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Invaluable Advice on Creativity for Bloggers and Poets from the Poet, William Stafford

By Anita Mathias

stafford.jpg

I learnt this liberating writing tip from the poet, William Stafford, when he was a visiting writer at Ohio State University where I was doing a Masters in Creative Writing: You need to write the bad poems to get to the good poems. 

Get the bad poems out of the way; express the ideas however slight they might initially seem, for perhaps the idea you are conscious of is but the tip of the iceberg of the idea you are not conscious of. Write it down; sharpen your writing skills; improve your technique. And then you are ready for the good poems when they come.

If, however, you second-guess the poems: the subject is slight, it’s sentimental, it’s boring, it’s done before, it’s too abstract, too cliched–you become a critic, rather than a creator. More and more embryonic poems will have this shadow of judgement thrown over them. Your mind will become a self-cancelling system. Ideas will go from your mind to the waste-paper basket without ever having been written down.

And good poems may go this way too. You may begin to lose the confidence and self- belief to write them down.

William Stafford’s famous advice for dealing with writer’s block helps me as a blogger: to be willing to lower my standards. To be willing to write slight posts, express slight thoughts.

Then writing becomes as instinctive as breathing, my brain moves to my finger tips, and I keep current with the flow of my inner life and thoughts. Not being willing to post slight posts leads to perfectionism which as Ann Lamott says is the voice of the oppressor and the enemy of the people.

The willingness to fail. The willingness to take risks. The willingness to try something new, even if it is far below your usual standards. These are all essential elements of creativity.

And they keep blogging easy, pleasant and a joy, rather than one more self-imposed chore.

* * *

I love William Stafford’s liberating essay, A Way of Writing.

“A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them. That is, he does not draw on a reservoir; instead, he engages in an activity that brings to him a whole succession of unforeseen stories, poems, essays, plays, laws, philosophies…

Back in school, from the first when I began to try to write things, I felt this richness. One thing would lead to another; the world would give and give. Now, after twenty years or so of trying, I live by that certain richness.

The importance of just plain receptivity… When I write, I like to have an interval before me when I am not likely to be interrupted. For me, this means usually the early morning, before others are awake.

I get pen and paper, take a glance out of the window (often it is dark out there), and wait. It is like fishing. But I do not wait very long, for there is always a nibble–and this is where receptivity comes in.

To get started I will accept anything that occurs to me. Something always occurs, of course, to any of us. We can’t keep from thinking. Maybe I have to settle for an immediate impression: it’s cold, or hot, or dark, or bright, or in between! If I put down something, that thing will help the next thing come, and I’m off. If I let the process go on, things will occur to me that were not at all in my mind when I started. These things, odd or trivial as they may be, are somehow connected. And if I let them string out, surprising things will happen.

If I let them string out…. Along with initial receptivity, then, there is another readiness: I must be willing to fail. If I am to keep on writing, I cannot bother to insist on high standards. I must get into action and not let anything stop me, or even slow me much.

By “standards” I do not mean “correctness” spelling, punctuation, and so on. These details become mechanical for anyone who writes for a while. I am thinking about such matters as social significance, positive values, consistency, etc…. I resolutely disregard these. Something better, greater, is happening!

I am following a process that leads so wildly and originally into new territory that no judgment can at the moment be made about values, significance, and so on. I am making something new, something that has not been judged before. Later others–and maybe I myself–will make judgments. Now, I am headlong to discover. Any distraction may harm the creating.

So, receptive, careless of failure, I spin out things on the page. And a wonderful freedom comes. If something occurs to me, it is all right to accept it. It has one justification: it occurs to me. No one else can guide me. I must follow my own weak, wandering, diffident impulses.

A strange bonus happens. At times, without my insisting on it, my writings become coherent; the successive elements that occur to me are clearly related. They lead by themselves to new connections.

Sometimes the language, even the syllables that happen along, may start a trend. Sometimes the materials alert me to something waiting in my mind, ready for sustained attention. At such times, I allow myself to be eloquent, or intentional, or for great swoops (Treacherous! Not to be trusted!) reasonable. But I do not insist on any of that; for I know that back of my activity there will be the coherence of my self, and that indulgence of my impulses will bring recurrent patterns and meanings again.

This attitude toward the process of writing creatively suggests a problem for me, in terms of what others say. They talk about “skills” in writing. Without denying that I do have experience, wide reading, automatic orthodoxies and manoeuvres of various kinds, I still must insist that I am often baffled about what “skill” has to do with the precious little area of confusion when I do not know what I am going to say and then I find out what I am going to say. That precious interval I am unable to bridge by skill.

What can I witness about it? It remains mysterious, just as all of us must feel puzzled about how we are so inventive as to be able to talk along through complexities with our friends, not needing to plan what we are going to say, but never stalled for long in our confident forward progress. Skill? If so, it is the skill we all have, something we must have learned before the age of three or four.

A writer is one who has become accustomed to trusting that grace, or luck, or–skill.”

 

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Filed Under: In which I explore writing and blogging and creativity, Writing and Blogging Tagged With: "A Way of Writing", blogging, William Stafford, writing

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Comments

  1. Joy Lenton says

    November 14, 2012 at 8:04 pm

    Thanks, Anita, for letting your thoughts flow freely and land where they will. In doing so you have written a great post that is truly inspirational and helpful. It raises challenges and also offers liberty to be true to the muse within. How easy it is to become our own sternest critic and in doing so potentially undermine and prevent the best work we have from coming to life. 🙂

    • Anita Mathias says

      November 14, 2012 at 8:15 pm

      Indeed! Thanks, Joy!

