineteen times since I began CR – this is the twentieth post and it comes from a journal entry wherein I was tasked with defining creativity. Since it still felt relevant when I stumbled over it last week, I thought I’d share my perception of one of the most important ideals in my repertoire.

Creativity is the production of something from nothing, the extension of an idea, the hard copy result of a dream or a blueprint.

Creativity is remodelling: the production of something inspired by someone else’s creativity, the refurbishing or development of one’s own style based on the example of another’s.

Creativity is spirit: the sense of connection to something larger than oneself, to the cosmic energy that binds us to the earth and to each other.

Creativity is action in the service of spirit. There is nothing creative about “destroyed in seconds”; there is nothing creative in trash talk or gossip, in bullying or harassment. 

Creativity is love and sharing and encouragement. It’s more than art or writing or music. It’s something inexplicable that results in beauty, emotion, evolution, kindness, awareness and, occasionally, fame and fortune. It is always, however, successful. By its nature, creativity cannot lose.

Create something.

Create a smile.

Create a picture or a poem.

Create a bright spot in someone’s day.

Creativity is life.

With love,

Out of Order

draft mode

I usually write from start to finish. In sequential order. From front to back. Page one to page whatever. It’s unusual for me to write a story out of sequence, but that is what appears to be happening with “Diva”, the Hollywood story that began as an exercise some weeks ago.

It seems fitting to write a story about a movie star the same way a movie about her would be shot—out of order. The scenes are coming the same way, so I’m going with it. I’m also keeping to the writing exercise format, scribbling an initial burst onto paper and polishing it later for posting. The scenes are short and relatively simple, like pieces of a puzzle that will eventually create a picture, and are easily drafted over a lunch break at work. Spontaneity is key. When an idea comes, get it out fast and worry about placement later. Curiously, one scene is sparking another, igniting questions that I want answered, hence … more exercise!

I thought about waiting until it’s a finished story before I post it, but to be honest, I don’t know when or if it will ever be finished. It’s really a bunch of writing exercises. Assuming that the characters are exhausted at some point down the road, the scenes might be arranged into a story called “Diva”, with a definite start and a definite end.

In the meantime, another scene goes up tomorrow. I have two more cooking, to be drafted, polished and posted in due course. After that, who knows? Call the series “ ‘The Development of Diva’ ” and see where it takes us.

Enjoy.

Playday

Well, it’s been interesting. Back to work with fresh resolve, and did I write a word worth reading since my last post?

Nope.

Cleverly, I scheduled a four day workweek to ease myself back into the daily grind, and no matter how much I may enjoy my colleagues and parts of my job, it is most definitely a grind. I did, however, take a few minutes to draw a bunch of balloons on my 2016 bulletin board. Balloons appear to be a theme with me at present. They’re bright and cheerful – like ice cream and Duran Duran, they elicit an immediate smile. It’s hard to be crabby when I’m smiling.

Today is my day off, and I’m unsure precisely how to spend it. Reading? Writing? Colouring? All of the above? One thing is clear: after a few days in work mode, my creative self needs nurturing before it can create. It requires time, the way Blue Silver’s carburetor required time to warm up before I hit the road in winter.

Hey, good analogy, Ru!

So, the day will be spent quietly and probably in the Ocean Room, with tea, my books (colouring and otherwise) and the Downton Abbey soundtrack, until I have to leave for my chiro appointment this afternoon. If writing happens, I’ll go for it, but I’m not pushing the Muse. I’ll just let her know that I’m available and see if she wants to meet up sometime this weekend.

I was reminded of an important truth last week:

“The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.”

Thank the gods for Mr. Spock.

With love,

Seriously

Too seriously. Seriously.

Taking creativity seriously is like using salt in the kitchen: it’s a necessary ingredient, but too much will ruin the dish. I realized yesterday that the sodium content in my attitude is toxic and may be why I’ve been unable to write much of anything for months.

A fun fact: no one is going to die if I don’t write. Not even I will die. I’ll be unhappy, but Ter will tell you that she won’t notice any difference because I’ve been a misery when I am writing.

I’ve been moaning about how hard it is; apprehensive about how much I’ll get done in a session; anxious about the value of what I’ll get done; and downright negative about what I do get done. It’s gotten so bad that I actually admitted to myself on the weekend that I don’t want to do it anymore. I heard the words, clear as day, in my head:

“I don’t want to write.”

Huh?

