Jacques Poitras - photo by Diane Cole via Goose Lane Editions

Today at Thoughtwrestling I’m pleased to feature an interview with Jacques Poitras, Provincial Affairs reporter with CBC Radio (New Brunswick) and the author of three non-fiction books. Jacques’s most recent book is called Imaginary Line: Life on an Unfinished Border.  His book describes the history of the Canada/US border between the province of New Brunswick and the state of Maine, profiling different locations on both sides of the border.  It’s a great read and it’s particularly interesting to someone like me who has spent almost all of his life within a fifteen minute drive of that border.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jacques after a book reading event a couple of months ago.  I thought it would be interesting to share some of the background behind his book, and his writing in general, and so I was quite happy that he agreed to participate in an E-Mail interview.  And here it is for your enjoyment!

1. How did you come to write Imaginary Line? What got you started on the project?

I saw some common themes running through the various stories I’ve done as a reporter about the border. These have ranged from cultural links on the Upper St. John between Franco-Americans and francophone New Brunswickers, to cross-border shopping patterns, to road, rail and electrical connections, and to communities trying to maintain their ties despite post 9/11 security measures. Taken together, they’re all stories about people and communities trying to stay connected despite the administrative barrier that might otherwise divide them. It seemed like a powerful message for our times.

From that point, it was just a question of deciding how to put it all together into a book. The history of the border has been told already in several scholarly works; I wanted a journalistic project where I could link key moments in history and present-day events. That’s why I decided to frame the book not chronologically, but geographically, as a journey along the border.

2. Imaginary Line is your third book. Does the book writing process get any easier with each new project?

It does not get easier or harder. I’ve always tried to treat each chapter is the equivalent of a long newspaper or magazine feature, with (ideally, most of the time) a single story to tell. And I’d written many of those before I did my first book. So the task itself does not evolve.

The difficulty depends on the content, not on how long I’ve been at this. A chapter with a very clear narrative direction (for example, the Forest City story in Imaginary Line) is easier to write than a chapter that combines a number of different elements (such as the chapter I wrote dealing with cross-border shopping and business).

What has become easier is the organization of the project. I’ve said often that organization is half the battle: compiling notes, interviews and other materials, keeping track of them all, colour-coding or marking or labelling them so you can pull them together to create chapter outlines: I now have a pretty decent system for doing this. With my first book, I only realized after I’d started that I was going to need such a system. I’m very methodical now, because I know a bit of extra organizational effort at the outset will make for speedier writing later on, because I won’t need to keep stopping and breaking my rhythm to track something down.

Book cover photo via Goose Lane Editions

3. As a journalist, you have to write on demand. Do you find that same discipline helps you when you’re writing longer pieces (i.e. books like Imaginary Line)?

It does. For a reporter with daily deadlines, bad writing is still better than no writing. So when you’re blocked for some reason, it’s usually worth it to try to splatter something on the “page” (i.e. the screen) rather than stare at it for hours. It may be ugly, but it’s there, and you can always make it better later. Of course, this is my personal approach. Everyone’s different.

I’ve also learned to write very fast. On a good day I can write 2,000 words, and sometimes even more. It’s not always that good. But it’s a start.

With Imaginary Line, I transcribed 90 per cent of all my interviews, something I don’t do for shorter-term, daily journalism. This helped during days when I had writer’s block, because, with my outline in hand, I could cut and paste chunks of interview transcripts into the chapter file. This gave some shape to the narratives within those chapters, which in many cases are driven by lengthy quotations. Often, as the story took shape, I would find myself inserting descriptive paragraphs or transition sentences, and pretty soon the writing juices would be flowing again.

4. Do you ever write by hand or have you converted exclusively to word processing?

I can’t write fast enough by hand, so I don’t. When I’m deep into the writing phase of the project, but in the midst of doing something else — cooking, running an errand — I occasionally write down phrases or sentences that occur to me. So when I return to the computer, I have a pocket stuffed with several scraps of paper, all with scrawled lines on them. Often these are the opening or closing sentences of chapters, or key transitions. Those are important, too, because once I have them, I can write in that direction, with those sentences in mind: how do I point this story I’m telling to that conclusion?

