Blog Dis
Does it pour or do you have to pull?
2024-08-01
If it were as easy as opening a box of cereal and tearing apart the protective wrapping, then tilting the box and emptying some of the contents into a bowl, every writer (and all artists) would obviously choose the pour method. We like to produce art this way, when it literally and liberally pours out of us, spilling onto the page, or the canvas, or out of the camera lens, in such heaps of brilliance and free-flowing creativity that we sit back to admire the profundity and profuseness of our work and its artistic genius. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
The momentum of pouring is an ideal way to create art. To me, it says that your creative imagination is running on all pistons in a smooth manner. You are clearly connected to the inner spirit of your imagination, and to the external vision of what you're hoping to create; hence, the reason why your art is pouring in the first place. Regrettably, however, you don't possess the power to consciously decide any morning that you'll wake up and engage in creating art with the pour method. And even so, if the productivity of your art was created with such ease, it would still require work on your part to continue this easy flow, to shape and perfect it until it reaches its final form. The easy that begins as easy, ends up as easy but has a lining of work hidden on the inside. I've experienced the pouring of my writing, flowing out of me like fine red wine from a dusty bottle. I welcome and cherish these moments and I embrace them whole-heartedly, knowingly taking full advantage to my own advantage. Herein lies the crux of the ease of creating art that pours, so long as you continue to go with the flow, you can be assured of creating something, even anything, which you feel can be worked on and embellished to provide the beginnings of your final piece.
But wait! For when things pour with great ease and you admire your flow, know that this method of pouring will invariably become the pull method. And when I use the term pull I mean reaching deep, deep down into your heart and creative mind, sticking your entire hand inside your brain to yank that material out of your cranium. The pull method is excruciating. The pull method requires you to dive ever so deep to find your confidence when you are experiencing a period in creating that doesn't flow with ease, when words are not flying off the page and you look at the blankness of white and hope some ethereal being will materialize in your room, touch your screen with a magic wand, and presto the ideas begin to pour again. Especially when you step away from your work for a period of time, you're engaging in what I call a reflective period, because your imagination never stops, like your mind or subconscious. Somewhere inside you the art is still in the process of being created. It's when you begin again that you'll know immediately if as the artist you are in the throes of the pour of the pull method.
Ask any scientist and they'll tell you an idea begins as a burp of a notion, until it's examined in minute detail that a beginning point is recognized. And that's all you really need is some point at which you can begin the process. For writers, it starts with the first word that might lead to a full sentence which hopefully will lead to a paragraph. For photographers, it begins with the vague composition in their head, before their eyes stare long into the lens. For painters, the outline of an image sticks in their mind and for musicians it could be one solitary note that strikes a chord on their guitar or in their head, and the song and music come tumbling out. No artist can or should expect the pour method to last forever, any more than the pull method will become entrenched in your trials and tribulations of creating. Know that both facets of creating will ebb and flow. The trick is in never giving up.
And so I shall leave this post where I've begun, by returning to my eighth manuscript, where I've penned some three and a quarter pages, the beginnings. I had devoted nine years of hard work to create my seventh novel, and I'm pleased as punch with myself that this beast of a tome is out in the public. No sooner had I hit the release button on my Amazon KDP page when the sage words of my copy editor rang in my head, which I know to be true. "Start the next one right away!" Dang! She's right of course. She's right. I know it! Have I plotted out the eighth novel? Broad strokes. I'm keeping one lined notebook in which I've accumulated post-it notes with ideas, penned in black ink so they don't fade.
A plot is essential as are random ideas. A plot is more like the pull method. Random ideas are the pour. I like creating my art this way, to flow and pour. After all, cereal bowls were meant to be filled with something rather crunchy and tasty.
The momentum of pouring is an ideal way to create art. To me, it says that your creative imagination is running on all pistons in a smooth manner. You are clearly connected to the inner spirit of your imagination, and to the external vision of what you're hoping to create; hence, the reason why your art is pouring in the first place. Regrettably, however, you don't possess the power to consciously decide any morning that you'll wake up and engage in creating art with the pour method. And even so, if the productivity of your art was created with such ease, it would still require work on your part to continue this easy flow, to shape and perfect it until it reaches its final form. The easy that begins as easy, ends up as easy but has a lining of work hidden on the inside. I've experienced the pouring of my writing, flowing out of me like fine red wine from a dusty bottle. I welcome and cherish these moments and I embrace them whole-heartedly, knowingly taking full advantage to my own advantage. Herein lies the crux of the ease of creating art that pours, so long as you continue to go with the flow, you can be assured of creating something, even anything, which you feel can be worked on and embellished to provide the beginnings of your final piece.
But wait! For when things pour with great ease and you admire your flow, know that this method of pouring will invariably become the pull method. And when I use the term pull I mean reaching deep, deep down into your heart and creative mind, sticking your entire hand inside your brain to yank that material out of your cranium. The pull method is excruciating. The pull method requires you to dive ever so deep to find your confidence when you are experiencing a period in creating that doesn't flow with ease, when words are not flying off the page and you look at the blankness of white and hope some ethereal being will materialize in your room, touch your screen with a magic wand, and presto the ideas begin to pour again. Especially when you step away from your work for a period of time, you're engaging in what I call a reflective period, because your imagination never stops, like your mind or subconscious. Somewhere inside you the art is still in the process of being created. It's when you begin again that you'll know immediately if as the artist you are in the throes of the pour of the pull method.
Ask any scientist and they'll tell you an idea begins as a burp of a notion, until it's examined in minute detail that a beginning point is recognized. And that's all you really need is some point at which you can begin the process. For writers, it starts with the first word that might lead to a full sentence which hopefully will lead to a paragraph. For photographers, it begins with the vague composition in their head, before their eyes stare long into the lens. For painters, the outline of an image sticks in their mind and for musicians it could be one solitary note that strikes a chord on their guitar or in their head, and the song and music come tumbling out. No artist can or should expect the pour method to last forever, any more than the pull method will become entrenched in your trials and tribulations of creating. Know that both facets of creating will ebb and flow. The trick is in never giving up.
And so I shall leave this post where I've begun, by returning to my eighth manuscript, where I've penned some three and a quarter pages, the beginnings. I had devoted nine years of hard work to create my seventh novel, and I'm pleased as punch with myself that this beast of a tome is out in the public. No sooner had I hit the release button on my Amazon KDP page when the sage words of my copy editor rang in my head, which I know to be true. "Start the next one right away!" Dang! She's right of course. She's right. I know it! Have I plotted out the eighth novel? Broad strokes. I'm keeping one lined notebook in which I've accumulated post-it notes with ideas, penned in black ink so they don't fade.
A plot is essential as are random ideas. A plot is more like the pull method. Random ideas are the pour. I like creating my art this way, to flow and pour. After all, cereal bowls were meant to be filled with something rather crunchy and tasty.