Wait a minute, kiddo. How can someone who insists that she’s a writer, who proclaims that she’d rather quit breathing than quit writing, who took four frigging weeks of vacation in order TO BE a writer not want to write????

Hm. Okay. Bits and bobs and the Sunday “cold start” could be the problem. I’m out of shape, my creative muscle gone to flab with too infrequent use, so obviously, I must dedicate myself to it.

In other words, get serious.

Hit the computer at 9:00 a.m. and keep office hours each day. Approach it like it’s my job and I’ll have to get somewhere, right?

Each morning last week, I’d tell Ter, “I’m off to work,” and I’d disappear into my room. I wrote for three solid days, started to get some momentum, struck a patch of  “uh oh, what’s happening now?” then the week was over and life got in the way.

Life does that. Life is far more demanding than the Muse because life is about survival and in the big picture, creativity isn’t. It’s nice if you can combine the two. I’m not there yet, but I had the fourth week set aside specifically to indulge inspiration. Yesterday was my first serious crack at it. Despite the weekend revelation that I don’t want to do it anymore, I decided that poor self-discipline was the problem and if I just show up, the Muse will oblige.

Well, kudos to the Muse. Who wants to work with a crabby, cynical, frustrated colleague?

I packed it in, considered slashing my wrists, and opted for some yoga stretches instead. Following that, my little voice suggested continuing with Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic, and the section I happened upon was a timely wakeup call about attitude. Approach creativity like it’s the prize at the end of the Green Mile and every step will be shackled to a concrete block. 

In other words, good luck getting anywhere.

I was reminded that my creativity is a gift. Take it seriously by viewing it with gratitude, respect and humility, but remember that it’s also supposed to be fun. It’s not work. It’s play. It’s free-flowing and experimental, and it’s safe. No one will die if it doesn’t get done.

So I’m changing my attitude.

No more “going to work.”

I am going to play.

Bibliography IX

“Big Magic” – Elizabeth Gilbert

I count on Nicole to ferret out helpful gems for my creativity. Over the years, she has gifted me with essays on writing by Ray Bradbury and Henry Miller, the collected poetry of Pablo Neruda, and a kick-in-the-butt called “Do the Work” by Steven Pressfield (who also wrote “The War of Art”, which has to be one of the best titles ever). Like Ter, she does the heavy reading and sends me the highlights, which I then take to the lab for testing myself. This year, she surprised me with this book by the author of “Eat, Pray, Love”, which I have not read but may very well pick up before 2016 is finished.

You know you’re on to something when a new book falls open and this line catches your eye:

“My novel was gone.”

Ms. Gilbert elaborates, describing how the idea for a novel that had once thrilled and motivated her, due to life going seriously sideways for a spell, fell out of her head. She had lived, breathed and researched this wonderful magical new story, then had to put it on hold to deal with a personal crisis. Returning to her novel a year later, she discovered that her enthusiasm had not only waned, the idea itself had disappeared and she was left with a great gaping void where her brilliant story should have been. Try as she might, she couldn’t rekindle the passion that had obsessed her at the start.

Eerie, how a woman whose work I do not know could so acutely describe my own sentiment regarding my own novel. Oh, the idea is still there; at least I still have that, but my enthusiasm for it is not what it once was. Reading those few pages of Liz Gilbert’s dilemma has me utterly intrigued, and hopeful that her insight might do me some good in the big picture. Creativity is a specialized energy, but it’s available to everyone. Nic says that her copy of “Big Magic” is underlined, highlighted and scribbled in, which hints at a resource of equal or greater value to Roget and Webster. More importantly, she sees something in it that she believes will benefit me.

She’s my sister in propinquity. I bet she’s right.

Colour Me Gone

You might think that the term “adult colouring book” means extensive use of a flesh-coloured Crayola, but you’d be wrong.

What I think is a recent craze has actually been around for a while. My wee sister tells me that she had a grown-up colouring book when her kids were small. She still has it—unfinished, because the kids (now grown) made off with her coloured pencils.

Guess what I gave her for her birthday.

Colouring therapy goes even deeper into my history when I think about it. A Doodle Art poster of butterflies hung in the kitchen when I was a pre-teen; I would occasionally pause to fill in a wing or a flower, as would my sisters and maybe my younger older brother, though I never saw him doing it.

I’ve heard that colouring induces a mindset as close to meditating as one can get without actually meditating—good news for someone like me, who falls asleep when confronted by a lighted candle.

