Category Archive: Creative Process

June 13, 2011

Meaning Machine

A few years ago, I wrote a little program called "Generator" that extracts all the unique words from any text file you choose, then serves up random combinations of those words, a few at a time.

The point was to prick my imagination with unexpected word juxtapositions, to use them as seeds for writing, and for generating creative associations and amplifications of my own. On that level, it has worked beautifully. But, it's also proved interesting in another, unexpected way. It's given me a new appreciation for the degree to which our minds are "meaning machines."

We create meaning at every opportunity. We see logic and significance in random circumstance, the Virgin Mary in a stained plaster wall, gods and goddesses in the stars. Playing with tools/toys like Generator teases this part of my mind into action.

Of course, as you might expect, many of the phrases the program produces are complete nonsense:

- infant variety "scored"
- duck no entirely...
- ball, daze, cover.
- floating owner? interrupting

(NOTE: All examples in this post are the output of the Generator program, three words at a time, chosen randomly from the same text file. Punctuation and capitalization are retained from the original context, providing an added dimension.)

And many — in fact, surprisingly many — phrases can be parsed in a sensible way:

- flower IS grow
- sick, worn.. world
- Dusty little.. home..
- butt ate countryside
- insensitive bystander sharing

Some of the sensible phrases operate less as grammatically correct sentences and more as a form of shorthand or summary of a possible situation:

- bike.. oops.. smack
- afterlife, everything Yes,
- self-conscious heads, socially
- warm, fingers.. hello.
- mess.. hostile couple.
- being? boundaries returning
- disrepair?.. society struggling

Phrases like these, in particular, are high-octane fuel for my meaning machine.. My mind immediately kicks into gear, jamming and riffing, filling in an entire scene or setting for each phrase.

Then there are the phrases that fall somewhere between sense and nonsense, which act on my mind in an entirely different fashion:

- thrill, obviously cultish
- pleased "hollow" painful,
- flowers sounds... shut
- escape dead-end awake.

These fascinate me. They aren't, strictly speaking, meaningful.. but they feel as though they could mean something. It’s a semantic grey zone, where associations and metaphors and images are open-ended. As seeds for further writing, these borderline phrases are more challenging, because they make me do more of the heavy lifting — not always productive from a songwriting perspective, but always good exercise.

Really, though, it's often enough to just let the random phrases flow past, and see how my mind reacts. Regardless of where a given phrase might fall on the sense-nonsense spectrum, I love being able to directly observe a process that is usually unconscious: my mind doing its best to make sense of the world.

I could wax philosophical about all of this, but not today. For now, I'll leave you with a few more random phrases... See what your meaning machine makes of these:

- sleep? half here?
- wedding? kiss disabled
- directions.. shark buffet
- bath misunderstanding enjoyed,
- exhausted, selfish, lately...
- deficient old layer
- chair, beckons dust

Posted by richard at 11:41 AM

May 31, 2011

Twyla Tharp's book, "The Creative Habit"

I’ve been re-reading Twyla Tharp’s excellent book, “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life” (Simon & Schuster, 2003).

The book has become a valuable touchstone for me in times of creative doldrums (like now). It clears my mind, helps me remember what’s important, and gives me insights and practical suggestions I can use to get me moving again.

Tharp’s writing is a lot like her choreography - brisk, vivid, entertaining, intelligent, sophisticated but not stuffy, down to earth and spiritually attuned at the same time. I only just discovered this book last year, and it’s quickly made its way onto my “A list” of books on the creative process.

So, yeah, I’m digging it all over again, and trying to put Tharp’s positive, no-nonsense approach to work in my songwriting and recording work.. which, frankly, could use a boost.

I’ll let you know how it’s going...

Posted by richard at 10:19 PM

April 11, 2011

Responding vs. Instigating

We can shut ourselves down, or shunt ourselves down the same well-worn grooves, by always expecting ourselves to "be creative" and “come up with something."

Sometimes creativity is more about reacting to something than it is making something happen. That is, letting go of the role of instigator and allowing yourself to respond to some outside stimulus, then seeing where that response takes you.

I like it when the stimulus is out of my control, something random and unconnected with my usual trains of thought. There are lots of ways to get started: open a book to a random page and poke your finger at a random word and then riff on that; do the same thing with pictures instead of words; flip on the radio or the TV and use the first word, or image, or whatever that comes; take an image from a remembered dream; etc.

Sometimes a single element isn't enough to get the juices flowing. For example, when I'm writing, I prefer having two or three random words, because the unexpected synergy or friction between them often sparks something interesting. I even wrote a computer program that offers up random word combinations culled from any text file, providing me with an unlimited supply.

These random bits prime the pump of my unconscious, so to speak. They allow me to simply react and respond to what I'm given, without the responsibility of having to deliberately "create something."

In your creative work this week, try to be the "responder" instead of the "instigator." Find a way to generate random, external stimuli, and then get out of the way and see how your unconscious mind responds, what impulses and images come. It might point you in exciting new directions in your work.

Posted by richard at 10:25 PM