Introduction For decades, I have loved reading sophisticated literary biographies and the personal diaries of famous writers and painters. This post outlines some thoughts prompted by reading, in close proximity, a biography of Edgar Allan Poe and C. S. Lewis' diary. However, not everything I read is so substantial. During the sixteen-years I lived as…
Coping with the Complexity of Writing
While conceptually simple, in actual practice, writing is a complicated art and all of the approaches involve some considerable degree of complexity. One of the most common reasons why writers fail is the inability to deal with the unforeseen knottiness of writing. To succeed, a writer must find manageable ways of dealing with the endless…
How Mood Inspires Creative People
One of the most striking characteristics of the creative individual is their sensitivity to, and fondness for, particular feeling tones or subtle moods. Artists of all kinds strive to capture their favourite mood (or moods) in their work. The desire to accomplish this combined act of self-gratification and sharing is often a major motivating factor…
The Intrinsic Rewards of Mental Activity
I once saw a short film about the famous experiment where research scientists gave brushes, paint, and large sheets of paper to a number of chimpanzees, and then left them to their own devices. Soon, the chimps became so engrossed in daubing colour on the paper that they neglected their usual mating and eating habits.…
The Origin of High Quality Creativity
In an earlier post on this topic, I stated that artists (of all kinds) develop their artistic vision by “examining and exploring the implications and ramifications of their personal vision of existence. In other words, they explore their philosophy of life.” The most powerful elements of a personal vision of existence or philosophy of life…
Do Memes Have a Life of Their Own?
We had better start with a clear definition of the term, meme. “Meme: (biology) a cultural unit (an idea, value, or pattern of behaviour) … passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation)” (WordWeb). SF writer Robert J. Sawyer often jokes that he is more interested in the survival of his…
Orwell’s Struggle with the False Self
When reading literary biographies, one is wise to examine the worldview of the biographer as well as that of the subject. In his superb George Orwell: A Life, biographer Bernard Crick says a lot of perceptive things about Orwell, and while doing so, inadvertently illuminates humankind’s chronic problems with the discrepancy between the false persona…
Reason and Emotion Clash in the Arts
Whether you write or work in the visual arts, or merely consume writing and objects of art, it is interesting to have some sense of the artistic tradition you follow or prefer. Often, writers and other artists simply get on with their work. While they consciously follow the inspiration of some particular artist or genre,…
Ideas Are Key to Writing Success
We can accomplish nothing in life without an idea. However, before we can successfully act, we must have a clear concept of what we are trying to accomplish, a concept that goes beyond the basic idea itself to encompass the entire endeavour. This may sound obvious, but the point is this: using ideas is more…
How to Recognize Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is usually defined as “the feeling of discomfort when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values, or emotional reactions.” (Wikipedia) Or, “the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes.” (COED) The less familiar aspect of the distressing mental state – that we can also get into trouble when our…
