Monday 14 March 2011

The Creative Process and Productive Days

Such productive days like this are rare, I'm not one of these people who can sit down and write without thinking much, it's a constant battle and I have to work really hard. I do get envious of those people who can knock out thousands of words off the cuff to a reasonable standard but I really have to give it everything I've got. I've been speaking to a few well informed people about this and they made me feel better by explaining that it's what the learning process is about, by pushing yourself to your limits and how writing a PhD thesis is a very personal experience, it's about what you can get out of it.
It reminds me of this great interview I saw with the lovely Nick Cave talk about the creative process and how he has to work really hard too, I couldn't find the exact interview but I found one where he says something very similar, which is kind of cool because it must be something that he thinks about a lot. It's good to know that people I respect and admire aren't just naturally talented and they have to give everything they have too.


Anyway like I said days like this are rare, I managed to write a lot of quality work (if I do say so myself) and I managed to get my head around concepts that I have been struggling with for a while.
My academic background is in English literature, as despite writing being a bit of a challenge I do love books, reading, and theory, I also find it very fairly natural to form opinions on subjects and develop ideas. My literature background has also given me the capabilities to apply certain critical concepts to other disciplines. Today I had some theoretical breakthroughs on postmodern theory, I have always had a good understanding of the concepts that surround this theory but there have been certain mental links that I had struggled with, happily today I managed to get over some of those barriers and write quite a lot about Communities and Fragmentation.
I've still got a long way to go but it's always nice to have days like this

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