5. How has Twitter changed your work as a journalist and as a writer?

As a reporter, I tweet a lot about New Brunswick politics, and I find that I do reach some people who don’t follow political news on the TV or radio. As an author, Twitter hasn’t had much of an impact. I do have a Twitter account devoted to my book work, @PoitrasBook. I set it up about midway through the writing to try to build interest in the book. I use it mainly to promote book events or link to relevant border stories.

6. What’s the best time of day for you to write (notwithstanding question 3 above)? As a follow-up, do you have a preferred writing location/writing environment?

The best way to answer this is to imagine a perfect writing day, which I’ve had, occasionally, when taking some unpaid leave from the CBC to work on my book. This would be a day free of any other scheduled work or family commitments. On a typical day like this, I am slow to get started: I’m probably in front of the computer by 9, but I would normally spend a good hour reading news online, checking email, and otherwise procrastinating. By 10 I’m ready to start, and normally I’ll work for two to three hours, stopping to eat lunch when I hit a logical point to break, or when I’m having trouble with a particularly stubborn mental block. I’m back at it twenty minutes later and I’m good until 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon, when I start to run out of gas. I’ll often go back at it for a couple of hours at night.

We have a small room in our basement where we have our computer set up, along with bookshelves and the like. We call it “the office” and it’s where I do all my book work. We had a similar room in our previous house. I think it’s good to have a dedicated space free of most distractions.

7. Most creatives (virtually all, really) have had to deal with rejection. How have you had to deal with it as a writer/creative? Any horror stories that you’re willing to share?

I’m loathe to call myself a “creative.” But I understand the premise of the question. I was fortunate that Goose Lane accepted my very first book pitch, which was for The Right Fight. After the success of Beaverbrook, I pitched a couple of books that no one was interested in. I also approached a couple of agents, hoping they’d represent me, but without success. But I can’t complain too much about rejection. I’ve written three books that I’ve wanted to write, and I’m very grateful to be working with Goose Lane.

8. Who are some of your favorite writers?

In non-fiction, I’m a huge fan of Simon Winchester. He blends travel, history and some current affairs in a wonderful way. Similarly, Robert Kaplan also manages to mix journalism and history with some first-person narrative. When I realized that the peculiar challenge of my material for Imaginary Line required me to put myself in the story, I looked to their books for guidance. My all-time favourite political book is Robert Caro’s biographical series on President Lyndon Johnson. And of course George Orwell is where you turn to cleanse your intellectual palate.

9. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

I can’t choose just one. My former editor at the Kingston Whig-Standard and the Telegraph-Journal, Neil Reynolds, wrote an essay that made the case for journalism as “literature in a hurry,” a Matthew Arnold phrase. What he meant was that journalism can aim to be something higher than just a quick spewing of words and facts; it can aspire to be well-crafted and full of excitement and character. My first-year political science professor, Conrad Winn, always used to tell those of us who were journalism students that the best thing we could do was read books. And he was right. And George Orwell wrote, “To yield subjectively, not merely to a party machine, but even to a group ideology, is to destroy yourself as a writer.” That’s still the best advice of all.

10. What piece of advice would you give to a new and/or struggling writer?

I would repeat all the advice in the previous answer.

Thanks to Jacques Poitras for agreeing to do this interview!

Related posts:

1. Author Interview – Riel Nason – The Town That Drowned

Image by Robert___T @ Flickr

I was very recently reminded that I have a blog about introversion (although it’s been almost 4 years since I posted there..)

There’s been discussion over the years about whether or not introverted people are more creative than extraverts.  Susan Cain, in her new book Quiet, suggests that solitude may be important to the creative process, which would naturally appeal to introverts or shy people.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of the books Flow and Creativity, suggests that creative people exhibit the traits associated with both introversion and extraversion.

I don’t know who’s right – it may be a meaningless question.  But I came across this quote from Psychology Today which presents an interesting take on the subject:

…to oversimplify, introverts can generate new ideas, make plans, and help quietly, while extraverts can implement those plans, think quickly on their feet, and make use of their great energy.

I don’t think this definition is universally true by any means, but I think it helps to illustrate a common view of extraverts:  they seem to be the ones who have all of the energy and who can act and speak quickly.  Thinking on your feet – or being able to respond quickly to problems or questions – would seem to indicate intelligence, if not creativity.  By contrast, some introverts (like me) might not be good at being creative on demand, especially when we’re faced with subject matter or situations which we aren’t comfortable with.