Truth is, I love to colour. It’s easier than writing. Way easier, in fact., though it can facilitate the process by giving me something to do while I mull over plot portents. I get completely lost in my Christmas cards each year. The hard part is the poetry; once the words are formed, the struggle ends and the joy begins—with colour.

It’s the perfect meditation. There are no rules, no time limits, no restrictions. You can even colour outside the lines if you want. How cool is that?

Ter gave me a book for my birthday. I love it, but like dessert, I have to eat my veggies before I can indulge, so I don’t spend as much time at it as I’d like. When I can no longer bear the wait, however, you’ll find me in the zone.

Painting and Revolution

Ter and I recently watched a 4-part documentary about the Impressionist movement of the late 19^th century. The presenter—a quirky character with a droll sense of humour—did more than discourse about the painters themselves. He expanded the subject to include the changing times that inspired their work. It was awesome!

I love Paris and I love Impressionist art—the light and colour and motion are dazzling and, as is the case with most artistic endeavours, they reflect the world in which the artists lived. Sometimes the painter’s inner world is revealed—Goya, Van Gogh and early Degas come to mind—but it’s the external world that lends life and colour to our history. Without the painters, poets and playwrights, we’d only have the media spin on what went before. In the days of kings and cardinals, artists were funded by the powers that be, hence the abundant regal and religious works … and you can’t tell me that Holbein and Van Dyck weren’t the masters of Photoshop in their time. When royalty is your bread and butter, you’d better make those recessive traits look good.

Patronage aside, art is critical in capturing the essence of a time and place. Artists are both historians and scientists, experimenting with light and colour in ways that “real” science might ignore. Even now, in the 21^st century, our society is revealed through its art , and not to its best advantage when one considers that terrorists and serial killers are the heroes on TV and the world can only be saved in the movies by people with superpowers.

Isn’t that why arts programs are the first to suffer funding cuts in times of fiscal restraint? Creativity is considered a luxury by those who fear it. To everyone else, it’s a link to something greater than ourselves, and a perspective on life that reveals too much for intellectual comfort.

I digress.

Like the Dutch masters before them, the Impressionists were free to paint what they saw: ordinary people living everyday life. Better yet, they spawned a revolution in tools as well as technique. The invention of tubed pigments and portable easels made painting outdoors as convenient as working in one’s studio. And, man, did they have a myriad of subjects from which to choose. I have yet to see myself in any of the café tableaux, but I’m sure I was there in a past life; I’m too in love with music and the lifestyle, naughty girl that I must have been.

The documentary also prompted me to revisit the story of François and Odette, not to amend it in any way, but to look at them a few months after he rescued her from the life of a disenchanted muse. As with any revolution, some will benefit, some will suffer, and the artist will record it for posterity.

Retreat Into Art

Poetry. Cake decorating. Architecture. Painting. Metalwork. Jewelry. Quilting. Photography. Everyone can do something artistic. People say to me, “I could never write a book.” To which I say, “You can do something else.” (And I guarantee it’ll be something that I can’t.)

At coffee with my wee sister one day, I told her about the card I was making for our younger older brother’s birthday. At that stage, I’d not yet decided on a drawing, so I said to her, “If you get an idea, let me know.”

She kinda smirked and replied, “I’m not that creative.”

Wrong-o, kid. I reminded her of her flair for interior design (she has a great eye for colour) and the garden she used to keep in bloom throughout the seasons. She thought for a second, then said, “I liked to plant things to see what they’d look like, or if I could keep them alive.” Which she usually could. She likes to paint walls, too, if she could do so uninterrupted. She has kids and critters and a job, so her creativity goes unrecognized, but it’s there. Every one of my siblings has some creative ability whether or not they realize it, and we all share warmth, wit and wonderful parents. Dad is an artist/writer/dreamer; Mum is a gift unto herself, but was always baking, knitting, or sewing, and loved to play her piano while she raised her kids.

Making time for creativity is the trick. In an über-busy world, too few of us earn a living from our passion. Creativity is notorious for producing poor to no income, but that’s what hobbies are for. The lucky ones make it their reality. The rest of us make it our escape from reality. Either way, how dare anyone claim that art is expendable! Without art, there is no life, no will, no courage, no joy … no point.

Just sayin’.

Xscape

Fuelled by the MJ hologram at the Billboard awards, and because she’s a lifelong Jackson fan, Ter immediately went out and bought the “new” album. That was a week ago. In that time, we have both fallen to our knees at further evidence of his creative prowess, not to mention in love with the songs themselves.

