The Danger of Attempting to Describe the Creative Process

There comes a time in every writer's life where he or she has the urge to find a creative way to describe their creative process. This should be avoided at all costs, for while this exercise is fun to think about and write, invariably the product will be pretentious as hell.

Example: the following was originally planned as part of a series of blog swaps with author Nath Jones in early 2013. The intention was for us to begin in a void that we would each bring ideas and props in to discuss and examine and let it evolve before us. This contribution of mine pretty much derailed it...

Welcome to our void. As all voids long to be filled I have lent the void some materials from my mind. Let’s head over to those flashes in the distance; they’re not as far away as they initially seemed.

Here we are. Before us are five swirling clouds, each about the size of a baby whale, each a different color, each with flashes of image occasionally crackling in their foggy interior.

The first cloud is the brown of rich earth, well composted. It is memory.

The second cloud is variegated greens; the green of young shoots ready to be guided up the structure of a pole, and also the garish green of weeds that infect the garden. This cloud is dreams.

The third cloud is the flickering dance of yellow-orange campfire light, of candlelight, of brightness amid the dark, of the hypnotic quality of a story well told from the moment the log alights to the final coals that stay buried beneath your surface, waiting to kindle other stories. This cloud is every story I have read

The fourth cloud is a cool blue, at once electronic and photonic. Its images project out of the cloud like crystals of light. It is every story that I have watched, in film, or on television, or participated with in a video game.

Each of the first four clouds is at a level that I can reach into them, save for the fifth. This last cloud is hanging above me like a Charlie Brown raincloud, only it is red. Right now it is red and flashing like an emergency light. This cloud is my anxiety over writing. When I am being productive the light dims from an angry red to the sweet pink of bakery boxes—of old school soda fountain booths. But many things can inflame this red: if I read something too good, something I feel I can never match—or, conversely, if I read something by a successful writer that I feel I could write better; if I have spent too long idle, or absent from writing; or if I am frustrated with the work I am doing, and long for the mythic “writer’s life;” these sharpen the tone of urgency in the red.

It’s flashing like an emergency light now because I have been meaning to write this for a while, so the anxiety to see it written, to check it off the “To Do” list, has been building.

This is how I use the clouds.

There is a piece of paper suspended in air before me. I scoop a handful from each cloud until I have a rainbow cotton candy cloud floating in front of my paper. I then take a jar of India ink, and throw through the cloud, onto this paper. It dries quickly, but I always get some on my fingers: I like this though, as I like to get paint on my fingers, and graphite, and stone dust, for I can look at these stains afterward and have tangible proof that that day, I managed to do something creative.

Next, I skitter my fingers over the paper, performing the magic that pulls all of the ink out, and breaks it down until it is an ordered construction of electrons. From this state I can reorder the electrons at will. I used to send jets of ink through these electrons to rebind them to paper—either to throw more ink from my jar onto it (which I find I’m doing less and less), or to send them as offerings to holy men and women (which I never do any more—now I just send them the electrons).

That’s all there is to it.

Happy Anniversary to Me

Ten years ago the self-appointed designation of ‘writer’ was legitimized when I received a copy of my first published story. Printed in Illya’s Honey, a lovely little journal published out of Dallas, words I had set in order were printed under the name I had chosen for myself.

I remember receiving the letter of acceptance. Back then every submission consisted of a sheaf of papers – never stapled together upon pain of rejection (I have always preferred those pretzel-shaped ideal clips) – with a self-addressed-stamped-envelope that you charmed to repel form rejections. In the garage somewhere I have half-empty return address mailing labels for three different addresses. Today young writers would have to print out their rejection emails to have a collection from the world’s great literary journals to nail above their writing desks – I have actual paper rejections from Esquire, Playboy, Ploughshares, and more.

When that first acceptance came I immediately became a cliché: I had become so acclimated to no’s that I had to read it more than once to believe that it was a letter of yes!

Since that first yes I have received nine others, placing an additional pair of stories in a series of anthologies. A dozen stories released from my mind and accepted as worthy of publication by like-minded strangers. Eighteen other stories are either cruising around looking for a home, or back in the garage waiting for a tune-up. Here's hoping the next decade sees more of my stories find acceptance.