Ask Al: When what you're creating is about something deeper...

Dear Al, 

 

You mentioned in [writing] class the other night that you think sometimes there is "something else trying to emerge" from what we originally might have thought our draft was about.  

 

Can you talk more about how to [I'm paraphrasing here] "be in communication" with our work, or how we might better suss out the deeper meanings hidden beneath the surface of our first ideas? 

Thank you,

 

H

 

*

A wonderful question to expand upon. 

First of all, I'll start with a PSA: I am certainly no expert about artistic creation. Yes I do professionally create things, and I also professionally teach and mentor others through the creation of their artworks. But even that doesn't make me an expert in you, your relationship to your own self-awareness, or indeed any aspect of your personal creative process.  PSA ended.

 

That said, in my experience creating my own work and in facilitating the creative processes of others, I've observed that often times, initial offerings can offer hints of a larger "something" at play just below the psychological surface. A kind of (ecstatic or revelatory or totally annoyed) "Ohhhhhh" [lightbulb!]— followed by a realization that what we thought we were writing/acting/singing/painting about... was actually about That Other Thing. And usually— again in my experience— it's The Thing we are always haunted by, working on, avoiding or seeing from a new angle for the first time. 

     "This old thing" our conscious mind says, 

and our subconscious mind is like 

     "Yeah, girl. It's kind of always in some way, about That." 

Like Wagner's light motifs, those familiar themes return to us again and again, ready to be explored or expressed in a new way, sometimes when we were totally convinced we were writing about "Something Totally New and Original and maybe About Penguins!"

Or whatever. 

 

 

Now that can take many shapes and sizes. Let me offer some form-based examples:

- what we thought was a one-act play is actually a screenplay for a TV limited series.

- what we thought was a 1500-word academic essay is actually a 10,000 word collection of personal essays all sharing a similar theme.

- what we thought was a comedic poem featuring "funny words," is actually a very serio-comic poem about the grief of losing a spouse. 

- what we thought was a blog post is actually a full-length memoir (which, of course, is how White Hot Grief Parade came to be)  

The question to ask about psychological truth is "What might this piece really be about?"

And sometimes that Something can come in psychological shapes and sizes. Those might look like this: 

- what we thought was about packing for vacation is actually about our heart-crushing divorce.

- what we thought was about preparing a treasured holiday meal is actually about confronting being abandoned by our mother. 

- what we though was about a poetic observation of the glorious brutality of Alaskan winter is actually about a sense of agency and utter freedom. 

The question to ask when it comes to form is "What else might this be?" 

When we are creating, clarity matters. But we cannot always have these revelations in a timely manner, so we have to be patient, employ trusted eyes, ears and confidants to ask the big questions and press us to present not only our best work, but our truest work, to the world.

 

There was a great example of "something much deeper" from a new student who joined my online writing class [let's call her] Alice last month. She authored a [brilliant, might I say] "funny poem about words that is actually about grief." Alice was actively bored of writing poems about her dead husband, and even announced that fact before she shared her (extremely funny) poem about traveling around Western Europe and learning about all the different words for pastries that she found particularly hilarious. 

"I decided to write a funny poem about pastries and words because I am just sick and tired of my grief poems!" she declared.

After she read the first draft we all talked and laughed. And then I asked her about the origin of this poem. And well, before long, we weren't talking about pastries anymore. She was mentioning how we use strange words to name things in other parts of life. She told a story about visiting her doctor for her annual physical, discussing her health and her doctor using words she found inaccurate, reductive, and even bizarre to name her conditions: 

     "TIRED" and 

     "SAD" 

being two that felt particularly euphemistic.

 

None of the words her doctor used actually named what was going on with her...

 Because what she truly was experiencing was the mental and physical results of 

     "GRIEVING."

She was 

     "HEARTBROKEN" 

and 

     "DEVASTATED." 

 

So no. "TIRED and SAD" just didn't cut it, and this doctor (who was maybe trying, maybe inexperienced, or maybe callous-- who knows?) wasn't using language that named her condition, and might actually help her in a myriad of ways.

All to say: whaddya know? The poem wasn't about funny words and pastries after all. The poem— as much as she was trying to avoid it— was still about her grief.

I think THAT is what I mean. 

 

It is in our best creative (and personal) interest to keep our channels open not merely for what we want to "say" in our work, but for what our work is trying to "say" and tell us. 

 

So here's to staying open to what's happening below the surface, and welcome those messages.