On Creativity (and a brief “Thank You”)
Okay, first, the truth. I can’t stand coming here and seeing that same picture and entry at the top of the blog, so I’ve got to post something. Anything.
Some combination of Jo’s amazing ability to blog through thick and thin, while she writes a novel and paints and deals with her family, and Keith’s overlong hiatus from regular blog-length storytelling and Zellar’s unbelievable ability to put out new creative writing every few days (as well as all the others I read who I didn’t name not because I don’t think about you too, but because this sentence has to end at some point) has gotten me thinking about creativity and writing and art and life.
And, as always, it has me feeling jealous.
I write like I live. Straightforward. Without layers. I can write you a damn good persuasive argument. Sometimes I manage to tell a funny story. But that’s about it. When it comes to creativity, I’m a consumer, not a contributor.
No. This isn’t a not-so-veiled cry for y’all to tell me how great I am. I know I’m not great. I don’t even begin to aspire to write anything of value.
I guess what I’m really saying is, I’m really honored and humbled to hang out with y’all (and by “y’all” I mean everyone on the list of “scriner’s sites” over on Scrine). I wish you all all the best as you use that incredible gift you all have. I hope you will keep me around as foil… or fool, or just plain ol’ ‘mouse.
Thanks.
ok, i’m glad i got here first for this. dude, i am so damned sorry if anything i said made you feel that way.
that being said, let me share my philosophy on blogging (as you’re the only one who would, let me that is):
you have to stop worrying about who is looking, reading, preparing to comment, and realize…
and realize…
that you are God and Almight Creator of This Particularly Space. and you are going to say Whatever the Hell you want and politics, culture, fear of losing your anonymity: nothing is going to stop you.
then you too, can be a raving delusion egomaniac like me.
i think it’s a side effect of being friends with Bakerina. really.
collena
Posted by goliard on 08/22 at 03:15 AMplus, i feel bad cause i know that i personally, out of sheer greed, swallowed at least one of your best and most imaginative posts whole.
Posted by goliard on 08/22 at 03:16 PMGoliard, remind me which it was, if you remember a snippet, and I’ll see if I have an early draft on my computer. I don’t think I do, but I may.
As for your earlier comment, y’know my PM response. This is not a goodbye to writing, just an open acknowledgment that I’m a duffer when it comes to writing. Someone’s gotta play the role and I’m fine with it as long as there’s beer at the whatever-hole-it-is where there’s beer.
Posted by 'mouse on 08/22 at 03:38 PMi think it involved a stewardess…but you know how bad my memory is. don’t you still have that permanent file on me?
there’s beer here.
Posted by goliard on 08/23 at 10:10 AM‘mouse. None of it’s true. I haven’t been around much lately otherwise I would have posted sooner, but you are creative.
You can refute me all you like (in fact you’ll no doubt do it in a well-argued way), but at the end of the day, your sentences on Scrine were a large part of the reasons I stayed. I believe it was something weird by Keith that lured me in, but I wouldn’t be a regular Scriner if it weren’t for you.
I’m not in the lofty creative heights of the others you mentioned, but you are creative and you’ll just have to live with it.
Posted by boot on 08/25 at 11:31 PMMan, it’s like a virus. Everyone I know, including myself, has suddenly come down with “I’m not creative/talented-don’t mind me while I go rust in the corner” itis. And while that is charming attitude for Marvin the Paranoid Android, I just can’t stand to see it genuinely creative people. I mean, and this is just rumor, but I’ve heard that what you can do with a couple of mangoes on a beach is as sublime as any of the works hanging in the Italian Masters wing of the Louvre.
And like boot, you and your sentences have been one of the lures of Scrine for me as well as your comments on my blog.
Old duffer my ass.
Posted by Bunni on 08/29 at 10:26 AMOh, ‘mouse.
First of all, I suck for taking so much time to reply to this. I have read it about six times, each time with increasing senses of incredulity that you would ever, ever feel lacking in creativity.
Dearest, do you remember how many women sighed and swooned at your mango post on PTMYB? Do you remember how many more women sighed and swooned when I re-posted it last year? Are you aware that you have groupies now? Listen carefully: nobody, but nobody, who can write that beautifully and set so many hearts beating faster, has any cause to feel sheepish. So stop it, already.
Also, having spent the past three weeks listening to people who argue persuasively for a living, on behalf of the public good, I have decided that writing a persuasive argument is an art form, and that those who do it well are my heroes. This means you. In the words of Troy McClure, take a bow, sugarbeet!
(Confidential to goliard: I saw that. You stop it already, too. ;)
Posted by Bakerina on 08/31 at 04:47 PMI would very much like to shake your hand.
Posted by carrot on 09/01 at 11:19 PMOh, ‘mouse, wee timorous beastie… whatever are you thinking? I have one word to offer you, which has already been offered by Bakerina, but I thought it before I read her comment. That word is “mangoes.”
Count me as one of the sighing and swooning…
Posted by kimberly on 09/03 at 02:03 AM
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