Ordinarily, I cringe at albums released after an artist’s death. It’s hard to perceive such an exercise as anything other than a cash cow for the estate; a last-gasp attempt to grab what they can from desolate fans, and sometimes that’s exactly what it is.

“Xscape” is different, and not because I’ve always liked MJ’s music. The project team took part in a documentary that describes how they all came together as recording professionals, former colleagues and die hard MJ fans. They talk about their conditions for signing on, and describe in detail the remixing of the eight original songs featured on the album. The album includes the originally-recorded versions as well, as the vocals were complete at the time of MJ’s death. If he had lived, he would have been in the studio with these guys, and every song would have sounded exactly as it actually does. There are no disposable tracks on this album. Even the original recordings are exceptional—the production team have merely shot them into the stratosphere using their talents to complement the master’s. Jackson did nothing by half measures. He laid the foundation for this piece as if he planned its release in 2014. So it’s no surprise to me that everyone involved has stated quite seriously that each of them felt his presence in the studio as they worked.

This is no cheap ripoff culled from vocal fragments scattered throughout the vault. This is a real album of real songs—and sure, it could be the former and still top the charts and scoop all the awards because it’s Michael-freaking-Jackson, but when it does sweep the Grammys, I won’t be rolling my eyes in disgust. This record deserves to win.

It’s almost a cliché, how creative geniuses lead such agonized personal lives yet produce phenomenal art. Granted, if you’re not an MJ fan, this won’t mean much to you, but he’s not the only tortured talent whom the world eventually destroyed. In the film The Devil’s Violinist, a dying Niccolo Paganini refuses the last rites, but when the priest admonishes that he must be prepared to face God’s grace, the dissolute violinist replies, “Let me tell you something of God’s grace. He gave me a gift, then abandoned me in a world that couldn’t understand it.”

Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Another creative exercise was to invite 20 people, living or dead, to dinner. I gave myself the #20 spot, as even numbers ensure that no one is left without a supper partner. Circulating with cocktails ahead of the meal doesn’t require a specific pairing:

1. Terri (duh)

2. Nicole (poet)

3. Oscar Wilde (poet/playwright)

4. Will Shakespeare (poet/playwright)

5. Simon LeBon (poet/singer)

6. Agatha Christie (writer)

7. Victor Borge (musician/comedian)

8. Danny Kaye (actor/comedian/performer)

9. Bernie Taupin (poet)

10. Diana Gabaldon (writer)

11. Samuel Pepys (diarist)

12. Auguste Rodin (artist/sculptor)

13. Giancarlo Bernini (artist/sculptor)

14. John Singer Sargent (artist/painter)

15. David Brenner (comedian)

16. Jim Henson (puppeteer)

17. Herb Ritts (photographer)

18. Franco Zeffirelli (director)

19. The Mystery Guest (?)

20. Me

Then I had to create the party list, menu and theme of the evening.

Theme: “Art and Artists—Writers, Poets Artists, Actors, Performers and the Art of Creativity”

Discuss: inspiration

Demonstrate: process

Discuss: craft

Perform: sing, dance, tell a story, recite a poem, tell a joke, reveal a master’s secret.

I must say here that I loathe parties—particularly large ones, which means those attended by a greater number than four (and I am counted among the 4). As far as the menu plan, you’ve got to be kidding. What to feed 20 varied people from the span of centuries? Make it a potluck; everyone bring something to share. I’ll make the cake: white, with vanilla butter cream and a custard filling.

* * *

Eagle eyes in the audience will recall that this piece briefly appeared last Wednesday, but when it went live, the formatting was so wildly out of whack that  I pulled it to fix the problem.

Have I mentioned how I hate MS Word?

Writer Without a Cause

Being stuck between projects is like being stuck in an airlock. I’ve returned from one world and am awaiting entry to the next, but the doors are jammed on either side so all I can do is wait for inspiration to rescue me.

Time spent not writing seems wasted, but is it? I’ve wasted equally precious Sundays writing complete crap, emerging grouchy and frustrated from my room with x-number of substandard paragraphs to fuel my ire. Better to admit I’ve got nuttin’ at the start than force the Muse and end up with worse than nuttin’. Is it writer’s block? Could be—though I prefer to take the advice of Professor Ekkles and accept that writing is simply not meant to happen at this moment. It’s a Zen challenge because Sunday is pretty much the only day of the week when I can write from dawn ’til dusk, but if you don’t like the way something looks, change the way you look at it.

