Forum / The answer --

• 
  Ramon Collins

  Oct 16, 11:10pm

  "It's simple. You just take something, and then you do something to it. Then you do something else to it. And then something else. Keep this up and pretty soon you've got something." -- Jasper Johns, painter

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  Darryl Price

  Oct 16, 11:22pm

  So true.

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  Matt Dennison

  Oct 17, 11:12pm

  Absolutely. Annnnnd...

  you can do the SAME thing, reading a piece once it's has a basic form, a hundred time, say, and on the 101st read-through the entire form may shift, top-to-bottom, left-to-right; inside out.

  What was thought to be the essential opening/entrance-way to the story may turn out only to have been the scaffolding or covered entrance required to get you in and out, but on the completion of the interior is no longer necessary and the story might truly start, in fact, on the 3rd paragraph.

  There's a lot of alchemy involved in creation. Repetition, heating/cooling, isolation/exposure, all kinds of wacky shi... stuff.

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  Darryl Price

  Oct 18, 01:45am

  I like what Matt said about alchemy being involved in the creative process because I feel in my heart of hearts that it is absolutely true. It's all a strange original process that has to be gone through and it's not always simply over until it's finished.It tells you and you tell it when the truth has been reached to such a degree you both can stand. And there may be different processes that come up in the process--that's where invention and courage come in.Will you break with tradition and risk everything? Will you travel even if you're afraid to keep on going?What if you get lost? You're a writer..create a door, a window, a hand..give yourself a breath,a hope, a dream, a way to continue..until you reach the story again.

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  Ramon Collins

  Oct 19, 09:22pm

  I think that's what Hemingway meant by saying, "When a story takes on a life of its own, the writer should get the hell out of the way."

  It's fascinating how characters start as a name on paper, then begin to breathe. I've had an Antagonist switch to Protagonist.

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  Matt Dennison

  Oct 19, 09:41pm

  There's a million analogies, one of my favorite is comparing the act of creation to that of making bread.

  Once you get your ingredients, you mix 'em up and then start working it and working it, then set it aside, let it grow on its own then bash it down and start working it/turning it/stretching it/flattening it/rolling it/circling it/squaring it...

  then let it sit for a while, growing on its own once more, then smash it back down and start over.

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  Matt Dennison

  Oct 19, 11:03pm

  Of course, this only really applies if you are trying to call back the deeper mystery after having caught a glance of it out of the corner of your eye...

• 
  Ramon Collins

  Oct 20, 12:11am

  That sounds like the all-purpose recipe for the creative act, Matt -- thanks.

  Sometimes the clearest vision is from the corner of the eye.

• 
  Matt Dennison

  Oct 20, 12:49am

  Have you ever noticed at nighttime you can't see something very well by looking directly at it? There's a medical/latinate term for this. You have to cast your glance a bit to the right or left, for the thing itself cannot be apprehended directly.

  BUT, being forced to expand your vision, to alter your self in an attempt to get close to the ineffable, to become permeable, say, so you can at least absorb some of it even if you cannot capture it all, well, that's where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

  But again, that's only when you're out mystery-fishing.

  Daytime sketches are good too.

  ;-)

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  Laura Preble

  Oct 20, 01:52am

  Mystery is one of my favorite words. And being creative, or the creative process, is so much a dream, a mystery, a shot in the dark. I had a dream once that I wrote a book about infinity, and when I woke up, I was amazed, bemused, inspired, and couldn't remember anything except that it had been wonderful. I think I've been trying ever since to find it again.

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  Ramon Collins

  Oct 20, 08:18pm

  It's down there somewhere, Laura -- just keep on tryin'.

  A veteran fiction editor for a major publishing house told me, "The fiction writer must convince the reader that what could've been, was."

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