Creating Across-the-Board Creativity

I had an interesting conversation last night with an independent filmmaker from Austin, TX. We were talking about films, which quickly led to filmmaker David Lynch, famous for such movies as Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks.

Dan, the man I was talking to, told me David Lynch wrote a short book titled Catching the Big Fish (2006) in which he explores a question every writer should contemplate:

Rather than just restrict creativity to those hours per week we write, how can we use the rest of our lives to increase the breadth and quality of our work?

I have, at this moment, Lynch's book beside me and will soon read what he says. Before I do, I'll throw out a theory that's formed from my own experience:

To be creative in one pursuit, you have to encourage creativity in all pursuits.

What Does That Mean?

If, when not writing, we listen to music, how can listen to encourage creativity? Can we move to the rhythm? Can we listen for patterns? Can we let our minds riff on the lyrics?

If we do our taxes, how can we do them creatively? Can we chronicle the emotions in a tax diary? Can we study the language of instructions for the odd humor contained therein? Can we figure out why we're doing the task under certain conditions (at 2 a.m., while dressed in a chicken suit, while dancing beside the printer in an attempt to hurry it along so we can do the two-minute sprint to the mailbox, making the deadline with five seconds to spare)?


That Sounds Exhausting!

Across-the-board creativity is something that once ingrained in our lives, moves to the back burner, taking very little conscious energy.

I imagine the concept as the Ping-Pong balls kept airborne in the clear plastic container until the moment the air current is turned off and the balls fall into tubes, thus determining the new winning lottery number.

As we do our daily tasks, we allow anything our mind either consciously or unconsciously finds significant to float up. We continue what we're doing — vacuuming, playing with the dog, eating a banana — while the ideas hang out. They move around, they bump off one, they occasionally agitate and ricochet, until that moment one drops into place and ah-ha! a winning, workable piece of our story is found.

Do you practice across-the-board creativity? What does it look like for you?

Happy writing!

"Can It Really Be Done?" How Writers Can Create Great Characters of the Opposite Sex

In my critique group last night we had a very interesting discussion that revolved around this question:

What does it mean when you're a male writer and your female characters always wind up flat, or vice versa?

For example, many female characters in contemporary books or movies are basically beautiful 110-pound men with sexy hair, large breasts and male-sized urge to tote big guns.

In turn, consider the equally unbelievable male characters who turn to their female honeys and say, "Stop running away from me. We really need to sit down and talk about our relationship. I need to know how you feel."

Those of us who rarely to occasionally make these errors are probably pretty good at understanding the opposite sex.

Those of us who consistently miss regarding the portrayal of opposite-gender characters, however, probably don't have that basic knowledge about how males and females differ psychologically. The only remedy is to educate ourselves.

But what kind of education should we seek? There seem to be hundreds of theories about how men and women differ in their thinking and act as they do.

To bypass that enormous gray area of anecdotal information, which seems to change with every passing trend, we should think about increasing our scientific understanding of the subject. If we learn how males and females are wired chemically and neurologically, we'll have a solid base from which to start creating our opposite-sex characters.

This topic particularly interests me since I did not grow up with brothers. I was sorely lacking in wisdom and so started reading such science-based books, which have led to a huge shift in the development of my male characters.

Here are a few of the many books that can help lead you to enlightenment:

• How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Patricia Love and Steven Stosny

• The Secrets of Happily Married Men (a great book for female writers, too) by Scott Haltzman

• The Male Brain and The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine

• It's Not You, It's Biology: The Science of Love, Sex, and Relationships by Joe Quirk

Happy deciphering of genders and writing of fantastic characters of both sexes!