I may not be writing, but I can still be creative. Being creative doesn’t mean having a measurable output at the end of the day, either. I read more when I’m not writing. I listen to more music, take more walks, and do more pondering. (I don’t call it meditating because pondering doesn’t put me to sleep.) I nurture the Muse by poring over poems and paintings, by watching movies and concert videos, and, I confess, by revisiting my own work. It’s remarkably helpful to read something you wrote a year ago (or more); you can either see how much you’ve improved or be amazed at how much better you were than you thought. I usually see room for improvement because I am still evolving. What I wrote then I would write differently now, as what I write now will be written differently in the future. One thing is certain: the day I reach my potential is the day I quit writing forever.

Suffering for Art

Unless you count emails at work, my plan to write daily isn’t going very well. You might count the goings on in my imagination, I suppose, as there’s always something brewing in there. I am more productive if I get the scene/story ordered in my head before I tackle the computer. Going in cold rarely achieves ignition.

I wonder why I do it at all.

At the beginning of January, Erin Morgenstern posted a piece on her blog that struck a chord. She intends to write her follow up to The Night Circus in 2014, but expressed some doubt about how to accomplish it. She’s much happier with life now than she was then, so liking the world outside her head is interfering with the world inside her head. She finally confessed that she started writing to escape a sadness that no longer exists. At the beginning, she wrote to escape.

So did I.

My arthritis was diagnosed shortly after I discovered the joy of creating my own stories. I loved to read, as did (does) my whole family, but for me, writing took that pleasure to another, all-consuming level. After delivering the good news to my mother and me, the doctor added the bonus info that I’d have to cut back on the writing, as the physics of it were likely to cause more problems than the disease alone.

That very night, I started writing a new story. I recall nothing of it except that it was as much an act of defiance as of creativity. I had dabbled with words since age ten. At thirteen, I flung my arms around the practice and held on for dear life. From then on, writing was my escape, my sanctuary from a world where the struggle against pain reigned supreme. For years, arthritis was my real life and writing was how I coped with it. I actually did let up in my twenties, when the worst seemed over and my life got happier. I still use it as a coping mechanism, but overall, my inner world is darker and scarier than my outer one.

I understand what EM is saying. Great art, be it literature, music or painting, is often born of the artist’s suffering and subsequent urge to escape some form of pain—a broken heart, a broken child, a broken faith. Time and again, I’ve heard poets and musicians say their best work was done in their darkest moments. Happily, it’s not set in stone that beauty must come from pain. After all these years, writing is my habit as much as my escape. At times, I don’t even think about it; I just do it. Whether it began as a hidden part of me or it arrived later to save me from my angst, it’s very much a part of me now. If I had to stop, I’d as soon stop breathing.

EM says she must learn to write while she’s happy. She’s so gifted that I’m sure she’ll succeed. As for me … I’ll leave the suffering to my characters. I’m fine without it.

Creativity Rules

Ter is an artist. I am a writer. In the days before we joined the ranks of the pension prisoner, we lived and breathed creativity. It happened spontaneously, with little warning. Inspiration was everywhere, in music, in books, in movies. She painted portraits of rock stars and I wrote about vampires who looked like rock stars. Her portfolio challenged my manuscripts for storage space in our basement apartment but still, we created. I learned to write by reading my favourite authors. Ter collected art magazines featuring articles by and about her favourite artists, and once in a while—more frequently then than now—we went to museum exhibits and local art shows. A portrait exhibit in Vancouver was particularly enjoyable; I got a bigger kick from watching her inspect the brush strokes in a Sophie Pemberton work than I did from seeing a Van Dyck of Charles I in the flesh.

My practice at an art show is to wander with an idle eye and wait for something to leap out at me. There are always things I like or will agree that’s nice, but a real sock in the belly is what determines whether or not I will part with cash. I am usually looking for something that impresses me as much or more than anything Ter has produced, and it’s rare that such a piece presents itself. Portraits of any ilk are few and far between. Portraits of her caliber are fewer still.

For that reason, I will always remember Sandra Jean. She hung amid florals and still lifes and seascapes and landscapes at a community art show in Sidney. I’d been strolling through the exhibit, scouting for anything that wasn’t a floral or a still life or a seascape or a landscape, and suddenly there she was: a woman with long dark hair and haunted green eyes gazing out of the frame and right through my heart. I stopped dead in front of her and forgot to breathe. I just stood and stared, transfixed. I would have her in my house today except that she was not for sale. The card named the painting and the artist, and there was the cursed red dot that meant I could only take the memory of her with me, because cameras were not allowed and I didn’t have mine with me anyway.

