Tuesday, March 19, 2002

"[Creativity is] like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights but you can make the whole trip that way."

-- E. L. Doctorow

"The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way."

-- Eric Hoffer

"Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved in the broth."

-- Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

These three quotes are taped to my bulletin board at work. They help to keep me sane. Honestly, I've never read anything by the people I'm quoting. Never even heard of them until I was given a "Creative Voices" days-of-the-week calender by a favorite former boss. But their words ring true, at least for me.

I never know how a project is going to end up. I can storyboard it, spend hours and days pre-producing it, but when I sit down to edit, something takes over. Creativity, I guess. I'm sitting at the machine, and an instinct takes over. It drives me until I'm finished editing. But, I never really know what it's gonna look like until its done. I'll make the trip, but I don't know the roads. There are a few road bumps or higher ups telling me to turn right or left. And that's ok; the destination is the same.

Sometimes, the best way to get where you're going is not to know the way...

1 comment:

KPCL Girl said...

Hey, ML--
I subscribed to your blog after you left a post about the lawn in WWL. I decided to go back and see how you started blogging, and I came to this post that had your quotes about creativity. These were interesting to me because I'm really fascinated right now with 'the creative process' and WHERE creativity comes from. This all stems from my recent experiences and relationships with my homies in the CrazyLake Acting Company

What is it that you do in RL?

I'm a teacher, but preparing to make the HUGE and frightening leap of leaving that profession (and the security of a job, a paycheck, and a guaranteed raise every year....).