Creativity is the art of giving life to that which is new to the eye and every sense that defines living in the human skin – this is how I choose to define creativity. Sensitive, yet reckless in every step of its propagation. It’s a very exciting process, this writing; bringing random ideas and wild imaginations into an imaginable realm; the possibility of multiple worlds existing in a single mind. It’s like making a baby, or going camping or hiking in the wild with people you trust; the uncertainty of what might transpire and yet assurance of adventure instigates the excitement. I’m never sure what it’s gonna turn out to be, yet I am always excited to read that poem or article or short-story even after a slight adjustment. The most fascinating quality about writing to me is its ability to surprise the author. Sometimes you give birth to a piece and you just can’t get over it; every read leaving you marvelled, wondering how you were able to craft that genius.
In writing, I choose to split my creative process into three main stages; – thought propagation, wild execution and most importantly, the editing. The thought propagation process is the most vital because it’s in this stage that any idea ever gets to come to life. It involves: understanding the idea or subject matter, choosing the words that carry the right heft in line with each feeling or emotion in context and finding the right words to usher the reader into the piece. This stage could take a few minutes or more. This being the most delicate of them all, it normally involves jotting down any raw ideas that come to mind just in case any decides to skip my mind later on. It starts with a new idea, line or thought that ambushes me in the bathroom, taxi, lecture room, at a bar, party and just about anywhere anytime. I take anythingnearest to me at the moment and note it down. Quite often, I note the words that come to mind on my phone in WPS or a small pocket notebook I carry with me. Once in a while, I scribble on a folded piece of paper that I drop in my pants pockets for easy noticing when I take my handkerchiefs out in the night, in preparation for bed. My inspiration is largely derived from nature. Sometimes, good music evokes a couple of emotions that lead to the birth of my poems, other times an idea buds from interesting or boring conversations. Then it starts to grow, from line to stanza, paragraph to page until the last full stop.
After the idea and subject matter have been agreed upon, the mind is ushered into the second stage; wild execution. As the name goes, it involves writing just about anything that comes to mind but most importantly, building the body. The content is expected to keep in context, although this is not followed too keenly since this is an editing practice. The flow is often checked to ensure that it’s still in the desired direction so that the grip isn’t lost. This is normally the longest stage in my creative process. Short stories are expected to take longer in the oven as compared to poems because of the word count. Surprisingly, sometimes a poem can take about a year to get there while a story might take just a couple of months or weeks, it all depends on the writer’s state of mind and how easily the words come to them. The creative process is an interesting sport that never seems to follow a specific rule or duration. Just because a long poem took a week to reach completion is no assurance that a shorter poem will take three days or less than a week. Some writers seem to have gotten a better grip on the whole writing process, whereby they can decidewhen to write, what to write and how to write it. Well, if the writing journey is simply rowing one’s boat across the sea of time to maturity in the art, then my ship hasn’t docked just yet. Every time I choose to write about a certain topic, the result is never as smooth or succulent as it sounded in my mind.
Even when challenged by someone to write a piece about something specific, I normally find myself taking longer than I should. Sometimes, the perfect idea hits a few days or hours to the deadline. So, I concluded that I don’t choose the writing, it chooses me. When it’s in my grip, I choose to mold it in the best way possible to drive the point home. Once in a while, this stage involves a couple of muses and blocks; these being the ups and downs of my writing. After a smooth punch line has hit, there’s normally what I call the gestation period. I’ve got to say, this is the trickiest. It requires so much patience and discipline. Most writers lose their grip at this point because they are so impatient and all they want is to get the piece done already ─this is a common vice among young writers in our first stage of societal validation. This is when people start to notice your work and more than often give you an appraisal for feedback. So, the excitement compels you to write more and more (which is a good thing) and then rush to publish every single thing you write without giving it much time (quick downfall), blinded by the temporary fame created by the audience’s acknowledgment of your special talent. Something I believe is aimed at motivating the writer helping them realize they should invest more time in every piece they work on to ensure quality output in order to keep the audience they already gathered and attract even more.
When the muse strikes, more lines are added to the poem and the plot only seems to get more interesting in the story; everything moves on smoothly and this is what I regard as steady progress in the writing process. On a good day, the whole story could get done and a couple of poems witness their last stanza while sometimes, the muse strikes seasonally and only lets me add just a bit to the work in progress. Then there is the block; no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to find the right words to build the story. Every addition to the build-up, however smart, just seems forced and I usually find myself recycling lines from my previous works. This stage really sucks! So, I choose to do more reading in the meantime hoping to find some inspiration to reignite my creative fire. Sometimes, new music and emotional movies or series do a good job of jumpstarting my creative nerves and getting them back to work. I further derive inspiration from talent shows like America’s Got Talent, Britain’s Got Talent, World of Dance and many more. In the wild execution phase, there are no rules to anything or any scientific explanation for whatever is written, it’s just a struggle to give the piece some flesh and any thought, line, word, idea… in line with achieving this is always welcome.
When all the creative construction is done and the house of words claims to be complete, an editor is sent to the site to inspect the quality of this literary mansion. But just before the editor can inspect, the piece is expected to undergo thorough editing and adjustment where there is need, offered by me, the author. The editing process mainly involves me asking questions like; Is what I intend on communicating clear in these words? Isn’t there a better, perhaps more musical and rhythmic way of stating this? How can I make this shorter? Which style communicates this best? What is the most suitable title for this piece? (If I haven’t chosen one yet) Does the title resonate with the piece? …and many more questions. Each question helps me check the piece to ensure consistency in the subjectmatter, style, structure, and quality of delivery. The other very important aspect while editing is punctuation ─this can either make or break the piece. In my reading experience, I’ve come to learn that proper punctuation could save a boring piece while poor punctuation could kill a very good piece. Readers are of different kinds; there are the patient ones, these will struggle through anything to the end just because they love to read, they’ll pardon the poor form of communication so that they can find out what the end has to offer. Then we have the impatient readers, these go by the motto “No quality, no read!” so, any irregularities in style, issues in punctuation, spelling errors and other minor deficiencies in the quality of the piece could lead to loss of interest.
The structure is key in my writing because it plays a big role in appealing to the reader. A beautiful structure gets a reader interested in a piece even when they had had no plans of reading anything at the moment. I normally like to play around with the spacing and multiple stanzas in poetry to give a reader the impression that it’s a quick read so they’ll want to go through it real quick. A piece that checks all these boxes gets the reader hooked, evoking the urge to go through it over and over. The editing process acts as the packaging section in a factory, it ensures that the piece has gone through the necessary steps, checking against the qualities that qualify its belonging to a particular form of writing. It’s in the editing process that you get to determine if a piece is a poem, prose, story, article or anything it might qualify to be. This stage also takes a while and, in some cases, even longer than the wild execution since a piece may undergo different stages of editing depending on the change in idea or concept ─sometimes it’s because the author wants it to suit a certain theme or just finds better words to use.
Good craft should be able to stand the test of time, amidst the evolution of language and the mushrooming madness of humans.