I showed her to Ter. Whether or not she shared my passion for the painting, she understood the nature of it. True art should incite an emotional response in the viewer, right?

So you’d think.

Ter was working at an art gallery/framing shop at the time. The girl she worked with was studying for her art degree and, as it happened, had framed Sandra Jean. The artist was the subject’s mother, and it turned out that she had captured a recent loss in her daughter’s life—I think a divorce but can’t recall for sure. As far as I was concerned, the artist nailed it to the wall, but all the framer had to say was how this was wrong and that should have been different and on the whole, the painting wasn’t that great.

If it wasn’t that great, why do I still remember it? Why did I want to buy it at the time? Why was I so dumbstruck by her beauty that I didn’t notice all the little things that were wrong? I guess if I’d brought my carpenter’s level and a plumb line, I might have seen that her neck was disproportionately long or whatever else the educated eye had plucked out, but all I cared for was how I felt when I met her sad, sad eyes.

The first rule of creativity is that creativity has no rules. Sandra Jean was proof. Follow the rules and you’ll end up with something that may impress the rule makers, but won’t likely impress me.

Blog Art

part of my kit currently getting the most work

Tomorrow’s post is about honeybees—and I only offer that tidbit because it inspired today’s post.

Many of the photos put up here at CR I have taken myself, especially since the arrival of my beloved Canon. Others obviously originated elsewhere, and I’ll happily give credit where it’s due if I am ever caught. I’d give it up front except that I rarely know who took/drew/assembled whichever photo I choose to complement my musings du jour.

But back to the honeybees. A post about honeybees is well-served by a picture of a honeybee. Problem there is that, no matter how harmless to humans or vital to the ecosystem they are, honeybees are still insects, and insects of any ilk make my toes curl. I actually found a pic that would have suited, except that it’s a picture of a bug and after some (okay, not that much) thought, I decided to go with the cutesy option and find a cartoon.

Photos are easier to use than cartoons, mostly because many ’toons are visibly copyrighted and a watermark wrecks the effect, i.e., the best drawings that Google found were armed against unauthorized use. So I puzzled for a bit, then, just as frustration began to bubble, a little voice suggested that I draw my own picture.

Well, why the heck not? I can draw. I must be able to, else why would I have an arsenal of artistic weaponry in my writing room? Drafting pencils, coloured pencils, pens, felt-tipped markers, art erasers (I go through a lot of those), paintbrushes – if it can be found in a grade school student’s desk, I have the grown-up version in mine. A sampling is pictured above (photo copyright by Ru, 2014)

So I did it. I drew my own honeybee. Tune in tomorrow for the great unveiling. Though, truly, I’m sticking with the writing gig.

Christmas Cards

RutsOriginal Xmas Cards 2013

At last. The cards are done! Usually they’re in the mail and received by now, but it seems this year everything is late but Christmas Day itself. Even my annual panic over theme and rhyme came later … though it was no less acute. I suffer it every year. My card deadline looms and I have nothing in the tank. Then, an inkling stirs. Then nothing more for a day or two. Then the first poem comes in a rush, soon followed by a complementing cartoon. If I’m lucky, I’ll get two more in rapid succession. That might be all for another couple of days, but it’s enough to get me rolling. I do eight cards a year, for family and dear friends. Once I hit the halfway point, the rest but one comes easily. The last one brews in my head while I finish up the others. All told, I completed 2013’s batch in roughly twenty-four hours, spread over a week or so. I fretted over the dry spell for days. I’ve been doing this for years. You’d think I’d know by now to trust the process, but a writer is never sure that the block won’t last forever.

The best part is that I have great fun once I’m in the zone. I’ve been told that the cards themselves are the gift (which is reassuring, since a card is often all the recipient will get), but the pleasure of creating them is also a gift.

And so are the people for whom I make them.

Space Opera

Sarah swag:
the obligatory program, tickets and a signed lithograph

If Sting is a god, then Sarah Brightman is a goddess. She continually surpasses mortal expectation and has made me believe in heaven.

Ter and I saw her perform on the space-themed “Dreamchaser” tour on Thursday and we are still reeling. I’m unsure where to begin, so I’ll start with the obvious: the voice. Be it known here and now that I do not appreciate opera at all, especially the eardrum-shredding shrill of a soprano … yet Sarah is most definitely a soprano. She hits (and holds, by the gods) notes that don’t even exist, but she does it with a crystal purity that sends my spine into paroxysms of pleasure rather than spasms of angst against the flight instinct. By the same token, she can tap into the phenomenal power required to push out the richer, more resonant notes of pieces like “Nessun Dorma” or “Figlio Perduto” and make them sound like silk.

