The annoying parts of creativity | #29
and how to get around them, inspired by jazz improv
I went on Elle's Saturday morning walk yesterday. I was thinking about the intersection of creativity and socializing, so I announced that as something I’d love to talk about.
In one conversation, I made a metaphor about jazz improv. Although I am skilled in neither jazz nor improv, it was fresh in my mind for reasons explained later.
Turns out I was talking to a bassist from a band you've probably heard of if you had a middle school emo phase.
We ended up chatting about many things: improv, creativity, what it’s like to tour with a band, etc.
What follows are some thoughts from that convo and others during the walk. In this newsletter,
Writing is great, editing sucks
Why jazz improv is cool
How to write pieces that need less editing in the first place
What does jazz improv teach us about storytelling, humor, etc?
Writing is great, editing sucks
There's a trope about creative people not liking the bureaucratic parts of creating.
For example, I love writing but dislike editing. I like brain dumping and thinking through ideas, but not organizing them.
Organizing is a necessary evil, though. Not only for my audience, but for my future self as well. I know I'm not the only one intimidated by my pile of unfinished and unstructured drafts.
Sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes I get inspired, sit down, crank something out, and it's done. Minimal editing necessary. Lovely!
Since the first time that happened, I've wondered: how do I make that happen more often?
The first thing I tried was combining writing and editing into the same phase. Chefs say it's good to clean as you're cooking so you don't have as much cleaning to do at the end.
I wondered if the same thing applied to writing. If I edit bit-by-bit as I write, I won't have to do a long slog of editing at the end, right?
Most of my attempts to do both at the same time have been frustrating. I find I get too mired in the details.
I need to see the big picture before I know what the details should be. And to see the big picture, I need to write from a stream of consciousness first.
I can't edit during stream of consciousness mode. I don't have time. My brain is firing on all cylinders throwing details at me, and if I don't persist them on paper, they're Gone Forever.
So, for a while, I gave up on that idea. I resigned to forever having to clean up after my word vomit.
Until I heard about jazz improv.
Why jazz improv is cool
That people could create something beautiful with no plan beforehand intrigued me. How was that possible?
I thought about what that would look like with writing. I imagined a bunch of people all writing in a Google Doc.
Someone writes the 1st sentence. Someone else writes the 2nd sentence. The first person has an idea for the 3rd sentence. They want to change the 1st sentence to make their idea for a 3rd sentence make sense. But the second person's 4th sentence depends on the 1st sentence. So they go back and forth, mired in the details.
Like me, when I try to write and edit at the same time.
So, I watched a few videos on jazz improv. Most of the vocabulary went over my head (2-5-1? chord progressions? scales? oh my!) but I think I got the gist of what makes it work.
It comes down to three things:
Getting the "trunk of the tree" established. The first notes set the pace, theme, time signature, etc for the rest of the song. This means that everyone else can follow up in ways that make the whole thing coherent.
Vocabulary. It's only possible to create something meaningful as a group if everyone speaks the same language. I can't riff off of what I can't understand. I can't have good ideas if I can't tell them apart from bad ideas. The more extensive my vocabulary, the quicker I can rule out bad ideas in the idea phase. That means less bad ideas make it into production and less time spent correcting them.
Adding, not editing ("yes, and"). When we're creating something together, none of us have a clue what the end-product will look like. The big picture will only become clear in the end. The big picture is normally what makes endless small creative decisions easier to make. In its absence, those decisions become death by a thousand cuts. Ain't nobody got time for that, so instead, practice picking something and running with it.
How to write pieces that need less editing
So, going back to the original question: how do I write pieces that need less editing?
It seems to me that the answer is:
Get the trunk of the tree established as soon as possible. Changing leaves is a lot easier than changing the trunk.
Knowing what the trunk of the tree looks like requires speaking the language. Learn as much of the vocabulary as soon as you can. Name your experiences so you can contrast and categorize easier.
But you can't just memorize. You have to understand. Understanding requires practicing and messing around. It's a volume game, so embrace "yes, and" until you have examples to attach the vocabulary to. Follow rule 1) unless it stops you from moving forward. If it stops you, pick something and go with it.
What does jazz improv teach us about storytelling, humor, etc?
This also makes me wonder:
How much creative potential have I yet to unlock for everyday experiences? How many connections am I missing out because I don't have the vocabulary?
I'm thinking particularly of universal human experiences. Humor, persuasion, feelings, motivations, stories. All these things are well-studied with extensive research and vocabulary.
Would I be a better story-teller if I learned to identify different types of stories? The common components of a good story?
Would I be able to make more people laugh if I understood humor better? If I was familiar with the taxonomy of different jokes?
Would I understand myself and others better if I could name every emotion with ease? If I could articulate the differences between them? If I could see them in places others wouldn't think to look?
Probably!
I mentioned earlier that I wanted to switch this newsletter to more of a documentation model. I wasn't able to properly articulate why, until now.
My hope is to turn myself and all my lovely readers into excellent jazz improvisers, but for life! So, excellent life-improvisers!
Wow! Your takeaways about how to apply improv in jazz to writing and editing is quite profound! It's one of those things when I read, I feel like I've never thought about it in this context, and then it feels so obvious. I really enjoyed it. I need to save to think about when I edit my own piece. It's interesting, I think so much of the rules of any kind of improv (musical, story telling, humor) is to create a common language and then from there, a safe space to experiment. When my sister and I do our podcast, we've applied a lot of improv rules to help our chemistry during the recording. We apply "no bad ideas in brainstorm" and "yes and" pretty heavily. We'll call each other out too if we "no but" each other. It's funny, in podcasting now, I can always hear if someone "no buts" their partner. Intuitively, it's a worse experience for the audience. Or even in a conversation with another person. A conversation is improv too in a lot of ways.
Oo i love how you found a link between jazz improv and writing. Having the vobabulary in different artistic, creative pursuits give us the window to access different minds and how they create. And we can definitely learn from other crafts to hone our own!
I actually love the part of editing and packaging my stream of consciousness. I may not have the time or energy to do it for all my pieces and some are just really lightly edited but every time i have a piece that is organised and flows, I find so much satisfaction? Because it was a mess in my head before the writing and editing, and I love to organise chaos into something more manageable.