Mozart’s Brain
Some Random Creative Writing Squibs, and How to Get Them…
Broadsheet No. 5 – Where Have I Been Going?...
Wim Baren
Copyright April 2015
Westminster & York, Ltd.
ISBN: 978-1-3108-5761-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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[A broadsheet is a short tract on a subject its author finds interesting, and in earlier times was often posted on trees. Hopefully, the readers will also find it interesting. Otherwise it will just hang on the tree until it shreds and drops off in tatters. Like an old Wild West ‘Wanted’ poster with the outlaw’s face…
Very sad…]
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I owe everybody an apology.
Yes, it’s true.
Because I re-read the first four broadsheets of this series this morning. And I saw that I drifted into a more scholarly - no, scientific – kind of writing about how the brain functions and such like.
And I suddenly realized that what I thought was really useful, interesting stuff, was actually just dross from all the professional work I’ve done, and on which I suspect I was preening myself because I know so much.
Yeah, right.
Humble pie is an unending meal. One that I have learned to dine on regularly.
So, dear readers, I will try not to go off into these more abstract, erudite topics, because they do not really inspire me (although I pretended to myself that they did), and certainly do not inspire you.
Now, what can I go into about creative writing that will let me share with you why I like to get into it often, hmmm?...
Liberation, that’s what.
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Jackie Gleason once quipped, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing to excess.”
Liberation is more important to our creative thinking that I can say. Without it, there isn’t any creative thinking possible. Liberation of our spirit is also something that we have to work at, to practice. Because it is an acquired skill, one that we want to make a habit.
I say this, because I have to work at it every day. Otherwise I get rusty. But I try to make it as easy for myself as I can, because I do not consider myself anything but average in this regard. I see so many wonderful works of creative writing, and find myself so frequently impressed (Why didn’t I think of that?!...) that I can only come away in a state of complete admiration.
But rather than simply gawp at someone else’s work, use of language, turns of phrase, plot twists, etc., I make myself see everything I can in it, and to admire it.
In an earlier broadsheet, I spoke of capturing our thoughts and ideas, so that we can draw more inspiration from them by actually seeing them and recalling what we were thinking of when we had them.
I confess that I will go back and re-read some of the other things I myself have written, that I really like, because these are part of getting ideas for other stories, notes, plots, characters, events, and everything else that I need to conceive of a new story. It also helps me to avoid recreating the ‘same-old, same-old’ stuff.
But I need not stop there, nor should you, dear reader. Because a recent news squib said that a Google search and tally had shown that some 129 million uniquely identifiable books had been written thus far in mankind’s history (excluding government documents). A pretty impressive pool of material to draw upon for ideas.
Here’s another little thought about liberation that I now have as a take-away, and use often.
Like the sculptor standing before the untouched block of marble, we as writers have the greatest latitude for our story before we write a single word. Once we start putting words to paper, that liberation, that latitude begins to narrow. I see this in my own efforts, because I routinely used to get trapped into over-crafting the opening lines of any story I started. I still do it, but I’m getting better at letting things flow, knowing I can come back and do the tweaking at another time. And it’s getting things to flow that is so important to our creative inspiration.
Now, there’s another side to this liberation, and that’s the ‘right of refusal.’
Yes, it sounds strange. But I mean the right, the liberty we have to reject much or all of what we have written thus far and to start again. Believe me, I find it really hard to do this, but I also know I have to be able to do it. I am in the early stages of another longer, novel-length work, and I find I have to recreate a major part of the story, the chief character’s development, and that’s changing everything else.
I know it sounds a little strange, but I find I get ‘invested’ in a story, and I get to a point where I spend time tortuously reworking the writing to try to make something happen that really doesn’t fit, all so that I don’t feel I’ve wasted my time. So instead of trying to salvage what I’ve written, I now am better at discarding it entirely and starting fresh.
And, dare I say, this feeling, this decision, is immensely liberating. It’s as if I just put one canvas aside and drew another blank one out, fresh, ready to receive whatever inspirations come forth. And, dear reader, you may find this same experience as much of a relief, even a joy, as I do.
But it takes guts to do it, and I’ve struggled to make myself strong enough not to hoard what I’ve already written and try to rework it over and over again, because I found it does not work very well. At least not for me.
