You Can’t Do It Alone

A favorite comment in my writing courses is “Seek feedback on your writing.” I am reminded of a similar observation in Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience:

Why is solitude such a negative experience? The bottom-line answer is that keeping order in the mind from within is very difficult. We need external goals, external stimulation, external feedback to keep attention directed. And when external input is lacking, attention begins to wander, and thoughts become chaotic—resulting in the state we have called psychic entropy.

If you are writing just for yourself, then keep a journal; if you are writing for others, then expect feedback—and accept it prescriptively.

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Balancing the Creative with the Critical

Since many participants of my writing classes express a desire to write a book of their own some day, they often ask me for advice. Of course, I say the usual: Know what you’re writing about … Consider the market for the book … Create a structure for the book … Don’t put off the writing … Set deadlines for paragraphs … Research for interested publishers … and so on. I often include a mention about understanding the difference between what they find interesting and what their readers do.

Nobel Prize laureate Bertrand Russell makes this last point clear in The History of Western Philosophy when discussing Plato’s Theory of Ideas. In setting up his analysis of the allegory of the cave, Russell describes his approach to writing a book:

I have found that, when I wish to write a book on some subject, I must first soak myself in detail, until all the separate parts of the subject-matter are familiar; then, some day, if I am fortunate, I perceive the whole, with all its parts duly interrelated. After that, I only have to write down what I have seen. The nearest analogy is first walking all over a mountain in a mist, until every path and ridge and valley is separately familiar, and then, from a distance, seeing the mountain whole and clear in bright sunshine.

This experience, I believe, is necessary to good creative work, but it is not sufficient; indeed the subjective certainty that it brings with it may be fatally misleading. William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was: “A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.” What seems like sudden insight may be misleading, and must be tested soberly when the divine intoxication has passed.

True, inspiration is not only necessary but a big boost in getting us off the clouds and on our butts to start writing—but creativity needs to be followed by intense self-criticism. Answering questions such as, “Are my claims plausible? and “Would anyone care about this?” helps in getting the critical juices flowing.


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Eric Hoffer: Master of the Aphorism

If you like using an aphorism as an opening to a speech or essay, or simply as a springboard to creative thinking, then read Eric Hoffer’s The Passionate State of Mind. Hundreds appear in this 1955 book by an author committed to understanding the human condition. Among my many favorites from his book:

“A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.”

“The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.”

“Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.”

“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”

“Sometimes the means we use to hide a thing serve only to advertise it.”


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David Bohm’s Appeal to Creativity

In On Creativity, David Bohm observes, “It seems ironical that man’s thought and language, whose deep aim is to make possible rational communication and constructive action, have been a principal factor making for the indefinite continuation of irrational hatred and destructive violence” (85).

The words we use are a reflection of how we think, so a history of violence frequently begins with language. On the world stage, wars of words lead to wars of weapons and bloodshed. In the workplace, e-mail wars often occur not by deliberate intent but by the writer’s limitations with language. At home and among friends, arguments often result from multiple meanings of unintended connotations words and phrases.

Positive language that builds as opposed to negative language that destroys emerges from creative reflection and careful communication. Countless books, beginning with Bohm’s, focus on this subject.


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Hannah Arendt’s Praise of Metaphor

In The Life of the Mind, Hannah Arendt writes, "The metaphor, bridging the abyss between inward and invisible mental activities and the world of appearances, was certainly the greatest gift language could bestow on thinking" (105).

There goes a thought that should make any appreciator of language take pause. Consider the most famous speeches of twentieth century America, all rich with metaphors: Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “We must be the great arsenal of democracy.” John F. Kennedy’s “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.” Martin Luther King’s “I have been to the mountaintop … and I see the Promised Land.” Ronald Reagan’s likening America to a “shining city on a hill … (whose) doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”

Does such visual imagery appear in business? You bet. The IT world is laden with metaphors (e.g., blackboard, chat room, help desk, signing on). Commonplace conversations are abundant with them (e.g., “Been there, done that”; “Business travel is getting old for me”; “Let’s grandfather this employee into the project”; “What’s the bottom line?”).

The implications of metaphors are many, so we have to guard against ambiguity when using them. Since many metaphors are akin to idioms, we have to be sensitive to readers who are new to English and, therefore, unfamiliar with their meaning. Sometimes their multiple shades of meaning may not be precise for the situation. And often they’re just too informal in certain contexts.


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