Creative Steps

Would doing what Hemmingway did help you achieve more in your creative life?

One man thought so.

It turns out that author William Elliot Hazelgrove has managed to live out, to what some may be, a literary fantasy: he writes his novels in Ernst Hemmingway’s attic.

It was a serendipitous thing, born of luck, ability and perhaps an element of writer’s block. Hazelgrove was trying to find inspiration in a coffee shop having abandoned his attempts to write in his own home given the recent arrival of his new baby. It wasn’t working and he gave up, disheartened.

On the way home he passed the white Victorian house in which Hemmingway was born in 1899. He entered the house and asked the elderly lady who had turned the old house into a museum if it would be possible for him to find a place to write inside the house.

At first she was reluctant, but perhaps remembering that Hemmingway once described the suburb as “a village of broad lawns and narrow minds”, she succumbed.

Hazelgrove’s strange ‘ritual of ascending stairs to a musty old attic’ was born.

Perhaps we should all consider the impact that our workspace has on our creative output and perhaps we should also think of how we use rituals and routines to achieve more of what we want in our creative life.

Here are his own thoughts from his website.

“It is a complicated thing where one chooses to write. I have written in store rooms, basements, bedrooms, attics, spaces over garages, cottages, buttonhole apartments and just about every coffee house in America. Maybe criteria would be as simple as a place where one can be lost and no one will notice the man in the corner scribbling or typing or reading or just staring into blank space. There is nothing holy about one space over another but there must be some sort of anonymity of the sort that allows the writer to become whoever he or she wants for that time.

“While I write in other places as well — I do have an office over a garage that I share with the exhaust and the occasional field mouse — the attic is a touchstone, a place where one gets a glimmer of another time, maybe a simpler time, I don’t know. But certainly, once I am there and settled into my stiff-backed chair and I hear the squirrels chattering in the eaves and stare at the church in the distanced over the rooftops — I am very far away, at least for an hour or two.”

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We are all looking for ways to silence the inner critic. Some of us never manage this and we abandon our creative journeys far too soon, committing ourselves to an almost certain future of drudgery, boredom and dissatisfaction.

Whether you are an amateur attempting to cross a creative project off your life list, a more seasoned artist, writer or musician faced with a creative block, or a creative entrepreneur attempting to bring your ideas to life, if you evaluate your ideas and creative output too early you might be prevented from finishing at all.

Allen Ginsberg, who often seems to act as the creative spokesmen for a generation of beat artists, advocated continuous ’stream of consciousness’ writing as a way to silence the critic:

“The parts that embarrass you the most are usually the most interesting poetically, are usually the most naked of all, the rawest, the goofiest, the strangest and most eccentric and at the same time, the most representative, most universal…That was something I learned from Kerouac, which was spontaneous writing could be embarrassing…The cure for that is to write things down which you know will not be published and you won’t show people. To write secretly….so you can actually be free to say anything you want…

It means abandoning being a poet, abandoning your careerism, abandoning even the idea of writing poetry, really abandoning, giving up as hopeless, – abandoning the possibility of really expressing yourself to the nations of the world. Abandoning the  idea of being a prophet with honour and dignity, and abandoning the glory of poetry and just settling down in the muck of your own mind…You really have to make a resolution just to write for yourself, but just writing what your self is saying.”

In her book The Artists Way, Julia Cameron recommends a practice of writing three (A4) pages of longhand stream of consciousness writing each morning before doing anything else. This writing is not intended to be creative output; it is not profound, or artistic or even coherent. It is probably just nonsense, but it gives you the opportunity to clear all the internal dialogue that is silencing the real you.

As Julia Cameron says, “It is impossible to write morning pages for any extended period of time without coming into contact with an unexpected inner power… the pages are a pathway to a strong sense of self. They are a trail we follow into our own interior…“

In the online creativity coaching course, Creative Steps, How to Coach yourself to Increasing Creativity, I encourage you to engage in daily, ’stream of consciousness’ writing – it is a great a way to silence the inner critic and has worked for countless creative people struggling to overcome creative block.

Is your inner critic dominating you?

Recently the course has been free in return for feedback.  This has not only given me the chance to refine the training course and evaluate what is working and what is not, but also I have got to work with interesting people from around the world, including an Australian musician, two American painters, an Indian entrepreneur and a number of other creative people from the UK.  This has been a stimulating and rewarding experience for me and for this reason I am extending the offer:

In return for feedback on the site you get free access to the site and 5 free, 45 minute coaching coaching sessions.

