Appreciating The Creative Process

I found this video on youtube. It’s a video of my baby Kanye creating a track in the studio. Damn…that’s sexy.

It reminded me of the scene from Hustle & Flow where they created the song, Whoop That Trick. That scene turns me on so much…Ooooh. Just think of how you can sit there and create something original through trial and error and your imagination and it turns out to be something that people really appreciate.

It makes me think of my own creative process. Although I haven’t written a song in years, I’m sure I could. These days I write stories and poetry and even when I was doing podcast interviews at the website, there was sort of a method to my creativity.

Setting The Emotional Foundation

When I know I have to produce written work, I usually sit back and close my eyes, imagining what the emotion will be behind the piece. What feeling do I want the reader to walk away with? That sets the tone or “sound” of the piece. Then I’ll hear how I want it to flow, like a rhythm. Once I have the beat I can move on to the actual words.

Creating Poetry

If it’s a poem or verse, I usually start with a central word it’s a one word inspiration for where I’m trying to go with the piece. My latest poem is called Gratefully. I wrote it for my website. I want to include poetry in my editorial line-up but I hope I don’t have to write every poem myself. ~smile~

So I had the emotion (serene), tone (whisper) and the rhythm (da da da, dah DAH, da da da, da DAH, where the last sound is a single syllable and the basis for the rhyme scheme) now all I needed were the words. I sat down and asked God to give me a word and I came up with Gratefully. How can I turn the word gratefully into a poem about loving myself?

What does love myself feel like? What feels good to me? What makes me happy?

Then I came up with…

Then I wanted to show my transition between where I used to be concerning my self esteem and where I am now.

I looked at it and was like… Naw…That’s not enough. It doesn’t hit home. So I decided to add a bit of instruction in the form of an encouraging word so I added:

I noticed that the rhythm changed to da da da, DAH as the poem went on but I didn’t care. When I sat back I was very satisfied with my piece. The piece held a promise that if you do this thing you will see perfect days. It makes me smile.

Recorded Interviews
When I’m about to do a recorded interview I don’t prepare too much in advance. I usually take 15 minutes before the interview to sit in the quiet and write my intro to the conversation then I imagine how I want the conversation to go. Most answers I can predict so I place questions that follow a pattern, eventually telling a story. Once I’m satisfied with my questions I close my eyes and just enjoy the peace of the moment, loving on myself and thanking God for the opportunity to do what I love to do.

Creating A Story

When I’m writing a story I do the same thing. I come up with the tone first but then I have to think about what emotion I want the reader to feel coming into the story and going out. I usually like to have a transition of emotion throughout my pieces. Since I usually write inspiration, most of my pieces are soft and soothing like a baby blanket.

When I write I need complete quiet. I used to be able to write in a noisy newsroom or at the magazine office by tuning the scattered noises out, but I learned while at the website that concentrated noises or conversations block my imagination and throw me off focus because I tend to pay very close attention not only to the words being said but also the emotions behind each word. I’m sure they thought I was being a diva by asking for my own office but it was really because I couldn’t concentrate on what I was creating.

On my blog I don’t edit what I write, what you see is my freestyle writing. On more professional work like love stories or narratives, I do one first draft and then go through adding details to make the story flow more smoothly, then I go through once more to tighten the vocabulary and sentence structure.

When I’m writing a story that involves quotes I choose the strongest quotes and place them in the order I want to read them on the screen. Then I write the lead sentence and the transitions in between the quotes. I then soften the transitions a little more to make them less transitiony and a story is born.

Performing Poetry

When I’m reading poetry I never read from the paper because I want to present my poetry in the same way that I like seeing poetry readings done. I don’t like it when people go up there nervously gripping a piece of paper with their heads held down the entire time. They could have recorded the piece if they were gonna do that. I feel like, if you’re in front of an audience you should DO SOMETHING because I don’t want to watch you read.

So I memorize each piece and practice performing in the shower and in front of the mirror for at least two days. I actually choreograph movements to go along with each line.

Crafting Original Ideas

For the most part creating a new idea is completely different from writing a story because when I write stories I am just telling what happened and that’s not hard to do. But coming up with something brand new takes a little more time. When I have to come up with an original idea I listen to what the person needs and I get inspiration from that.

Then I close my eyes tightly to shut out all light and I focus on seeing through the dark. Through those flashes of light and color I ask God to show me what I should do and then if I just sit quietly, my mind shows me an idea. Then I look for details and I can see them and it all comes together. Then I open my eyes and say, “This is what I see…”

When you’re done…all you can do is…sit back and exhale like…Damn…That was good.