Why Writers Must Embrace the Chaotic Nature of True Creation

Thanks so much for your generous tips!I’m getting older now and I’m increasingly having the experience of trying to share something with my children that I read when I was younger, only to find it to be woefully inadequate. There are scraps of the magic I remember, but the storytelling is often clunky and uninspiring. The pacing is off, and far too much time is spent on exposition.It’s interesting to look back on the paperbacks that meant a lot to me when I was in my teens. They all represent corporate business decisions because I didn’t read independently published books back then. The stories I consumed were mass produced and distributed to mall bookstores throughout The United States.I remember bonding with the characters. Today, it feels like reflecting on the people you dated before you really knew what you wanted from a relationship. I suspect that much of that sentiment is because I have access to tools that weren’t available to writers of the past.The ever-evolving marketplaceThe old pulp paperbacks sometimes feel as if they were produced by ambitious writers who felt resentful of their immediate employment. Yet, most writers of today would probably give their right arm for the kind of contracts that were handed out in that system.Too often, writers get lured into a belief that the marketplace is static. Today we look at gatekeepers and it’s easy to fall into the assumption they represent the only pathway to literary significance. The truth is that writing is highly organic, and the tools creative minds use to reach an audience are in a constant state of evolution.I recently watched A Complete Unknown, the movie about Bob Dylan. While viewing the film, it occurred to me that Dylan’s essential genius was figuring out that instead of “just” being a poet, he could be a poet with musical accompaniment.Go where the audience isEven today, there’s a fairly limited audience for a new book of poetry by an unknown writer. There is at least some sort of audience at cafes and bars in urban areas. Those hangouts provide the opportunity to mingle with the exact demographic that might be interested in supporting you.Despite all the advancements of recording technology, there’s a certain kind of energy that can only be produced by a live human performer. Thank goodness.A poet who cannot get anyone to read her collected works in print form at least has a chance if she reads those poems while going through a simple chord progression. The advantage of music allows writers entry into pathways the gatekeepers haven’t yet been able to control. But there are other advantages to live performance.Dylan’s trajectory is a useful modelThe movie explores how Dylan made the further expansion from folk music to rock music when he went electric. Writers must always be on the lookout for ways to increase their reach. Whether you start with a simple folk album, or a pulp fantasy novel sold in a mall bookstore, your ambition is to share your words with a larger audience.Today, writers have tools that allow them to reach out and show off their work in different ways. You can do a live reading to online followers through an application that lives on your cell phone. Rather than going through all the trouble of organizing and promoting a date, you can simply avail yourself to whoever has an hour to kill.That’s both convenient and powerful. Even so, it’s only a brush. It’s up to you to create the art.Take the cork out of the bottle and let your work breatheI’ve been doing virtual readings of my stories lately and that allows you to bring them to life for your audience.The limitations of past distribution systems have given us an inadequate perception of what’s possible with marketing. Even now, writers talk about the importance of a cover image and title. Today those things are still important, but not in the same way.Consumers scroll past static advertisements. They’ve conditioned themselves to not even see them. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your cover is or how poetic your title. But if they see a live video of a writer performing her words, they’re likely to pause and listen.They’re likely to give you the opportunity to hook them.Fame is repetitionWhen Bob Dylan sings one of his poems, it’s familiar. It’s famous. We’ve heard the words so many times that we can sing along without even recognizing it’s a poem that we’ve memorized. Words gather up power through performance and repetition. It’s not like you read a great work one time and then it’s never revisited.That’s why we don’t throw books away.Many writers write an article one time. It’s published one time. The readers read it one time, and that’s it. It’s inorganic. It’s not alive. It’s a static thing you scroll past because you’ve conditioned yourself not to engage with death.A poet who is accompanied by music can repeat her words over and over with every performance. That can be a problem if you haven’t found the perfect words. I’ve discovered that I can’t read my own work over and over if there are sections that don’t flow properly.I have to tinker. I owe that to the audience. I owe it to myself.In tinkering, I make the work better.Disorder is the primordial soup that incubates creativityIf you’re regularly performing your work, you give yourself the opportunity to recognize its weaknesses and make it better.If you have enough flexibility in your musical scheme, you can make some tweaks in your rhyme. I feel Bob Dylan has a very organic element to his work. Creative people often have the reputation of being in disarray. An artist might start off by scribbling on a paper, only to later have those scribbles resolve themselves into a beautiful portrait.Chaos often gives birth to beauty. Look at the universe for an example.Sometimes disarray is not something a creative mind can resist. I know it’s the case with me that no matter where I live, I end up being in a room with green walls next to a window. I have a desk covered in clutter and a computer. There’s going to be pens stuffed into a coffee mug and a couple vintage Star Wars figures that appear out of nowhere. On my desk there will be at least one, and maybe as many as three staplers that I can never find when I need them. That’s just what my life is. At this point, I’ve stopped fighting it.Creation is chaosThe same sort of disorganization manifests in our creative work.In Bob Dylan’s poetry, sometimes the rhymes don’t quite fit together. Sometimes he has a couple extra syllabus he has to shorten up. Sometimes he has too few and he has to drag out the word with a howl. You wouldn’t see any of this if the poems had been hammered static into a page.Dylan is very good at harnessing the chaotic nature of true creation. Is it even possible for an artist to perform without further tinkering?I think that’s why when I revisited the old mall bookstore novels, I found them clunky. It’s was as if they hadn’t been subjected to the refining process of performance. Until recently, novelists haven’t had convenient access to that opportunity.You write your stories and move on. You forget about them. You go through the editing process, but the editing process only involves one other reader. The group dynamic is absent.The exciting tools of the digital age allow writers to lean into the essential organic nature of creation. We can get instant and immediate feedback from our readers. Writers can perform their work in progress all from the comfort of their own homes. You can see if your story doesn’t land quite right. You can identify the speed bumps in your words.Writing is accelerated evolutionIn the fullness of time, I’ve found that I would have made different creative choices even within the books I read which inspired me to begin the writing journey. I have access to better tools than the writers of the ‘80s.When you perform your stories, you can observe the rise and fall of emotion. If there’s a discrepancy between what you feel and what the audience feels, you can streamline and enhance your words to make them more impactful. You’re making your adjustments based on hard data rather than speculation.In my household, I have an eager audience of two daughters who I read to every night. If I read something by an author other than me, they can be harsh critics. I suspect in those instances, they’re trying to underscore the type of thing they don’t want to see in my work without having to criticize me directly.In that way, my audience takes care of me. I appreciate that. After all, both the audience and the writer is in pursuit of a captivating story. It’s an organic process, and today we have access to technological advancements to aid us in our quest.Thank you for listening! This publication is reader sponsored. Your support means the world to me. 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