She’s considered to be a classical crossover artist. Classically trained, she can sing pretty much anything. She was the original Christine Daaé in “Phantom of the Opera”, the title track of which is a signature piece of her show. I love it best of all, but I think the climactic high note makes Ter wince. Sarah’s style is perfectly suited to performing some of the best pumped-up operatic chestnuts I’ve ever encountered, a hybrid of classical, pop, and New Age that never fails to send me straight into Right Brain. We started collecting her albums a few years ago – Ter was unconsciously aware of her for years previous, but I first paid serious attention when streaming the New Age vocal channel at www.sky.fm; almost daily a piece called “In Paradisum” was played and the vocal on it sucked me out of my chair and into an alternate reality ablaze with life and colour. It turned out to be Sarah Brightman. My office tea fairy and good buddy, Treena, was way ahead of the curve and already a fan; she had most of Sarah’s albums and was happy to lend me “Eden”, which opens with “In Paradisum”. Our CD library grew like a hothouse flower after that, and Sarah’s concert DVDs will soon outnumber those in our Def Leppard collection.

Then there’s the performance artist. Everything she does is on a grand—dare I say operatic?— scale. Her numerous costumes are glamorous – something like eight changes last week – and the light show on this tour is nothing short of spectacular. Her soaring voice, the swelling music, and the increasingly intense light flooding the arena were too much for some folks, I guess, but not for me. I wanted to be overwhelmed, to be swept away by the complete sensory experience, and boy, did she deliver.

She opened with “Angel”, the first single off her new album, and when the first heartbeat struck, I was gone. She doesn’t even have to form words; she can simply peal like a pristine silver bell and I will burst into tears. Gone. Done. Wrecked. Mortified. But really, when you’re sitting in the dark and everyone else is caught in the same spell, no one notices that you’re sniffling out loud. So I gave up and let the tears roll unhindered as the show flowed from one magical piece to another. Once in a while I’d glance at Ter, whose eyes were incandescent every time I looked. We’d nudge each other on occasion, thrilled at the opening notes of a particular favourite, but for the most part, we were content to be completely blown away. I actually forgot to breathe at times and forgot to blink at others. Mostly, I was road kill. Thoroughly mesmerized. And so deeply, profoundly grateful to be in the presence of such precise and powerful talent. This woman is clearly following her bliss and I was privileged to share a tiny part it with her.

When this tour is done, she’ll be in training to become an astronaut. She’s going to the international space station, a childhood dream of hers being to visit the stars. I hope she sings when she’s there. If ever a voice was meant to be heard in space, it belongs to Sarah Brightman.

* * *

I’ve inserted links to each of the songs underlined in this post – if you haven’t heard her sing and want a sample, click on any of the titles and close your eyes. Naturally, she won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but she figures prominently in my creative process and for that I am eternally grateful.

Anise in Wonderland

Music can inspire me to visions of Russian winters and Arabian nights, but once in a while, I hear something that throws me down a rabbit hole and into a scene so vivid that I must recreate it.

That’s how “Cafe de Nuit” came to be.

This week I was introduced to the music of Adam Hurst, a musician out of Portland who has so much credibility that I can’t do him any sort of justice here except to plug in a link to his website (click on his name to go there). A friend had posted a link to a couple of absolutely gorgeous tracks that sent Ter straight for the iTunes Store. The album is called “Ritual”, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the lone Hurst album in our collection.

As each track played, I found myself slipping into fiction – picturing images, hearing bits of conversation, sensing raw emotion, that sort of thing. The music was dreamy enough to lull me into my angels’ world ... but then the last track started and everything changed.

The piece is called “Midnight Waltz” (hear here). From the first note, I was drinking absinthe with the Impressionists at that Parisian cafe. I smelled the cigarette smoke and heard the glasses tinkling, the voices murmuring; I felt the night air on my skin and the idle promise of something deeply, delightfully sensual to come. The scene was so strong, so overwhelming, that I had to write it all down before it would let me sleep.

It emerged as the blurb I posted on July 16. It’s both curious and thrilling how that sole piece of music was able to transport me to another time and place. That’s the magic of creativity, of writing and music and imagination. One begets another and art is born.

But is “Cafe de Nuit” art? Or is it a fragmental memory of another life?