  2. Jane Hinrichs says

    November 14, 2012 at 5:25 pm

    Anita, This is a great post — love it. It is such a great reminder — one I very much need today. I think my inner critic has been on a lot lately in regard to writing and drawing….I’m going to put her to sleep right now. Thank you!

    • Anita Mathias says

      November 14, 2012 at 8:16 pm

      Thanks, Jane. It sometimes helps me to pray for an “anointing” of the Holy Spirit before I write. Helps me to take more wild risks as the beloved!!

  3. Naomi Shaw says

    November 14, 2012 at 4:03 am

    Thank you for your helpful and inspirational article. I found within these lines, fuel for my dream of ‘being’ a writer rather than ‘trying to write’!

    • Anita Mathias says

      November 14, 2012 at 8:22 am

      Thanks much, Naomi!

  4. Naomi Shaw says

    November 14, 2012 at 4:00 am

    Thank you for this helpful and inspirational article. I found within these lines, new meaning for my dream of ‘being’ a writer – rather than just ‘trying to write’!

  5. idelette says

    November 14, 2012 at 12:26 am

    Anita, this is so good. Challenging, but very good. Thank you …

    • Anita Mathias says

      November 14, 2012 at 8:51 am

      Hey thanks, Idelette, and welcome to my blog:-)

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Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Instagram post 2187417055488451246_1686032450 My day: admiring a Christmas cactus that my friend Judy gave me last year, photographing winter trees from the bedroom window, lunch with Danny, coffee and food with Irene at Brown’s. Some reading, some writing, some weights, a good day.
I am trying to get back into weight-lifting. It reminds me that life is probably designed to have hard, challenging and difficult stuff to keep us strong. Muscle not used simply disappears. The body reabsorbs it! Muscle used paradoxically gets stronger and makes the tasks of our days and lives so much easier. So here’s to a spot of weights, and breathing in and out through them and life’s seasons, challenges and joys... so help us, God
Instagram post 2186714755975443652_1686032450 A sunny day in Porto and Coimbra.
Now back home, back to Yoga classes and the like.
I find if I get a spot up front near the instructor and next to someone accomplished, and follow them as bravely and gaspingly as I can, I get a thorough workout, totally break a sweat, do things I was certain I could not do, and get so much stronger in the process.
A bit like following Christ. Read what he said, take a deep breath and do it as exactly as you can, and you will slowly find yourself becoming a little bit stronger, wiser and yes, happier! My thought for the day 🙂
#porto #portugal #ilovetravel #happiness
Instagram post 2185957583540871908_1686032450 Images from our week in Porto.
Both my grandmothers, for as long as I knew them, were homebodies, spending their days in just one or two rooms.
I love travel, and excitement, and living as big and expansive life as I can.
But I too spend several hours every day in a quiet room, reading, writing, thinking, praying... And in the quiet room, one can interact the best thoughts of men and women down the ages, and more with infinity.. God, The sweet Spirit, The Lord Christ. #porto #portugal #travel #novembersun #marriage #marriedlife #beaches #portoribeira #fun
Instagram post 2180132061531496763_1686032450 Images from the Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition in Pompeii, death suddenly arriving in the middle of hectic life. Leaving in its aftermath particularly fertile volcanic soil.
When we become stuck in bitterness, when we recount the same sad story, again and again, in our own minds and to others... we forget that EVERY death has the potential for resurrection.
Have you suffered financial loss, financial injustice, completely untrue slander, deep sadness, failure? I have. Many humans have.
Give it to God. Give it to God of resurrection. Ask him to bring beauty from those sad, dead things.
The soil in the aftermath of a volcanic explosion is particularly fertile.
God can bring new life and beauty from dead things.
He calls out to sad hearts, "Come alive. Come alive!" #pompeii # Ashmolean
Instagram post 2175440736861042753_1686032450 Thoughts on avoiding the holes we habitually fall into, and BELATED images from one of my favourite active holidays https://anitamathias.com/2019/11/11/an-autobiography-in-five-chapters-and-avoiding-habitual-holes/
Instagram post 2156925313647782363_1686032450 I am inspired and moved by the story of Dirk Willems, a hero of the Reformation who lost his life to save his enemy, and have written a little book about him. 
It's on http://Amazon.co.uk  https://amzn.to/2Bk9Shl  and on http://Amazon.com  https://amzn.to/2VQOSYN 
Please do consider reading it & reviewing it. I would be immensely grateful.  Thank you!
Instagram post 2156141167803371501_1686032450 Okay, an unabashed Latergram on our first day in Iceland in Thingvellir National Park. Isn’t it dramatic.  And a short blog  https://anitamathias.com/2019/10/16/on-checking-in-before-you-fly/ #thingvellirnationalpark #iceland #travel #beauty #joy #adventure #life
Instagram post 2148813562469383835_1686032450 Family walks in assorted parks and gardens.  On my new spiritual discipline of Bible-walking, listening to and engaging with Scripture on the hoof.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/10/06/the-spiritual-practice-of-bible-walking/ #walkingandpraying #walkingwiththeword #biblewalking #walkingwiththelord
Instagram post 2134504882437551900_1686032450 I am in New York for a couple of weeks, for my niece Kristina’s wedding. We are having an amazing time, and I have taken a zillion pictures, and it is hot. So here’s a #latergram album from our trip to cool Iceland last month.  I have also blogged on experiencing deep peace in times of political turmoil.
https://anitamathias.com/2019/09/17/deep-peace-in-times-of-political-turmoil/  #iceland  #ringroad #icebergs #glaciers #glaciallagoon #beauty
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