By the introvert can be extremely creative and develop deep, comprehensive ideas.  They just might not be able to do it quickly.

Ultimately I think the Psychology Today quote captures the essence of Csikszentmihalyi’s concept:  delivering creative work requires multiple skills.  There is a time and place for quiet brilliance as well as a need for energy and hustle among other people to make things happen.

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on imperfection

I’m very pleased to feature this Q & A interview with Riel Nason, whose debut novel The Town That Drowned was published in 2011. Riel is a fellow New Brunswicker and someone I had met during my university days.

After getting part of the way through her novel, which I’m really enjoying, I decided to reach out to her so we could all benefit from her experiences. So, here we go, ten questions with Riel Nason!

1. Was The Town That Drowned the first novel that you’ve ever written?

The Town That Drowned is my debut novel, but I have written short stories and non-fiction.

2. Did your writing process for The Town That Drowned following a linear path, i.e. did you literally start at the beginning and flow through to the end or did you write sections out of chronological sequence?

The Town That Drowned was pretty much completely written in chronological order. It is the only way I could fathom getting the story right. I am writing my second novel now and it is the same process for me – beginning to end. That said, I do sometimes write a few little funny anecdotes or musings out of order when a good idea strikes me (to be dropped into the narrative later).

3. Writing teacher Don Murray once suggested that the writing process could be divided up along the following lines: about 85% of your time spent prewriting (planning, gathering information, etc.), about 1 – 5% spent on writing the first draft and then 10 – 14% of your time spent revising and editing. Does this split make sense to you?

I can’t say that is my experience at all. I do jot notes and ideas ahead of time and have a rough plan for some scenes that I know have to happen eventually, but the list of ideas keeps building along simultaneously with writing the first draft. I write longhand in notebooks. I have one notebook that is the written draft and another notebook that I’m always adding future ideas to. I record anything from a funny single sentence, to an idea for a scene, to questions about the characters’ motivations that I think will need to be answered.

4. I recall that you were a dancer at one point. Does physical activity play any role in your creative process?

I would say the only thing related to this is that I walk for exercise, and usually by the end of my walk I have to rush into the house and write a bunch of new ideas down.

5. When was the first time that you were published? How did that compare to getting your novel published?

My first publication was a non-fiction article on estate auctions in an American decorating/collecting magazine. It was definitely cool at the time and gave me the confidence to continue writing. As to comparing that to getting the novel published, it really isn’t in the same hemisphere. That article was my first try writing or submitting anything, and it was quickly accepted by a nice quality magazine with a big circulation. It seemed easy to be successful at the time. The novel was far, far from easy. It came after a lot of hard work, doubts, ups and downs, waiting, rejection, etc. Finally holding the finished novel in my hand, and especially now, hearing from so many readers the story has connected with, is a total thrill.

6. What’s the best time of day for you to write? As a follow-up, do you have a preferred writing location/writing environment?

I like to write early in the morning. I am only good for a couple of hours at a time anyway. As soon as my son goes to school and my daughter goes to preschool I try to start. That is now though. For The Town That Drowned it was totally different. My son was just three and my daughter was seven months when I started writing the novel, and I was at home with them. I would wait each day until my husband came home from work, eat supper, and then disappear for two hours to write. As to location, I just sit on the couch in our master bedroom. A large section of our house, including our bedroom, is a turret with windows in a semi-circle, so the light is amazing. I sit surrounded by windows.

7. Most creatives (virtually all, really) have had to deal with rejection. How have you had to deal with it as a writer/creative? Any horror stories that you’re willing to share?

Oh sure, I’ve been rejected. It was actually rejection that motivated me to write The Town That Drowned. Before the novel, I wrote a collection of short stories and was very fortunate to get a wonderful literary agent to represent me. She tried to sell the short story collection, but warned me that short stories were very, very hard to sell to major publishers. And, in the end, the collection didn’t sell. I was disappointed of course, but then I was like, I have to try again. I remember thinking that I had this agent to represent me, and according to any how-to-get-published books I’d read, agents were supposed to be hard to acquire. I had nothing else written at the time though. So I decided, basically, you are doing it or you are not. Try a novel or you will regret it. And I did, and I am so happy and grateful for how it all turned out.