I mentioned a creative thinking technique in the previous broadsheet, called “Relaxing the Constraints.” And this is one form of it. Because by putting what you’ve written aside, you’re removing the constricting train of thoughts and implicit plot logic that are associated with what you’ve written already, but the nuggets, the stuff you like, still is with you, and you are now ready to work with a fresh canvas.
Now let me mention something else. And it relates to this and the other broadsheets.
They are almost the most free, spontaneous writing I’ve ever done. They are composed on the fly, and their thoughts and ideas come to me, as if I’m on a speeding train whose railroad tracks are being laid just in time, before we get to where they are. It’s why I like this kind of expression, and it’s what I seek when I get into a more structured form of story.
Now I think I understand how blogs get written. And what the thought process is behind them.
No doubt you are saying to yourself, “Of course!... This guy’s disjointed ramblings are pretending to be nuggets of sparkling wisdom that he scatters before the public like pearls of paste…”
I make no such claims to wisdom, only experiences I’ve had that might not be so far removed from what others have had. And creative writers like company, like to know that they share common things with others.
It somehow makes it even more worthwhile.
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At this point, I’ve probably taken up enough of your value attention, so I’ll close out. I hope to be somewhat more regular with more of these short writings, and hopefully you will feel that reading them is a decent use of your time. You undoubtedly have the talent, and the will. Now you just might benefit from some added insights, some encouragement, and from knowing that someone else - namely, me – might be talking about stuff that you have already run into in your own efforts.
I’ll finish with two more examples of how you might look at something differently. They are anecdotes, and you can draw what you want from them. They reflect a wonderful novelty of viewpoint.
In the early eighteenth century in France, Talleyrand was Napoleon’s foreign minister, and a man of great and sharp-pointed wit. He was in a constant battle of social influence with one Madame de Staehl, a noblewoman and a formidable social lioness of that time.
At one point, the lady wrote and had performed a play in which she was represented as the heroine, and in which she created another female character who was clearly intended to represent, and spoof, Talleyrand himself. Everyone enjoyed this witty exercise at his expense.
When Talleyrand viewed the play at Madame de Staehl’s insistence, he smiled at its end. When an acquaintance asked what he thought, he remarked,
“How amusing… In her play, the lady has disguised both herself and me as women…”
And the second…
At a time in Europe’s history when the forces under Sultan Mahomet II were sweeping westward, they were in the Carpathian Mountains. They ran up against a local warlord named Prince Vlad Drakul of Wallachia. (He was the model for Dracula, by the way.) In a pitched battle, Drakul’s forces took five thousand prisoners.
He had them beheaded and their heads were mounted on stakes all around his fortress.
At a point later, when other battles against him proved fruitless to the Sultan, Mahomet decided to send emissaries to arrange a peace agreement with this stubborn obstacle, the Prince.
The Prince had the emissaries sent back to the Sultan, who discovered they were dead because their turbans had been nailed to their heads. The brief communication noted that these had failed to remove their turbans in the presence of Prince Vlad.
Mahomet was reputed to have observed,
“It is impossible to dislike a man who does such magnificent things!...”
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I’ll see if I can offer a more organized theme next time.
Enjoy!!!
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About The Author, Wim Baren
Wim Baren is the pen name of the author, who has written various incidental business articles (boring) published over the past thirty years, who has tried his hand at several short stories (never published, owing to an excess of self-criticism), and who has had an abiding fascination with history and the many things throughout it that are so incredible that they could not have been made up.
The author attended an eastern college and then served in the nation’s armed forces for three years in Viet Nam, a very green place with, at that time, a high metallic density to the air. From there, he realized that his technology education at college was already obsolete, and went to a small business school where he learned all about strategy and business and finance, and entered the financial services business, in which he labored until he realized that people wanted not so much advice as they wanted help on actually getting things done that they wanted to get done. He turned his hand to consulting in project management, became an independent consultant, developed professional education courses in projects and risk and leadership, even a software learning application (!), and generally made as if this were his final career choice.
But it wasn’t.
And since I’ve turned my hand to authorship, this little freebie, among other similar offerings, was a quick inspiration that I thought I could share with others who might like a little literary confection, coupling the worlds of the real and fantasy.
Feedback (What you really think, but please keep it polite, respectful, as others would do for you) is really welcomed from you, as well as your recommending this little opinion to your friends and family, and neighbors, and passing strangers.
Reach me at
[email protected]