Pour No Sugar on Me

I wrote not a word on the weekend. I slept a lot, though. Sugar fuzz. I indulged in such dietary naughtiness the day before my writing day that the best I could do on Sunday morning was lie on the sofa and listen to David Usher. I fell asleep to Bryan Ferry in the afternoon.

The day wasn’t a total waste, however. I learned something that I’ve always known but consistently deny in the face of immediate gratification: sugar is bad for creativity. I proved it to myself yet again because I started to pull out of the fog at lunchtime, then I downed a whole can of San Pellegrino grapefruit soda and promptly had to take a long nap. The pop wasn’t even that good – it tasted like I was drinking marmalade. Worse, it started me second-guessing about my writing. Stuck in a chemical funk, my will to create actually dissolved, so I let it go for the day in hope of a sunnier outlook when I finally emerged from the mire.

It took a full 24 hours. The socked-in sense lingered well into my Monday; it began to lift yesterday evening and this morning I woke up clear-headed and hopeful again. Feeling more like writer than a fraud and thank the gods for that turn of mind. I brought the Gatsby soundtrack to work, which is proving to be a horrible distraction but I will persist because I need the infusion to get me through the worst day of my week. I’m off on Friday, with no commitments beyond cramming three episodes of The Newsroom before season 2 premieres on Sunday, so I’ll be brewing more Gold Rush and seeing if I can make something of a story that, on the weekend, I feared was beyond my capability to write.

My mission until then is to steer clear of the white stuff.

Next!

It’s true that creativity breeds creativity. Halfway through anything, I’ll be struck by a spark of something else – a voice, a scene, a plot portent or a title that has nothing to do with what’s currently underway. I generally spend the last half of a story fighting to finish it. I’m a pro at starting something new, but my computer is like a quilter’s shop: lots of scraps lying around that could each contribute to a greater whole if only the quilter could stick with it until it’s done.

I spent three quarters of last weekend dithering. Once I’d polished “Between the Storms”, it was time to let Jake go and decide which thread to follow next. I had three options:

1) go back to volume 7 of “Fixed Fire”, presently on hiatus because a bunch of short stories were clamouring offstage ... and I’d written myself into a corner from which I could not readily extricate myself. However, I have waited for ten years and six volumes to write it and it deserves to be attended;

2) pursue the urban vampires and see if my plan to update it as per “Finis?” gets traction; or

3) confront the angels.

Hm. Option 1 is peopled by characters I’ve known for a decade, who are as beloved as my own family – foibles and all – in a world where I’m very comfortable.

Option 2 is peopled by characters I knew before I started FF, and the vampire lore employed by that series is also familiar. Plus, I’m excited at the notion of reworking it to fit the present day.

Option 3 is peopled by total strangers in a world I know nothing about, whose pasts and futures involve a whole lot of unknown. When I consider option 3, I freeze like the proverbial deer in headlights.

I chose option 3 because it scares me to death. An entirely blank canvas. A whole new world. Strangers in my head. A continuous bout of who, where, what, why and when? Yup, I’m terrified, but I’ve rarely felt so inspired. One thing I can say for sure is that this one will be as twisted with passion, conflict and darkness as all that’s preceded it.

It’s my style, man.

Boardom

When I moved into my office a few years ago, I was confronted with a blank bulletin board. I never used it for work stuff, except my calendar and the FMR print schedule in the lower left corner. The rest of it I plastered with pictures of polar bears and penguins, drawings done by my niece and nephew, greeting cards, and poetry that had nothing to do with my job and everything to do with my life.

Last year, I covered the board with brown paper, pinned up a few favourite pieces, and left the rest blank for scribbling. By the end of December, it was covered with handwritten quotes and lines of lyrics in bright Sharpie colours. It was such a hit that I did it again this year. In January, I rolled up the 2012 model and started a new one for 2013 themed, “Yes, but is it Art?”

The perennial buttons and the Banff bear are in place; everything else is new. I sprinkled the stars on the day I learned that Laura was ill. Quotes from Eckhart Tolle, Albert Einstein, David Usher, Kurt Vonnegut and Nick Rhodes are posted alongside poems from Leonard Cohen and my buddy Nicole. Pictures of Bernini’s “David” and Julian’s Jaguar share space with Darth Vader and the full moon – and there’s still half a year to go. It’s fun to make, fun to read, and people think it’s a great idea.

It’s colourful, creative, comedic – and a little cracked.

It’s me.