Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Elizabeth Gilbert's Take on Creative Genius

This TED video isn't new, but it was exactly what I needed this week. If you have a little while, it's worth watching.


I don't talk about inspiration on here often, because I worry that someone who hasn't experienced it will think I'm being weird. When I write poems or picture books, they tend to come all at once; if I don't write the idea as a whole, I can't go back and capture the unfinished part. That doesn't mean that I'll never have a chance to capture that idea again, but if I'm to get it right, I'll have to start over; it won't be the same.

But when you have children and friends, you get interrupted. And I love my husband, but he is more likely to interrupt my work-in-progress than to protect me from interruptions. *waves to husband* And this is okay. It just makes capturing those fleeting ideas more challenging.

Writing a novel is a more forgiving process for me. I can stop in the middle of scene and come back to it, though it's still easier for me to write from the beginning of a scene to the end. I know that not all writers are like this, though. Some leave scenes unfinished so that they'll have something to work on when they come back. And in theory, that's a great idea. It just doesn't work as well for me.

What about you? Do you have something that's hard to finish once it's been interrupted?

9 comments:

  1. It's true. We all work so differently. I love leaving my writing in the middle of action.

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    1. Yes! I hate doing that. But the most important thing is that we work, not how we work. :o)

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  2. Housework. Of any kind. But that's not nearly as exciting as writing. :)

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    1. Housework is never ending, and you have one-year-old twins. I don't know how you get anything done.

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    2. I don't. I just pretend I do. :)

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  3. I'm okay with interruptions, getting back into the rhythm of the manuscript no matter where I stopped at, but I would rather not be interrupted. That's why I love writing at night and early in the morning. Fewest interruptions then.

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  4. I don't like being interrupted because I sort of lose the flow. But I can usually come back to it and finish by just reading what I've already written over and over again until I recapture the feeling.

    For me, writing is a matter of getting into what I call my "writing mood." My family usually respects that and leaves me alone, and I'm glad of that.

    =)

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    1. I'm hoping mine will learn to respect mine as they get older, but they're younger than yours. :o)

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