8. Who are some of your favorite writers?

There are so many. I like Lucy Maud Montgomery, David Adams Richards, Susan Juby, Miriam Toews, Dan Chaon, Andrew Pyper, Ami McKay, Sheree Fitch, Vicki Grant, Carla Gunn, Lynn Coady, and John Green. I also like the children’s authors Chris Van Dusen and Nick Bruel.

9. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

With the novel, I really learned about the power of editing. I am sure I have probably heard that as advice many times, just to really not worry about wrecking anything you’ve already written and edit away.

10. What piece of advice would you give to a new and/or struggling writer?

Do it. Try it. You don’t know until you try. Just get going.

Thanks to Riel for agreeing to do this interview.  If you’re in the market for a quirky, coming of age book from a different era, you should really check out The Town That Drowned.

Related posts:

1. Author Interview – Jacques Poitras – Imaginary Line

Number 9, the Frankenstein Monster Effect, is a great little gem:

The true power of creativity is gathering unlike things and glomming them together so that they function as one. For a storyteller, individual components needn’t be particularly original. The art is in the arrangement.

Here, here.  Well spoken, Chuck.

This post is worth checking out… but don’t do it in front of the kids.

Related posts:

1. Fraley on persistence in creativity
2. R.I.P. Steve Jobs, Creativity Enabler

Some sources want to entertain. Others just want to inform the reader while others are trying to incite action – or, in some cases, discourage action. And, on top of all of that, some of the content is very open and transparent about the goals of its creators while in other cases it’s harder to tell why the content is being produced.

And there’s a huge amount of it out there, growing daily. But you know that.

As an example, today I tried to learn more about Joseph Kony, the Ugandan guerilla group leader accused of kidnapping children in Uganda and turning them into his private army of soldiers and slaves, among other crimes. I also tried to learn more about Kony 2012, the latest project by the Invisible Children movement to try to stop Kony. To be more thorough, I should learn more about:

• the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), Kony’s guerilla group
• the Ugandan military (which may or may not be a great group of people, but it appears to be the LRA’s primary opponent)
• Uganda itself
• United States foreign policy and its mission in Uganda
• Invisible Children itself
• The founders of Invisible Children, including Ben Keesey, Laren Poole, and Jason Russell
• How well Invisible Children uses the money it gets (there are differing opinions about this that you can find on the Internet, here’s an example)
• And hundreds of other small details

Then there’s the Occupy movement across North America and other parts of the world – seems like a worthy cause in theory, but I honestly don’t know a lot about it. I don’t know what % I’m in, but probably not the 1% that they keep talking about. I think.  It seems like a worthwhile cause…

There’s also the food that we eat. According to one article I read today, a major cause of heart disease is inflammation of artery walls, which is not caused by fatty foods but by eating foods that were once expected to be healthy, like grains.  Apparently the inflammation of the artery walls is what lets the cholesterol gain its foothold in your arteries and eventually ruin your health. Or is it? I don’t know.

But I came across the term “wheat belly” a couple of months ago and I’ve seen a lot of stuff that tells me that wheat, gluten and lots of processed foods are bad for me. Which I kind of knew already but the world periodically finds new ways to tell me that this food is bad for me. Or another food is bad for me, while these three products are good for me. And so on.

But I don’t know for sure unless I have access to accurate, timely information.

Oh, by the way, it’s an election year in the United States. I can understand that you might not know this if you’ve been in a coma for the past five years and only woke up today. But cheer up: plenty of information out there about it! Of course, it might be helpful to know which is both accurate and relevant. That might be tricky.  But there is no shortage of people telling you how to vote.

Meanwhile, I get access to a lot of stuff that I find via Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook and dozens of other sources.  To be honest, most of it is quite trivial.  And there’s the ads, don’t forget the ads. And television programming. And so on.

But wait, you’re saying. Isn’t this a book review?

Yes, it is. But I wanted to set the stage a bit first.

The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption appears to have one main purpose: to convince you to choose and consume your information in a mindful manner. The key metaphor throughout this book is the information diet as the mind’s version of a healthy food consumption practice. Clay Johnson goes through some of the dangers related to unplanned, random information consumption. He then provides the reader with ideas on how to reduce the “junk food” content that many of us consume, as well as ways to find and partake of “healthier” information: more balanced, less biased, more diverse, more of an emphasis on primary or first-hand sources, etc.

