The Creative Identity

You Are A Writer!

 

I am always interested in other people's jobs. I often wonder what my life would be like if I were a vet (more like, if I had the stomach to be one), or a chef, or a maid at The Waldorf Astoria, or a hairdresser like my dad is and so on. I also wonder about other people's skills and about the boring and the mundane which I am absolutely certain affects each one of us, no matter how exciting our job may sound to someone else. Tell someone that you're a writer though, and many people won't be quite so forthcoming. Reactions I've witnessed upon my revealing that I'm a writer included:

No, seriously! What do you do?

We're all writers, hahaha, I mean, how do you earn a living?

Riiiiiiiight...

Oh ok. [insert stupefied look and smirk here]

And what do you write exactly?

You mean you write marketing copy or what? [insert baffled frown here]

This list is not exhaustive by the way and I'm sure that you have your own variations. After a bit more prodding when I usually name journals or articles or books I've edited or even this site right here, I also get, 'Ok. Never heard of it though'.

I must honestly tell you that I really don't think there's another profession out there that gets as vituperated as this one. It seems to me like only writers of best-sellers can rightfully call themselves 'writers' without having anyone objecting to it and indeed there seems to be the underlying assumption that unless you are a full-time, full-whack-earning writer, then you can't call yourself one. 

The difference here isn't between the amateur and the pro; rather the problem lies with the premise that whoever is literate can write a book (or articles or whatever applies) and that no job-specific qualities are required in order to be a writer. This holds about as much water as a comparison between a beautician wielding a pair of tweezers and a surgeon working with a scalpel. If you want to operate, you'll need the skills of the latter for sure. You may have had a very interesting life but, believe me, only few can write a biography. Those who can are writers (and those who can't, like footballers and their slags, get a ghost writer to do it for them).

When I began The Creative Identity over a year ago, I decided immediately to write about one of those annoying scenarios many humanities graduates deal with eventually: I was told that my English degree had taught me how to read. This wasn't said in that multi-dimension-related way that my PhD supervisor would refer to, but in that ironic, dismissing manner that is common to all of those who know nothing about art and creativity. I remember how hurt I was at the time, even shocked, but I'm glad to tell you that, yes, youth is indeed wasted on the young. These days I smile at such displays of ignorant pettiness instead of letting them upset me.

Dear reader you are a writer, no matter the yardstick that others (always non-writers, do note) use to measure (and dismiss) your worth. You're the only person who needs to give herself permission to be what you already are. And always remember this: those most eager to give you a piece of their mind are always the ones who really ought not to spare a piece so readily. Keep on writing!

 

Steal At Your Peril

When last week I finished my piece on bibliographical resources for Dracula with 'go forth and don't plagiarise!' I smirked. I smirked because telling a potential plagiarist (and, dear reader, you may not be, but some most definitely are) not to plagiarise is like telling my dog Victoria not to steal from the open fridge while I go out to Starbucks. In other words, where there is intent, sooner or later there will be the act too.

Many writers of sites and blogs often tackle how they felt when they found out that their text had been lifted, almost word-for-word, and used in somebody else's website or, worse, even in hard copy. This seemed like the hot topic a few months back, when I was scouring the net and found that the same problems were being discussed from blog to blog. I should have jumped in right there and then, except I don't feel as fired by the whole problem as most people seem to be.

Of course I am not pleased by the recurrent stealing going on and of course I don't condone it and of course I don't think it does not matter, but do I really think it hurts me, as the producer of my own original ideas? Do I think it actually ruins my original essays? Do I heck. Plagiarism really only hurts the plagiarist for two reasons:

1- Only the most naive ones disregard the existence of plentiful softwares out there for the detection of plagiarism. Universities and many other such institutions routinely use them in order to zing the perpetrators of this most annoying crime. How do you think that blogger so-and-so found out her text had been stolen and re-used elsewhere, besides the possible (but unlikely) chance that she stumbled upon it? Do you really believe that your eminent professor is in fact a human encyclopedia who remembers every single book and essay out there? Dedicated software is our friend; failing that, Google does a great job too;

2- When you copy someone else's work, you're not giving yourself the opportunity to tap into your own richness and greatness.  By passing off my work as your own, you're losing the chance to develop specific skills, to learn about writing and reading, to form critical thoughts, to become a professional whose contribution to knowledge can be far reaching and important for generations to come (if you're really good or are the first to catch the Zeitgeist). What if you were the next specialist in your field? What if you could become that professor who knows about everything and seems to have all pieces of knowledge at hand at all times? Quite frankly, I've always thought that plagiarists don't so much shoot themselves in the foot, but rather in the head. 

Lastly, a few words about Creative Commons Licenses. Yes, they appear left, right and centre and while they cannot be a bad thing in the general sense, I find them harmless, in every way. If you steal in Harrods, chances are that one of many cameras will catch you and that an alarm will go off as you walk out of the door if, indeed, you make it to one. Harrods has a roomful of people watching all the security screens at all times and an army of employees in civilian clothing who watch the hundreds of people who browse and shop. 

A Creative Commons License displayed on my site does not in any way, shape or form act as a deterrent. It is not a security camera, an electronic tag or a guy with a headset ready to pounce. Those intent on stealing will do so regardless of your specifications. Those who would never dream of stealing do not need a well-meaning, if silly, image to tell them what they can use; they'll ask you. I only go as far as writing 'Copyright' at the bottom of the page, but even that is amateurish because it goes without saying (and, legally, you don't need to say it, in fact) that whatever is displayed on 'The Creative Identity with Stephanella Walsh' is made by Stephanella Walsh, unless otherwise specified (when I post images, for example). 

