In this Issue

• Giveaway Celebrating the Third Anniversary of Playing by Heart
• Virtual Visits
• Trusting in Unconscious Creativity
  

Celebrating the Third Anniversary of Playing by Heart

     I mentioned in the May issue of this creativity newsletter that I might skip the August edition. That's exactly what I did, which is why you haven't heard from me for four months. I'm thinking a quarterly newsletter may work out better for me than every other month. So I'm giving that a try beginning with this issue.

     For those of you who may not know: I'm currently running a book giveaway to celebrate the third anniversary of the release of Playing by Heart. It's hard to believe the book's been out that long! If you haven't entered yet for a chance to win an autographed copy, you can do so on my website. I haven't had many entries so far, so the odds of winning are still good. The giveaway ends Sept. 30.

     If you'd prefer to simply buy a copy, the paperback happens to be discounted right now from Amazon and Target. While I always encourage supporting your local bookseller, I understand that's not an option for everyone. So here are the links: Amazon and Target.  As always, I'm happy to send an autographed bookplate to those who buy the paperbacks of either of my novels. Just reply to this email with your mailing address info.

Virtual Visits

    One unexpected "silver lining" of the pandemic is that people are getting more comfortable with meeting virtually via such tools as Zoom, Google Meet, and Facebook Rooms. I'm currently setting up a videochat with an adult group that will be reading Rosa, Sola soon. I'm happy to speak informally to book clubs, classrooms, and homeschool groups for free. (I do charge a fee for formal presentations.) If you're interested, you can contact me by simply replying to this email.

Trusting in Unconscious Creativity

     In my January 2020 newsletter, I shared a little about my poetry-centered work-in-progress (WIP). As I mentioned then, I've been enjoying the challenge of writing in poetry forms that are new to me. Many of the forms in my WIP are based on syllable counts. In June, I decided to combine a syllable count-based form with a form recently invented by my one of my co-bloggers, April Halprin Wayland. The result was the following Syllable-Square/In One Word poem. In a Syllable-Square poem, the number of syllables per line equals the number of lines in the poem. For an In One Word poem, you choose a core word, and then each line of the poem must end with words made from the letters in the core word. In this case, my core word was mathematics. You can read more about the poem in my TeachingAuthors' blog post.

     I had great fun writing the above poem. Luckily, it fell into place after only a few revisions. But that's not always the case. I was recently working on a poem in another syllable-based form, a Triquain, for my WIP.  I went through many drafts before I thought it was good enough to send to my critique group. But their feedback confirmed my fear that it wasn't quite right yet. After many more failed attempts, I decided the poem might would work better in a different form. So I rewrote it as an Etheree. That version was an improvement, but I was still dissatisfied. I spent hours trying to get the Etheree version to work. In the end, I gave up. I quit that day's work feeling frustrated and unsure what to do next.

     Then, that evening, I was relaxing with a jigsaw puzzle, trying to place a piece into a mountainside scene, when a line popped into my head that would fix the Etheree poem. I quickly jotted down the line. The next morning, I realized it didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but the line did lead me to a satisfying ending for my poem.   

     The experience reminded me of the power of the unconscious mind. It's not unusual for me to solve a problem when I'm not consciously working on it. Often, taking a walk, a shower, or even a nap, can give my brain the break it needs to find a solution on its own. Yet, instead of trusting my unconscious mind, I usually cling to the idea that the only way to find the answer is to tackle it head on. As I discovered with the Etheree, that approach can be counter-productive.

     I searched online for information about "unconscious creativity" and found this article about research on the process. As the article explains, we often need to "step back to step forward." The piece ends with this quote from Eric Kandel's book The Age of Insight:

“When we take the wrong approach to a problem,
which happens often, we get nowhere by continuing
to think about it. But if we refrain from thinking
about the problem and distract ourselves…
[we] transition from a rigid, convergent perspective
to an associative, divergent perspective.”

     That "divergent perspective" can be just the creative boost we need. I hope that the next time I'm stuck in my writing process, I'll remember to take a break and give my unconscious mind a chance to help.

     How about you? Has your unconscious mind ever helped in your creative process? If so, I'd love to know how. Just reply to this email with your story.

     That's all for this month. Watch for my next newsletter in December. Until then, take care!

P.S. If someone forwarded this newsletter to you or you're reading it online, I encourage you to become a subscriber so you don't miss an issue. You can do so here.

Copyright © 2020 Carmela A. Martino. All rights reserved.

Please note: MailerLite is a third-party provider that manages this newsletter subscription list using industry standard technologies. MailerLite’s privacy policy is available here. I will never share subscriber information with anyone else. You can unsubscribe from this newsletter by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the end of this email.