At 150 pages, this is a short book and it’s an easy read. There are some amusing anecdotes amongst the more sobering discussion. You might look at Karl Rove in a slightly different light after reading this book.  At least you’ll believe he has a sense of humor.

Is this a perfect, infallible book? No. It’s not a college level text book. It provides an introduction to various theories and practices. It does cite a number of references. It has 94 footnotes – a few of them are more humorous than factual. When you look at the cover of the book, you’ll see a claim that there is a 65% bias toward experiences (presumably the author’s). It has no index. There’s a couple of terms that Johnson uses throughout the book that I wanted to review in more detail but the lack of an index made that very difficult.

But here’s why I would recommend that you read this book, especially if you’re getting concerned about the value of the information that you are wading through each day. I’m going to circle back to my previous example for a moment.

Yesterday, while I was wasting time reading through Twitter feeds, I came across a couple of people talking about Kony 2012, which I referenced above. One person was stepping up their Twitter presence in an attempt to build awareness about Kony 2012. The other person was skeptical. I really don’t know either person at all but my interest was piqued so I decided to find out more.  It’s just one example of the things that people want you to learn about and tell your friends.

[Side note:  I started using my research using a combination of Wikipedia and Google Search.  Wikipedia doesn't have the greatest reputation for factual information but I've always found it to be a decent starting point for more information.  But you do need to view the content in Wikipedia with a critical eye.  At least they try to do a good job of self-policing in most cases and indicating potential problems with their content.]

Facebook, Twitter and now Google+ are places where people post and link to a lot of things, including causes of all shapes and sizes. Kony 2012 is one example. So is Rep. Ron Paul’s quest for the presidency. So is Komen For The Cure.  So is Armless Widows For Gun Control (well, it would be if it wasn’t a complete fabrication that I just made up.)  And so on.

At a different level, maybe you’re being asked to promote:

• someone’s new novel or business book
• their blog post
• their funny infographic
• the product that their friend’s friend’s friend is trying to sell
• or their annoying cat picture.

Perhaps the content is politically motivated or otherwise trying to support some cause. Whatever it is, it’s really easy to share a link on your Facebook Wall, ReTweet something in Twitter or share it in Google+. Many people do this in blind faith without doing any research about the content behind the link. Maybe it’s being shared out of loyalty or an obligation to help someone out who has helped you out. Some people just like to share stuff.

But here’s the thing: you have a responsibility behind everything you share, link to, or write. You spend a piece of your credibility and social capital whenever you say “Please RT.” Or “MUST READ”. Or “REQUIRED READING”. Or “BREAKING” for that matter. So doesn’t it make sense to know what you’re doing is right, accurate and that you understand the motivations of those involved? That you have the best possible information available to make an informed decision and consciously share good stuff?

And don’t you owe it to yourself to really understand what you are reading and talking about? I’ve read enough so far about Kony 2012 and Invisible Children that, while the movement certainly seems to worthwhile and somewhat effective, it is run by human beings and it does need to be regarded with a critical eye, no matter how altruistic it seems. At the same time, if someone is criticizing something, like a series of critiques I’ve also read about Kony 2012, you should give it some consideration, especially if you, the reader, don’t have first-hand or even second-hand knowledge about the situation.  (Of course, you also need to find out if the critics are full of crap.)

The Information Diet isn’t perfect, but in my opinion it’s a good framework to get started in feeding your brain better information. We need to treat our mental development with as much importance as our physical health (and, of course, they are connected). Conscious information consumption makes sense. You can’t go wrong by reading this book and trying out its ideas.

Related posts:

1. Book Review – Uncertainty – Jonathan Fields

The book is filled with anecdotes and stories about creatives and entrepreneurs who shifted their careers – and their lives – away from paths of certainty and routine. These are people who switched to different pursuits which offered the chances for change, growth, accomplishment and yes, even success but with the chance for failure that dissuade many people from trying something different.

Some of them, like Fields himself, moved from financial stability to things that they felt passionate about: Fields had a corporate law job that he left to become a personal trainer, then the owner of a New York City yoga business – and had just put everything in motion the day before 9/11. So it’s fair to say that Fields knows a lot about dealing with uncertainty after starting and growing his new business in those difficult conditions.

