AboutThe Professor Expertise Regarding creativity in general, I can assist with: the creative process; what's new and isn't new under the sun; establishing the right mind-set; a means of achieving variety; taking advantage of ideas from a set routine; taking advantage of ideas from sporadic epiphanies; methods of documenting your ideas; thinking within the construct of your subject; thinking outside the box; adaptation through association; incorporating material that you are not familiar with; approaching the development process on macro and micro levels; compiling relevant material; and interpreting other reactions to your creations. I can also answer several music-related questions. I have multiple degrees and years of experience in the field, covering many topics. Refer to my bio for additional info.
Experience Two bachelors degrees (music education and music performance); masters degree (performance with additional emphasis in composition); doctorate (performance/literature, theory/composition, electro-acoustics (sound engineering)) (in progress). I've been working and teaching in the field for over 13 years now.
Expert: The Professor Date: 7/10/2008 Subject: help!
Question hello my name is Lexi! I like writing a lot just for fun, but when I sit at my computer and try to type something my mind goes blank and I cant think of anything. When I try typing something just to see if an idea will come to me, I end up with a whole page of gibberish and delete everything I have worked hard on. I can write very well from what I have heard but I try to aim for something much higher than I am capable of doing in my opinion. No matter what I do it just isn't good enough for me and I just simply cant cant get anything down on the paper. Do you have any advice for me? Thanks!
Answer Hello Lexi,
I could offer a more generic response, one that covers the subject of creativity on more of a grand scale. However, you're going to receive a response from me that is perhaps not what you would expect. Or perhaps you would expect it. Either way, use it to your advantage.
And we begin down a path of creativity that slowly unfolds more "things" - they may seem trivial and irrelevant to what you might want to write about, yet they will inevitably turn out as quite significant elements to the entire work (or insignificantly significant banal bullarky) - and those more "things" will either be delicately or elegantly organized or they will have somehow haphazardly vomited themselves into the context with which you are writing... and as we reach the end of the beginning we will have plenty of "things" to write about, be it a beautiful body of work or a lobotomizing laboratory experiment... it still is what it is and could only be for naught if you had written it not.
I will now restate that twisted run-on sentence:
When you first begin writing, attempting to create something "new", you might find yourself progressing much slower than you had originally hoped for. You could just start writing, carefree of what you actually write, or you could only write when you feel like splurging. You will have much better chances of writing something that someone else will enjoy if you start writing with at least somewhat of a carefree mentality. Yes, care about it. It is your own precious creation, though try to open up to the possibilities of what could unfold from your mind if you attempt tapping into your inner creative genius. It is there, you just have to find it. You will find it much sooner if you devote more time to writing.
Though, do not limit yourself to just that. Read more. Read much more. And still, write more. Much more.
Even if you think it is nonsense, do not throw it away. Put it aside for now. Write more. Write about something else if you must. Write about the same thing if you must. Tomorrow, next week, month, or next year, you can dig up that old supposed "nonsense" and work on it again. You will very possibly have an idea then that you didn't have before. You will most likely only be able to retrieve that idea after having stored it. If it still seems trivial and irrelevant, then put it aside again. Keep a central storage, not a trash bin, for all of these writings.
You will eventually write about something that you find quite significant and to be your best work so far. When you do, go with it, expand on it like you have never expanded on anything before. Yet don't throw away the rest of what you write, you might be surprised to find that others quite enjoy it.
Keep in mind that even that which is supposedly "insignificant" is inevitably a crucial part of what makes the significant actually significant. Work with it. When you create anything that you find to be nonsense, find a way to connect it, perhaps through association, to that which you are happy with having written. Or do not. The choice is yours. At the very least, reading through previously written material could spark ideas on new material that could very well turn out to be the best you have ever written.
You might have an extremely structured means of writing. You might have an entirely chaotic means of writing. Perhaps a bit of both. Use the means of writing that you are most comfortable with and go with it. Don't turn it down. Don't throw it away. Do not deny your own right to write, no matter how special it is or how pointless it is.
As you reach the end of the beginning, in the sense of your initial sparks of creativity and brainstorming, you will possibly have an immense collection of writings to work with. The material might be nothing but short and concise "things". It might consist of long and extravagant "things". Perhaps a bit of both. You will have, finally, at your disposal, a well-established repertoire of ideas from which you can pick and choose from to expand upon, completely rewrite, simply merge together, resort or turn upside down, or anything else productive.
With this repertoire at your disposal, you will more readily transition into the post-introductory phases of creativity and settle into a comfortable realm of exposition, climax, plateau, and anything else, all the way up to your ever-so dramatic (or sensitive and subtle) conclusion. With that transition and level of comfort, you will discover that you could only have written for naught if you had written it not.
Case in point:
It is better to write an hour a day, every day of your life, and to produce only 10% quality material on the whole, than to write for only fraction of that time, with which you will be lucky to produce even 1% (of that 10%) quality material on the whole.