Contact me if this is of interest and I will forward a coaching intake pack that give more details of this service. I am particularly interested in hearing from writers or creative entrepreneurs who are looking to take their work to the next level.

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Can you learn how to do something by studying what other people have done?

Surely the answer to this question is yes. How else do we learn; from trial and error and always starting at first principals? This is just not possible; we are always building on what has gone before. As American Astronomer and Writer Dr. Carl Sagan points out “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”

So how do we learn from other people? If I wanted to write songs like Bob Dylan should I learn my craft by studying his albums, which is precisely what so many people try and do?

Hear what Bob Dylan, himself, says:

“No, no, no. It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. If I wanted to be a painter, I might think about trying to be like Van Gogh, or if I was an actor, act like Laurence Olivier. If I was an architect, there’s Frank Gehry. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to. Anyone who wants to be a songwriter should listen to as much folk music as they can, study the form and structure of stuff that has been around for 100 years. I go back to Stephen Foster.”

(taken from an Interview with Robert Hilburn in The LA Times, April 2004).

Learning from others is sometimes called modelling behaviour. It is described as the “process of discerning the relevant states, behaviours and their sequencing and the thinking that enable someone to accomplish a task or to be a certain way.”

The key point is that we can’t just focus on output; we need to understand process – for Bob Dylan this included the things that a person has been exposed to.

In understanding another’s process it might be necessary to understand all aspects of their approach, for example:

• their behaviours and the environments in which they work;
• their capabilities;
• their values;
• their beliefs;
• and their sense of self.

The art of modelling is to know what the key pieces are – the difference that makes the difference.

What else does that interview teach us about Bob Dylan’s process?

There is certainly something in it about his sense of self and beliefs. Take this excerpt:

“I always admired true artists who were dedicated, so I learned from them. Popular culture usually comes to an end very quickly. It gets thrown into a grave. I wanted to do something that stood alongside Rembrandt’s paintings.”

Similarly, here, he talks about the spiritual dimension.

“It is like a ghost is writing a song like that. It gives you the song and it goes away, it goes away. You don’t know what it means. Except the ghost picked me to write the song.”

In the interview Dylan also talks about noticing the creative stimulation in the everyday. How he learnt to Pay Attention

“Chuck Berry wrote amazing songs that spun words together in a remarkably complex way. Buddy Holly’s songs were much more simplified, but what I got out of Buddy was that you can take influences from anywhere. Like his ‘That’ll Be the Day.’ I read somewhere that it was a line he heard in a movie, and I started realizing you can take things from everyday life that you hear people say. That I still find true. You can go anywhere in daily life and have your ears open and hear something, either something someone says to you or something you hear across the room. If it has resonance, you can use it in a song.”

Finally, we learn that Bob Dylan is not afraid to ‘Stand on the Shoulders of Giants’:

“Well you have to understand that I’m not a melodist. My songs are either based on old Protestant hymns or Carter Family songs or variations of the blues form. What happens is, I’ll take a song and simply start playing it in my head. That’s the way I meditate.”

“I wrote ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ in 10 minutes, just put words to an old spiritual, probably something I learned from Carter Family records. That’s the folk music tradition – you use what has been handed down. ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’ is probably from an old Scottish folk Song.”

When asked about ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ he says, “It’s from Chuck Berry, a bit of ‘Too Much Monkey Business” and some of the scat songs of the ‘40s’“

Creative Steps is dedicated to helping people become more creative and more fully self-expressed. It is your online creativity coach, mentor and guide; a single practical resource to help you take your creative project from concept to completion.

Creative Steps combines a course in creativity with online coaching. It is intended to instruct, inspire and motivate. It is designed to provide you with the tools you need to coach yourself on your creative journey.

One of our rules of the road is about learning from others:

Rule 8: You can improve your own performance by learning how others achieve.

Learn the other rules of the road for your Creative Journey here.

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Take a look at this video from the TED conference.

Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) talks about some of the challenges of the creative life.

She suggests that instead of regarding an exceptionally creative individual as “being” a genius we should adopt a ’safer psychological construct’ and say that these people “have” a genius.

She suggests that each of us has a genius.

Is this really a radical idea?

In my opinion she appears to be using the same ’safe psychological construct’ as Julia Cameron did in The Artists Way (or books like ‘The Secret’, seem to do) – that is a re-framing at the spiritual dimension – that logical level above self.