Fields gives the reader a series of tools and techniques to help the reader manage the influx of uncertainty and change in routine in their lives when they switch career paths. He introduces concepts like certainty anchors, creative hives and the use of collaboration with other people. These are ways to build a foundation of certainty and support that can be clung to and used to withstand the challenges of uncertainty. He also discusses different techniques, such as attentional training (AT) – think of the different types of meditation as examples – to help keep you calm and focused in periods of uncertainty.

Fields is a good, clear writer and his book is an easy read at 228 pages. It’s got useful information for the intended reader. This is a good book and it’s worth checking out if you feel like you’re about to venture out into unknown territory.

Disclosures:

• I received a review copy of Uncertainty (and thank you very much).
• I have met Jonathan Fields in person and he seems like a nice guy.

Related posts:

1. Toppling Dictators, Food Controversy, Political Campaigns and a Review of The Information Diet
2. Good Book – Pragmatic Thinking & Learning

I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today, of which maybe twenty-five are important. My job is to make some sense of it.

Like Wallace, we are all rained upon by a continuous deluge of data that comes from both the physical and digital worlds.  It can be overwhelming, but it’s also ridiculous considering that we sometimes feel creatively blocked, like we have nothing to say or that the words just won’t come out the right way.  We say that we have no inspiration, no ideas, and we can’t get motivated to get to work.  We go to bed at night dreaming of great things which we haven’t started yet because we’re missing… something.

Wallace’s perspective clarifies the problem.  There’s a lot of information in the world but how do you learn how to recognize the really good stuff?

Is there gold – or usable creative material – in anything and everything?  Often, there is.  However, sometimes the gold is hidden or in such tiny doses that it’s easy to miss.

Gold prospectors, in the days before machines and processes for extracting gold, would find a promising spot on a stream or river and then use a pan to scoop soil from it.  Then they’d dump the pan’s contents onto a screen or filter and try to find gold by separating the sand from the rocks… and hopefully find gold nuggets within.  Lacking the screen or filter, they’d just have to sort through the contents of the pan with their fingers and hope they found something valuable.

Generating ideas and creating content is like prospecting for gold, isn’t it?

There’s one key difference, one that makes a huge difference, between prospecting for gold and looking for good creative ideas and material.  When prospecting for gold, you’re looking for that one thing, fully formed with certain characteristics like shape, size, color, and heft.

When looking for ideas, you’re looking for the unexpected.  You’re trying to find new stuff, stuff you haven’t seen before.  You’re searching for patterns and collisions of ideas that combine in new and unique ways.  You have a vague sense of what you’d like to find, but you don’t really know what it will look like.

You might go panning for creative gold, but instead you might find the equivalent of silver, iron, or diamonds.  Or a chocolate bar wrapper and an empty peanut butter jar with a bullet hole through it.  Or two different characters for a novel.  Or an old rubber boot with a 300 hundred year old fish living inside of it.

How do we get better at finding information, out of half a million pieces per day, and combining it to good use?  Maybe we need to get better at looking for both the obvious and the hidden.  Perhaps we need to combine things together more often, especially those things that seem like paradoxes or things that would just never happen.  Who knows, maybe there are neighborhoods were everyone isn’t left handed?  Maybe there’s a common ritual in your area that would seem innovative and clever elsewhere.  Maybe you use Twitter with your toes or your nose?  Who knows?

Just think:  maybe you are missing twenty five pieces of brilliance per day just because you aren’t looking for them:  you’re trying to find something else instead.  Maybe you are finding idea diamonds in your mental pan and you are throwing them away without understanding what you are tossing out.

What can you do differently to find the treasures in front of your eyes?  Are you looking widely enough?

EDIT:  this post has been revised on December 14, 2011

Subscribe to Thoughtwrestling so you can read more great ideas about creativity, problem solving, and getting things done.

Image by egenerica

No related posts.

The difference between success and failure is often sheer persistence. Talent, skill, luck, and resources have often been beaten by the person (or organization) that simply won’t quit.

Click here to read Gregg’s full post about persistence and creativity

Related posts:

1. Wendig on creativity
2. R.I.P. Steve Jobs, Creativity Enabler
3. Thoughts on imperfection

More wisdom:  no pain, no gain.

