The Creative Process … Part I
Lynne Calaway
A look at the creative process of Taylor Swift, Maya Angelou, J.K. Rowling and other very creative individuals
Prose with poetic flair float slowly before your eyes —distinct, and succinct and almost touchable before evaporating in thin air or waves of rhythmic beats flood your senses with notes of tracks you’ve yet to write then, suddenly, fade into silence. Do you wait…confidently believing that, like homemade soup simmering on low—when a piece is ready, it’s ready—or dive right in with a laptop or keyboard to see what happens and lay groundwork for what can? Are you someone who shares your work as you go or only after it’s finished, and what needs to happen for you to decide it is, indeed, finished? Do you take an original inspiration and polish it up or regard it simply as a source of usable parts? Our creative process encompasses many considerations, evolves over time and is as unique and individualized as we are, not matter who we are…
Maya Angelou, poet, humanitarian, who shared with the world Still I Rise & I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings would arrive at 6:00 a.m. at a reserved hotel room near her own home from which she’d requested that all pictures and other decorations be removed toting her favorite bottle of sherry. Only the ashtrays were to remain, however, for the cannabis she’d also bring with her. She would lay on the fully made bed, thumbing her bible and dictionary waiting for inspiration and would remain there until something came to her. And like Truman Capote, Maya Angelou would write horizontally from her secreted hotel room every day for over 40 years.
Shake It Off & Bad Blood singer & songwriter, Taylor Swift, casts her approach into three basic categories: 1) Quill (inspired by reading classics like English poet & novelist Charlotte Bronte, the early 19th century poet who was influenced by Shakespeare), 2) Fountain Pen, which has current influences like her latest heartbreak, and 3) Glitter Pen: carefree and frivolous, letting it make sense later and keeps her music very personal as evidenced by her catalog of “break-up songs”. Taylor admits to a habit of using phrases that people often use in everyday conversation and writes thinking not about how popular the song may or may not be with her fans but about that one person she’s writing about and what that person will think once they hear the song.
J.K. Rowling, writer of the Harry Potter collection, believes in generating copious notes with ideas and phrases knowing that she will never allow those ideas to come to light. She advises that, like herself, it may take you a while to discover your niche but once you have, become an avid reader of that genre to understand what good writing looks like. Her approach is that she personally relates to her characters; the heroine Hermione, for example, she admits is reflective of her own teenage insecurities and coming of age. She advises that you must actually embrace criticism in order to produce good work.
John Legend, singer & songwriter, whose billboard hits included All of Me & Ordinary People, goes full steam ahead: 3 to 5 hours of sitting in a room, from theme to hook then building from there: seeking “amazing” for everything he writes. Whether “amazing” comes first time through or whether he has to keep going back, he starts with an idea and always focuses on “saying something [that resonates] in a song” …“to tell a story that connects” and likes to start with a title first.
Ray Bradbury, novelist & screen writer of Something Wicked This Way Comes and Fahrenheit 451, believed a “writer’s block” means you’re doing the wrong thing: that you’re writing for “an audience” or you’re writing what you feel will sell. He advised that that’s when you stop and, just as he once did after writing over 200 pages, start all over again; write about something else—write, instead, from the heart: things you love, things you fear, things you hate, even vague memories. He also encouraged the technique of word association, just filling up a page of random words that pop into your head to help you see your true self, the self from which to write.