What do you think of this approach? Could it work for you?

Tags: case studies, NLP
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I was having dinner with a friend who had worked on Leonard Cohen’ s 2009 UK tour. She told me something that may or may not be true but is a provocative story that can help with creativity coaching…

But first a question; have you ever wanted to pursue a creative dream but didn’t because you believed you could not afford to?

If you had the choice, what would you choose? Money or creative fulfilment?

Financial worries are a common creative block. Is this something that hinders your creative work?

Consider that question as you peruse this story…

Leonard Cohen was famously ripped off by his ex-manager Kelley Lynch, who not only misappropriated over US $5million from Cohen’s retirement fund but also sold the publishing rights to his music.

A certain Simon Cowell bought the rights to this body of work and fed arguably Cohen’s most popular song, Hallelujah, to a hungry public via his X-Factor TV Show.

In some quarters there was uproar. How could Cowell ruin such a classic by making it Saturday night muzac?

“I hate ‘Hallelujah’ now. It’s mawkish, mewling, so earnest it’d make Halfwit cringe and, worst of all, it’s too damn religious. It makes me want to vomit up my own kidneys so I can ram them down the throat of anyone singing it.”

“Perhaps Cowell actually thinks the song is about him. After all, a key line is “you don’t really care for music, do ya?””

Others thought Cowell was bringing good music to popular attention; noting that Jeff Buckley’s version and the original were also charting.

But I doubt Simon Cowell paid much attention to this debate. Why should he? He owned the rights to all three versions!

My friend told me that Cowell was making £250,000 per day from the three tracks during the period that they all charted. Leonard Cohen was making some money, but nowhere near as much.

So what did the great man think about that? I asked her.

She said, ‘you know Leonard!’ (I don’t) ‘He was resigned and relaxed about it…’

Was he really I wondered? When asked about having his fortune stolen by his manager the Zen Buddhist, Cohen, was quoted as saying: “You know, God gave me a strong inner core, so I wasn’t shattered. But I was deeply concerned.”

So who would you rather be Cowell or Cohen?

Money or creative talent: what would you do if the choice was yours?

If we imagine looking back on our lives then many of us would want to be remembered as great people. Living forward (as we have to) most of us want to be comfortable. How do we get both? When is enough enough? What is the thing we want to be remembered for?

Some interesting themes for coaching and, as always, there are no right answers. Coaching is an ongoing enquiry; it is about getting more of what you want.

What did Leonard Cohen really want – money or creative fulfilment?

In an interview in The Guardian Newspaper, Cohen was asked if he had been fearful of starting a career in the music industry, especially at the relatively old age of 33 (he had previous made his living as a writer).

It may surprise you that, like Paul McCartney, Cohen did it for the cash!

Leonard Cohen: “I’ve been generally fearful about everything, so this just fits in with the general sense of anxiety that I always experienced in my early life. When you say I had a career as a writer or a poet, that hardly begins to describe the modesty of the enterprise in Canada at that time – an edition of 200 was considered a bestseller in poems. At a certain point I realised that I’m going to have to buckle down and make a living. I’d written a couple of novels, and they’d been well received, but they’d sold about 3,000 copies. So I really had to do something, and the other thing I knew how to do was play guitar. So I was on my way down to Nashville – I thought maybe I could get a job. I love country music, maybe I’d get a job playing guitar. When I hit New York, I bumped into what later was called the folk-song renaissance. There were people like Dylan and Judy Collins and Joan Baez. And I hadn’t heard their work. So that touched me very much. I’d always been writing little songs myself, too, but I never thought there was any marketplace for them.”

The interviewer then commented: “Some people would think it’s ironic to go into music to make money, given that it’s not necessarily the most lucrative of professions for most artists.”

Leonard Cohen: “Yeah, I know. In hindsight it seems to be the height of folly. You had to resolve your economic crisis by becoming a folk singer. And I had not much of a voice. I didn’t play that great guitar either. I don’t know how these things happen in life – luck has so much to do with success and failure.”

I am still not sure if Simon Cowell did make that much money from Hallelujah and there are lots of conflicting stories online, but I did find this from England’s Daily Mail which supports her claim. If anyone knows anymore, post a reply; I’d love to learn more.

Tags: case studies, Creativity Coaching
Posted in Case Studies, Creativity Coaching, Curio | 1 Comment »