These statements are both true, in my experience.  The only way that they can both be true is that there is a continuum of pain in life.  Pain is not a binary on/off switch.  Pain lies along a gradient of intensity.  It’s a warning system that tells you that you’re doing something unnatural and potentially dangerous.

I don’t actively seek out pain.  I tend to avoid it.  But since I’ve been doing a physical activity during the past couple of months I’ve become reacquainted with certain kinds of pain.  More than anything else, it’s an indicator of the difference between where I started from and what I could eventually become.

I’m in pain at the moment:  my calves and heels hurt.  A few weeks ago that would have bothered me more than it does at the moment.  Last week I had a minor revelation:  as I continued to use muscles that I don’t use very often, I started to think of pain as something to move toward, not just endure.  That sounds kind of sick – and it is destructive if taken to an extreme – but it’s also an acknowledgement of something important:  some kinds of pain are necessary stages during growth.  It’s a condition that you move through as you get better, stronger and faster.  If you’re not feeling it, you’re not changing.

The important thing, for me at least, was that accepting the necessity of some kinds of pain helped me tolerate it better.  Trying to fool myself into liking pain is certainly a trick but it does seem to help a bit.

Mind you, I’m really not experiencing intense pain.  For that I’m grateful.

But the thing I’m really recognizing through this experience is that I’ve been avoiding other kinds of pain, especially creative pain.  I’m spending a lot of time filling notebooks with small bits and bobs which are, well, easy.  They are easy to do.  They don’t require real effort or pain.  They aren’t uncomfortable.

And they really aren’t helping me get better.

So I think it’s time to get uncomfortable.  To experience some more creative pain.  To dig something big.

How else will I earn a creative black sash?

How about you?  Are you avoiding creative pain too?

No related posts.

Image from cambodia4kidsorg @ Flickr

What do you get for your time, effort, money and emotion spent on doing something different?

Return on investment (R.O.I.) started out as a financial ratio used by accountants and business managers.  It’s a way of describing what you get in return for the money that you’ve invested in something.  Now R.O.I. is used to refer to almost anything where you expend time, effort and money.

So here’s a question:  what are you going to get from your contribution of blood, sweat and tears to your work, especially if it’s not part of your job?  What’s your avocational R.O.I.?

Whatever you think it is, there’s plenty of work involved

“Things are made slowly and in pain,” to paraphrase a quote from Hugh MacLeod.  The pain comes not just from sustained physical effort, but from sustained mental and emotional effort.

Consider the following:

The researcher Anders Ericsson studied violinists and determined that there was a threshold of 10,000 hours of musical experience (mainly practice) which was required to become a master of the violin.  This threshold has been touted as a more general rule by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers – you need to log 10,000 hours of solid practice to be a master in any discipline.

Geoff Colvin extrapolates this further in his book Talent Is Overrated to say that mindful, sustained practice (deliberate practice) and effective feedback and coaching are also the keys to developing great talent.  And this practice, by definition, is not fun.  It’s meant to be hard work.

There’s mastery and then there’s… less than mastery

So if you want to be the best in the world, do you need to lock yourself away for ten years?  At least ten years, especially if you want to be a violinist, a grand master chess player, and so on, where you have a huge talent pool to compete against and lots to learn.  On the other hand, if you’ve invented a new sport, game or skill and you’re the only one who does it, you’re the master by default.  Then you only have to worry about competition when the world finds out about it.

Do you really have to master any creative skill?  Excellent question.  It depends, of course, on how integral that skill is to your economic and emotional well-being.  In many cases, if you don’t have the chops, you don’t get the bucks.  On the other hand, some of the richest performers, athletes or professionals  (or more most famous or happiest, for that matter) are not masters of a particular skill.  But they are good enough and they have enough skills and support to get them where they want to be.

On the other hand, there are things likes title, prestige and respect that you don’t get unless you demonstrate an acceptable level of skill, knowledge and dedication to.   These things are important to a lot of people.

When are you too old to start?

Here’s another thing to think about, though:  is there a point at which it’s too late to start something new?  Is there a point at which it doesn’t make sense to reach for the stars?

For example, if I suddenly decided I wanted to become a dentist, is it too late for me to do that?

