Reading Response: If the Shoe Fits, put that sucker on!

If the Shoe Fits was easier for me to relate to than Creativity has been so far. Wendy Bishop, the author of Colors of a Different Horse, teaches and reasons with a feminist bent that resonates with me. Her scope is also much more narrow in that she focuses on creative writing specifically. In Csikszentmihalyi's text, I find myself often getting stuck on the examples of scientific creativity and the puzzling specifics and lingo that go along with them.

One of the first points Bishop brings up in If the Shoe Fits is that of bringing the focus of writing from the product to the process. She describes her own experience with teaching creative writing and literary theory and her struggle to shift this very focus in her teaching and writing life. Using herself as an example, rather than a data-collecting observer standing on the sidelines, she talks about power. The idea of power in a classroom as well as in the context of writing, are of interesting to me. When I consider power I am almost inextricably considering gender and the boundaries that are inherent in these definitions. I begin to think about love and nurturing and qualities that are often deemed “feminine” and the ways in which these could be cast away as useless or unprofessional in an institutional setting. I am reminded of Peter Elbow’s theory that we should teach ourselves to “like” our students writing. The construct and dichotomy of women in institutions and careers comes to mind as well. Csikszentmihalyi sites the example of Grazia Livi in The Work of Creativity. One of her stories was inspired by this double bind and her emotional ties to it. It makes me wonder if a woman is suppose to be cold and competitive in order to come off as professional and compete with people of the opposite sex. It also makes me weary of the competition that is so often seen and fostered by students and professors alike in writing workshops. There is an exclusivity that precludes many from “liking” everyone’s work or even expressing their appreciation of it. Are we trying to gain respect in the eyes of more scientific fields, which are by nature more competitive? (Where many people are striving to find a solution to the same problem that only one person will get credit for the finding of.) Does this exclusivity sometimes work in order to push other valid competitors, i.e. good writers out of the running?

Another point that got me thinking as well as made me a Bishop-ian rather than a Csikszentmihalyi-ian was the following quote: “theorists persist in refusing to recognize us as being central to their study.” In complaining about Creativity’s lack of examples of “artistic creativity” and rather heavy-handed use of “scientific creativity,” I found this quote. Csikszentmihalyi’s lack of follow through on artistic creativity can be seen via the example of fire rings being the inspiration for the possible shape of a benzene molecule, an association allowed by subconscious thought that was uninhibited by the restrictions and guidelines of conscious associations. While the example functions as model of the “incubation” period, it fails to be a source of validation that the incubation period resolves itself in a realization that bears importance on the creative endeavor. Were the molecules ring shaped? Where is the follow through? (Yes, thank you to Wikipidia, I now know that Benzene molecules are rings. However it does not site anywhere that the association was made due to the visual of fire rings.) How can we learn about creative writing if creative writing studies do not have creative writers at the base of their studies?

“There’s no center” mirrors the point I came to when discussing this conundrum, that if we decide to say that there is no quantifiable way to analyze creativity, there is also no point to theorizing, there are only one-sided perspectives due to everyone’s experiences being true to their individual life’s and thoughts, and there is no point in trying to relate. Hence we are all islands and cannot see each other. This is counter productive to creating a creative environment be it classroom or otherwise, and so therefore is not a viable escape if we are to go on becoming teachers of creativity. What choice then do we have but to validate the similarities, the common ground, as it is, even with its peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, in order to relate to each other? For example, the role of an actor that demands knowledge of being a killer, does not in fact ask that the actor go out and kill but that they draw from their experiences to create a psyche in which they could imagine and embody the sentiments involved in killing. This commonality seems to be what we are in fact striving to recognize and riff off of.

Bishop provides the argument that theory is necessary but dense and suggests that the answer is to use “irony, humor and perspective” in application to teaching. She believes we should provide students with theory as a basis for their desires to “express themselves” so that they have a “real meaning behind them” or perhaps a link to a greater accomplishment or a reason why this expression is valid to others and the world at large. This conclusion makes a lot of sense to me. It also addresses one way to handle the inevitable sense of self-doubt that writers are prone to. It rationalizes why each writer has a unique idea and a valid place from which to speak. I think this becomes increasingly important in teaching female creative writers as theory can give perspective on the history and context of the male-centered writing world and urge females to challenge, express and work with the suggestive norms of their gender.

Similarly, Bishop brings up the idea of the “modes of existence of our discourse.” Our language exists in many different domains, sometimes simultaneously. Who has access to these domains? How do factors such as sex, age, religion or race affect our accessibility? This is an interesting concept to me being that I TA at COA in a remedial English class. This class is at the very roots of trying to give those who do not have access to academic lingo access. However, this is a very complicated endeavor. What is access? Is it a set of rules, a set of guidelines, a set of vocabulary and faked authority? How do you cross over from a place of not having authority to using these words and rules and having the authority? It makes more sense to me, especially in the context of creative writing, that you have authority to write based on the place you are situated, whether it be between two languages, dialects, or modes of speech or not. It makes sense that authority must be explained as the authority to speak from who you are about what you know. This however is in conflict with the restrictions of SWE and the expectations of academia, who impose grammar, structural and cultural norms on writing as a means of judging its credibility and quality.

If what Bishop is essentially arguing is that that theory is both inaccessible and necessary to contextualize the work of writers, it is my understanding that as future teachers of creative writing we are to serve as interpreters. Bishop states: “stories are constructed, convention-driven, and ideologically charged.” This seems to be part of the conclusion she came to in searching for more definitive ways to be a teacher and a writer. It seems to suggest that she believes that teachers need to come to a certain set of definitions for themselves. Some of which include, what is a story? What is a writer? What is a teacher? We have to be able to define to ourselves where we fit in the culture and language and give our students a bit of this knowledge, at least enough to have them asking of themselves where they might be, or even just inspecting the different pressures, norms and controversies that surround the field they are entering. They are not just writers expressing their ideas, but a part of a massive organism with all sorts of history.