Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Creativity

The limits of learned behavior

Don’t be a squirrel

Why is it that squirrels can outwit every mechanism to protect a birdfeeder devised by man… (Don’t believe that?  Watch this.)…but persist in waiting until just the last minute to run across the road in front of a car?

I refuse to believe the Geico ad that suggests it is purposeful mischief.  (Word is the gecko’s union is contemplating a job action over the use of unorganized squirrel labor in this commercial.  When the inflatable rat goes up at the next camera location, the menagerie  will be complete.)

Apparently, there are limits to a squirrel’s ingenuity.  Those crafty little brains haven’t learned to judge speed and direction of a moving vehicle–or that there are consequences for misjudging it.  Dire consequences.  I guess they hear the engine or feel the vibration, and the alarm bell goes off in their heads.  So, they dash right out into danger.

They don’t learn from their mistakes, I suppose, because the mistake is fatal.  Maybe their companions learn.  There are always companions.  Like sorrows, squirrels ‘come not single spies but in battalions.*  Maybe the companions learn, but I doubt it.  The next time Buddy Squirrel hears a car coming he probably doesn’t think,  “Uh-oh, better not run across the road!  Remember what happened to Chester!”

I guess he could.  One squirrel looks much like another to me, so maybe Buddy runs the other way.  However, there are always squirrels dashing across the street in front of my car, and I am always hitting the brakes, so I don’t think they are grasping the concept.

The running is a survival mechanism.  It stands them in good stead most of the time.  It’s just not working for them in traffic.

Today, I am wondering what survival mechanism aren’t working for me, anymore.  What learned behaviors–learned so early that I think they are just part of my personality–are getting in the way of my success?

I’ll tell you one that most women of my age–and maybe any age–have to fight against.  The ‘Be a Good Girl and You Will Be Rewarded’ myth.  Tricky, that.  Because certain aspects of “being a good girl” are helpful.  It’s not always bad to be polite, to be accommodating, to use gentleness instead of force.

Sometimes, it’s not enough, though.

Sometimes, you have to have another club in your bag.  And sometimes you have to club somebody with it.

Metaphorically speaking.  Do not run out and hit anybody with a 5 iron!

I’m not advocating violence–or non-violence.  I’m just saying, if you’re not making the progress you want to make, it might be helpful to look for the patterns.  Wonder about the things that you are doing ‘instinctively’ and see if you can change them.

In other words, quit dashiing out in front of cars!

 

 

* Shakespeare!  Hamlet, Act IV, Sc. 5

Morning Pages and Forward Motion

A Friday Re-Find

It’s been 20 years since The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron was first published.  Almost 4 million copies have been sold.  (I bought at least 5 of them myself.  They make great gifts!) So, it seems like most of the readers of this blog will have, at least, heard of it.

It’s worth reminding you about it, however.

Of all the self-help books I’ve read in my life–and I have read a few!–The Artist’s Way is the most transformative.  You are reading this blog because of Julia Cameron–(and because of my good friend Hope Nunnery ,who first gave me a copy of Ms. Cameron’s book).

Hope and I embarked on the odyssey of the 12 week workshop outlined in The Artist’s Way with the idea that it might improve our acting skills and help us with some of the things we felt were holding us back in our acting careers.

Hope is now a recording artist with a fabulous and critically-acclaimed CD to her credit, and I have a completed novel, a sheaf of short stories, and an award-winning full-length play.

I can’t speak for Hope, but that is not what I expected when I began doing my morning pages and going on my artist dates.  But it has been a wild and fulfilling journey.

I get lazy sometimes.  I forget to do the morning pages, or I lose confidence in them.  What constantly astonishes me, however, is that every time I go back to that practice, I also regain forward motion in creativity and in the practical aspects of getting the work out into the world.

So, I suggest–if you haven’t already read/done The Artist’s Way–give it a try.  It’s a book designed to be used as a 12 week workshop.  You can do anything for 12 weeks.  Go to JuliaCameronLive.com, and get an overview.

If you’ve done it and forgotten about it, dig out your copy.  Refresh your memory.  Do those morning pages, and see what happens.

You could be amazed!

 

Finding Your Voice – pt 2

What are you about?

A while back–something like 10 days or so–before I went to Maine–I posted about “Finding Your Voice” and how, if there’s really only one plot, the originality in your writing lies in the way you string your words together, and the tone you use.

But how do you choose?  How do you find that voice?

Well, first, finding the right voice for your piece has a lot to do with what it’s about.

There’s a larger question, though.

What are you about?

One of the things writing how-to gurus say is you have to know what you want to write about before you start.

This is one of those lies the world tells you.

You don’t have to know before you start.  You just have to know before you finish.

(We’re talking fiction, now.  If you’re writing non-fiction, it’s pretty clear that you’ve got to know you’re writing about jelly fish before the first word goes down on paper or up on the screen.  Otherwise, you could end up with an article on grizzly bears, and your editor is not going to be happy.)

Don’t get me wrong.  It would be really helpful to know your entire plot, to say nothing of every bit of your characters’ back story, and the themes and symbols you’ll include.  And I am sure that there are some writers who are fortunate enough to have all that worked out in their heads before they begin.

I’m not one of them.

For a long time, I thought that meant I wasn’t a writer.  But, guess what?  It doesn’t.  A writer writes.

Almost everything I’ve ever written has been worked out in the writing.

It’s only after I’m in the middle of it that I begin to have some idea of what it’s about.

And, guess what?

I’ve written enough now to begin to have some idea of what I’m about.

You will, too.  Just get started.

And. . .we’re off!

Welcome to my very first blog post!

It’s a little scary to launch a new endeavor–especially one so fraught with narcissism as blogging.  You know those voices in your head? The ones that like to shout–or, more often, whisper insidiously–Just who do you think you are?

Well, they are working overtime today.

Who do you think you are to start blogging?  To have a website? A bookstore? Who do you think would ever be interested in anything you have to say?  What’s wrong with you?

But I’ve decided to tell the Tyrannosaurus Chatterboxicus to sit down and shut up.

I would like to point out to that garrulous TC that I am interested in what I have to say, and that’s enough. If nothing else, this should get me writing a bit every day. And if other people decide to come along, that will be great.

There may be interesting things here.

I’ll be talking about writing and creativity and what gets in the way. I’ll be talking about theatre and what I’ve learned as an actor, a director, a playwright. I’ll be talking about computers and website design and the bruises I’ll be getting from beating my head against the brick wall of trial-and-error programming.

I’ll be talking about visibility–oh, the shame of poking your head up and saying, “Here I am. Look at me.“–and having to combine all manner of esoteric business-like disciplines (marketing, pr, research, compliance, data design, accounting, etc.) with all manner of other esoteric creative-like disciplines (plot, theme, structure, imagination) into the more or less coherent whole of an Artist Entrepreneur.

Sometimes I’ll be talking about how hard all that is, and sometimes I’ll be pointing out some tricks and tools that have made it easier for me–and might work for you. And sometimes I’ll probably just be talking, and we’ll all wonder what the heck I’m talking about.

I’m learning this blogging software as I go along. Weird things will happen. The TC wants me to wait until I understand it perfectly, but you know and I know that just means it will never get off the ground.

Leap, and the net will appear. — John Burroughs

I’m leaping.

Bookmark this site if you want to see what happens next.


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