Why am I telling you these things months after the dust has settled across many other blogs? Because I believe that, if you're thinking about starting your online showcase and are getting cold feet at the prospect of your art/images/writing/whatever being stolen, then you must get over it pronto. Do you worry about not using money in case you are shafted with fake notes? Do you stop driving because the probability of an accident is quite real? Do you avoid planes or the tube because they are terrorist targets? Honestly dear reader, there are so many more awful things that can happen to you out into the world than having your work plagiarised. If you are a photographer, read this splendid point of view about watermarking one's images. You know how it goes... feel the fear by all means, but do it anyway.

 

Writing and Journaling As Comfort

Image by Galia Alena

It's been the week from hell. No, the week from buggery shitty bloody hell, and I say this through gritted teeth, dear reader. One minute you're up and the next you're so far down that you cannot even see the bottom of the pit you're free-falling into. When I received a rejection (the only one so far) for a collaborative project that took over most of last summer, it didn't even seem bad, all things considered.  

At times like this, I wish I were a bit like Anne Frank or Samuel Pepys, people who were evidently able to write down their innermost desires and preoccupations relentlessly, beautifully and consistently, not only leaving a literary legacy to generations but demonstrating the healing quality of writing per se. It all seems effortless in their case. My writing diary? I haven't got one right now, or rather, you're reading it. I soldiered through last year with my first red Moleskine and those months were so trying and just plain bad that I threw the Mole in the recycling bin in December. It's the first diary I've got rid of in my life. Perhaps I shouldn't have done so.

After all, it's always life-affirming to re-read about the bad times once we're over them, isn't it? But I don't like doing that either. My past is a trunk in the attic and I never open it. The bad memories dance around, still throwing shapes, and they remain as stomach-churning as when I was living them. The good ones inject my day with a very pungent sweet-and-sour, Keats-like nostalgia. Maybe that's precisely what I found most disappointing about my diary: I had stellar, life-affirming plans for it at the beginning of the year and, barely one quarter through it, I realised that my musings were about as penetrating and as interesting as Kurt Cobain's, except he placed the ultimate exclamation mark at the end of his and I'm not interested in that sort of punctuation. You see, his diaries should never have been published. Certain things should remain unread. I hope that the red Mole got well pulped.

And this brings me to the best bit, just in case you think I'm going all doom-and-gloom on you for no apparent reason. I've found something stellar, uplifting, sparkly, fun and fabulous as of late: Andrea's 101 Creativity. If you get The Creative Times (and if not, why not?), you will have already read about her in last Monday's issue. This online course guides you through the good and the bad times and applies the principle I often refer to: your journal shouldn't be a place for gripes but one for celebrations! And even if you have gripes for five minutes, exorcise them in your journal and see how a so-and-so day turns into a damn fine one. You'll think this is airy fairy hocus pocus for idiots, but I assure you, it's not. Writing and journaling provide us with comfort when we can find it nowhere else, even when our prose isn't half as compelling as Anne's or Samuel's and our drawings ain't a patch on Michelangelo's. And who says they have to be anyway? Head over to Andrea's digs and see for yourself. 

 

Resistance is Futile

I love a good old cliché me (did you see what I did there?!). I also love the word 'futile', much as I love to say 'preposterous', in a slightly spitting, outraged way. I think that resistance is futile insofar as Valentine's Day is concerned. When I wrote The Creative Times last week, I said that I adore the fine aesthetic of pink and red and hearts and I was not being ironic. Then, of course, if you, like me, like this day (I like the whole week, actually), you probably have to fend off plentiful naysayers. I find them quite, quite amusing dear reader. In fact, I think that the raging anti-Valentine's Day, anti-Christmas, anti-kids, anti-animals, anti-shopping, anti-fattening foods people really ought to spend some quality time in a Communist country.  

When I was much younger, I did think that V-Day was all about romantic love. Certainly, that's the way it's pedalled. By the time I was fourteen however, I had embraced it big time. Cards would be made (or bought), and sent far and wide (ah, another nice cliché I love...), to teachers, friends, family members and pets. The other day I was sitting in my lab (read, my dining room, except the table has been entirely appropriated as a working table), making an extra-large lavender sachet with a red heart stitched in buttons. This passion just never goes away. 

But then, as I was sewing away, I also thought of some other aspect of love: the passion for what we do. Ever heard of, find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life? That's Confucius if I remember correctly. Well, I think the guy was certainly right, too bad that knowing ourselves is hard and to know what we love is the hardest part of all. I know of authors (not just 'authors', but bona fide published-writers-with-agents) who jacked it in because the whole publishing machine was too much to bear and because what were promised sales never quite materialised themselves in the way they expected. Did they not love their work enough? Or are all our passions fleeting in life and what seems so vital today won't be that important next year?

I cannot imagine my life without writing. This isn't just because I have been writing for the past twenty-five odd years but because it defines my identity more than any other facet of my personality, much more than my past, education, upbringing, choices and views. There is nothing else like writing in my life and I guess that when I think about this day, what I really think about are the countless (and beautiful) love poems and letters and stories that I like to re-read almost every February. I never quite see them as testament to the love for a woman (Keats's letters, for example), but as one to the love of writing. And yes, I am currently reading The Pursuit of Love, but I have no intention to talk about it today. However, it's pink and it says 'love' on the cover and so it seemed like a fitting image for this lovely day.