Substitutiary Locomotion
Wondering what theme a newsletter should carry, one sometimes ends up at Angela Lansbury.
Monthly Overview
This newsletter barely made it out. I looked at the calendar and thought, “How is September coming to an end?!”
But we’re here, and spooky season is upon us! This month we’re covering creative boundaries, narrative causation, and focused intentions. It’s getting kind of serious!
Section #1: Creativity Content
Takeaway: The power of limits
Section #2: Book Coaching News
Takeaway: Cause & effect
Section #3: Personal Writing Updates
Takeaway: A note on intention
Section #1: Creativity Content
"Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame" — G. K. Chesterton.
Substitutiary Locomotion
Every so often, I get caught up in a one-off creative project, and it overtakes me like I’m a suit of armor and Angela Lansbury has just read a magic spell in an English castle. (Bedknobs and Broomsticks for the win!)
The first week of September, I got into writing a little play that is a riff of of Shakespeare but super gay. It was incredibly fun to write, and I plowed through a draft in a week.
It was a good reminder that that can happen. It’s not all laborious editing and big ideas—sometimes it’s a sudden, ephemeral notion that you have to capture before it fades.
One of the best parts of writing it was putting together some soliloquies in iambic pentameter. I’d forgotten how creative you can get when you force yourself into an unfamiliar form. That’s how I backed into the name of the play: The Life Electric.
I never thought such splendid, bounteous love
Would come unbidden in alien lands.
To fall precipitously into an
Ocean, undiscovered, uncharted. Lost
Amidst waves of unbroken feeling and
Questioning the very purpose of our
Endeavors, not just at this fete but of
The wider meaning of our universe.
Dramatic. Unlike me. Excruciating
To feel this burden and simply long to
Gaze upon his face.
His face. Silent god.
Who has never spoken to me but now
Through the life electric in his two eyes.
Speaks in the quiet of his raven hair.
Trumpets his presence in his sculpted hands.
A need, unrepentant to fall into
Him and taste his acrid, quivering breath.
Never have I longed to see all of one
Apart from me. To know intimately
The unknown crevices of another’s thoughts.
Not just to know, to lust, to pine, to hold
But to extend into and share the whole
Cacophony of being. To co-exist.
“Cacophony of being” was a close runner-up for the title.
I don’t usually use my own creative stuff for lessons, but I learned a lot from this particular exercise.
Follow the passionate thread. So often we have creative projects we’re working on or in the middle of, but we’ve lost our zest for them. If you do catch a creative spark, follow it! It could re-energize your other work, and, you never know, if you don’t pursue it, it could disappear. I purposely looped my friend in on this project and told her, “I’m sending you the draft by the end of the week. I need the accountability.” I knew if I didn’t finish, it would vanish, so I got some support and pushed forward.
Utilize boundaries. Like I said, writing in iambic pentameter was challenging, but it made me use language in novel ways. If you’re creatively stuck, force yourself into a corner and see how you can write out: Pick a single line to start from; choose a genre to stay in; or draw a topic out of a hat and force yourself to stick with it. You never know how you’ll blow through the limitations.
I realized the two takeaways are in almost direct contradiction (do the random unknown thing; but put on strict boundaries!), which serves the lovely, paradoxical nature of creativity quite well.
Creativity Recommendation
Not really creativity, but I finished the book Cues by Vanessa van Edwards this month, and it has some amazing tips for making yourself more charismatic in voice, posture, and written word. If you’re doing live events to share your creative work (or networking with other creatives!) there is a wealth of useful, very practical information.
Resources
Peep my creativity website if you are interested in tapping into your playful side.
Section #2: Book Coaching News
Cause and Effect
This month has been busy with client work, and a couple of my writing clients are in the same spot trying to pull their book structures together and encountering similar challenges.
A few months ago I referred to how George Saunders writes on the importance of cause and effect in his book A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. He states that one of the most difficult aspects of writing is simply having A cause B which then enables C to happen.
Cause and effect works in the background, like plumbing. You shouldn’t notice it at all, but when it’s NOT there, you will probably be like “Wait a minute…What?”
It was top of mind this month, not only due to my clients working on outlines, but also in starting to watch Only Murders in the Building season 5.
[SOME LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD FOR EPISODE 1]
WOW. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a comedy show fudging their plot threads a little bit, but the end of the first episode of the new season was a trainwreck of poor causation.
Someone miraculously solves the mystery of a video camera system (which usually would take a whole season).
Someone decodes a complex map by randomly looking at it and drinking wine (yet another thing that should take more then one part of one episode).
Once character is able to waltz into a store that’s closed and, through a series of odd mishaps, bumbles into a body that was hidden.
I wasn’t mad about this, I was just disappointed. Them solving the mystery of the map would have been a delightful 2 to 3 episode arc. They could have tried different things, learned some items about cartography, and enlisted the help of other characters. THEN when they did solve the mystery, the audience would have the same excitement and joy as the characters.
Instead, you’re left thinking, “Okay…I guess” and dragged to the next plot point without any emotional connection.
When putting together your story, always think about how you get the protagonist logically from one point to another. If you make a clear chain of causation, tied to the emotional struggles and challenges affecting the character, the audience will not just be dragged to the next thing, but will be moved emotionally to it with your hero.
General Updates
Check out my book coaching offerings to see my writer support packages. Any questions, you can always reach out to creativitywithtedd@gmail.com.
Section #3: Author Updates
Intentions
One of the other books I’ve been reading this month is Dr. Tara Swart’s The Source, which is a mix of neuroscience, mindfulness, and faith. (Super fascinating. Say what you will about TikTok, but that’s where I ran into her stuff!)
One of the key topics she discusses is setting intentions. It sounds like the simplest, most basic (and, yes, I’ll give you “worthless”) things to do, but from a neurological perspective it has an incredible power.
Essentially, when you set an intention and use your limited cognitive capacity to focus on it, you start to notice things related to it. Your brain discards other information to focus on the topic. It’s like you can tune your brain to a new radio signal and pick up more “music” tied to one topic.
A classic example is purchasing a red car. You then start to notice all the other red cars on the road. You’ve created an awareness of car color due to your new car and the financial investment, so you start to pay more attention to it—it’s at the forefront of your mind. [In the weirdest of all blog circumstances, the week I wrote this, I saw a movie that named this phenomenon: The Frequency Illusion or the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. How’s that for intention magic??]
I’ve been thinking of ways to develop more of my creativity content and expand my offerings, and it’s been wild what that shift in attention has done:
I’ve discovered resources that were right in front of me that I’ve been ignoring.
I’ve reached out to people to learn what they’re doing with a clear intent rather than putting it off or being embarrassed to reach out.
I’ve found content, quotes, and reading material that I wouldn’t have paid attention to otherwise.
And the weirdest thing is that I’ve seen a surge in client work even though I haven’t been doing anything differently.
I’m not advocating for The Secret or The Prayer of Jabez mystic entitlement, but if you are working toward something, take some time to set the intention. You never know what is out there that can help you reach your goal that you just aren’t paying attention to!
Other news:
Round Up
Thanks for checking out this month, y’all! I hope you’re pursuing your wildest creative idea, while also setting very strict boundaries and intentions. It all makes sense!
I absolutely could not end this newsletter without this Bedknobs and Broomsticks banger. When I was a little gay, I would fast forward the movie to this scene to dance to it.
Have a great month!
Tedd, so much here to inspire! Congrats on your poem - wow. Loved the takeaways on following your spark and setting limits to create even more spark. And thanks for the nudge on intentionality. How great that your client work has responded to it.