[I don't really want to become a dentist - it's just an example.]

In my case, I’m a forty-something year old man with a family to support and other obligations.  Is a career in dentistry a non-starter for me, as they say?  That depends.  It’s not impossible BUT I can’t do it without reinventing my life and status quo and that involves more people than me.  And the thing about dentistry is that it’s something that you can’t partially do… you either do it and go all the way or else you waste a lot of time, effort and money.

So, no dentistry school for me.  The ROI, in this case, is not worth the cost to me.  Your teeth can relax now.

On the other hand…

Novice of the martial arts

I’m not exactly sure how it happened but I’ve been taking Kung Fu lessons for close to two months.  My son started taking lessons and after watching a few classes I felt this desire to try it.  Quite often this is how I introduce change into my life:  spur-of-the-moment.  So I did.

We’re just learning basic moves like stances, kicks, punches and blocks at this point.  We don’t spar.  Many of us are novices.  It’s been a powerful example of how physically unprepared I was for this kind of exercise.  But slowly it’s getting better.  Some parts at least.

But here’s the thing about the martial arts:  many of them have a grading or ranking system.  You can improve over time and get tested to see if you’ve learned enough to demonstrate accomplishment.  In Kung Fu (my school, at least) you get a different colored sash each time you pass tests.  The highest level in my school is a black sash.  And then maybe you turn into Bruce Lee after a few more decades, not sure about that.

I’m a long, long, long way from getting a black sash.  And even that’s not the end, really, but it’s a clearly marked milestone.  Does it take 10,000 hours of practice to get a black sash?  I don’t know.  It probably takes a significant percentage of that time, though.  Did I start too late?  Maybe not, but it may be a lot easier to do at a younger age.

So here lies the question:  is it worth the blood, sweat and tears for me to work towards a black sash in Kung Fu (assuming that I even want to)?  And if I don’t have that long term goal, should I even bother learning Kung Fu?

The journey to mastery is different that arriving at the destination

To measure the “return on investment” for a personal development goal, you really need to measure several things:

1.  The blood, sweat and tears that you contributed to it (plus money, time, stress, etc.)

2.  The value of achieving your goal

and

3.  The value of the experience (which is separate from the goal itself)

When you know these things, you could attempt to make some kind of calculation of the return on your investment.

It’s natural to fixate on 2. (the value of achieving the goal) and 1. (how much it hurts and costs).

It’s probably better to focus on 3. (the value of the experience)  Because even if you don’t get to the final goal, you’ll be better off than you were before you started (unless you do something silly like crushing your toes while you practice your kicks incorrectly – which is something that I will probably wind up doing).

So on balance, it’s better to try and fail than not to try, as long as you make an honest effort.  Maybe I only make it to, say, the green sash (which I think is halfway between absolute beginner and black sash) and then I decide that I want to try ski-boxing or cross-country wrestling instead.  That’s still good.

But…

But this isn’t just about Kung Fu.

It’s really about words.

The sashes of writing

My creative black sash is completing a damned good manuscript and getting it published in book form.  And then repeating.

Things aren’t going the way that I would like them to be going in that department.  To be blunt, there’s kind of a huge chasm of a disconnect between my goal and my actions.  But there could be another factor at play here.  My approach to this goal may be more like the novice trying to pass the tests for the black sash without earning other sashes first.  So maybe I need to look at earning the other sashes first through writing smaller pieces and building up skills.  You might say I’m at that state of conscious incompetence (i.e.  I have a good idea about where and how I suck at writing – and, fortunately, what I’m good at, too).

I might also be a wee bit daunted, even scared, by how big the task is.  And I have to ask that nagging question:  what’s the R.O.I.?  What’s it worth to me?

Maybe you feel the same way about something you want to do – I don’t know.  And, like me, you probably want answers.  But I don’t think the answers are going to come unless we actually do that thing. And hence some benefits will start to accrue, if only we get started.

So this is me trying to kick my own ass into gear, even if it’s only at a snail’s pace.

Final thoughts

I’ve been sitting on this post for weeks as I’ve tried to put this… thing…  into words.

This is not my best post but it gives you some insight into what’s going on in my brain and why I haven’t been publishing much lately over the past few months.  Kind of like a snake trying to digest an elephant.

No related posts.