Creativity Research and Edgelands

I've been re-reading Dominique Hecq. Here are my notes:

Notes on Dominique Hecq: ‘Creative Writing and Theory without Credentials’ in pp162- Kroll & Harper’s Research Methods in Creative Writing, Palgrave, 2013

Reassess the significance of theory for creative writing research.

‘The object of creative writing inquiry is twofold, namely process and processor.’ (p162)

Focus on psychoanalysis, which ‘sheds light on the creative process and on the very concept of knowledge production in ways that are not envisioned by other models of subjectivity.’ (p162)

She argues ‘for a privileging of a “theory without credentials”, one that would disrupt our certainties and thus open up creative possibilities that can in turn be theorised.’ (p162)

‘Psychoanalysis is useful in that it suggests that both writing and the subject are constructs in the making.’ (pp162-3)

‘My intention is rather to focus on the possible affinities between theory (without a capital ‘t’) and creative writing.’ (p164)

‘…writing presupposes “an active engagement with knowledge producing creative results that embodylevels of understanding and communication” that require to be articulated for the sake of sustenance, expansion and contribution to knowledge.’ (pp164-5)

She quotes Mike Harris’ definition of the process of creative writing as ‘everything that happens to a work before it is “finished”.’ (p165) (in Escaping the Tractor beam…) She and he are talking about thinking, researching, planning, revising and ‘”consciously manipulating the unconscious and being unconsciously driven by it”’. (p165)

‘What interests me about this process, though, is first how one accesses the unconscious and second how one ‘consciously’ manipulates it.’ (p165) (NB: I THINK THIS IS WHAT I’M TRYING TO DO.)

***‘Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts have indeed considered the unconscious to play a significant role in creativity. I personally believe that creative writers are particularly sensitive to their own unconscious processes, and further, that unconscious processes themselves play a crucial role in artistic creation’ (p167) SO DO I. SO…HOW DOES FREUD’S UNCONSCIOUS LINK TO FLOW LINK TO PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY?

‘…theories that are most highly useful to creative writers are those grounded in poststructuralist theories of language, for these enable writers to re-evaluate their ideas about subjectivity, identity, the creative process and communication as well as to re-assess their own writing styles, further develop their craft and formulate their own poetics. Theories grounded in post-structuralist theories of language do alert us to the fact that writing is a making, a construction using language, visual images, sound, silence and rhythm, and that the subject itself is a complex construction. Perhaps we need to think more broadly about the meaning of theory and refuse to equate one theory, or set of theories, with the act of theorising itself.'

'All readers, including creative writers, construct meaning out of their own conscious and unconscious interests.' (p168)

'It is important to recognise and understand that creative writers read, and therefore think, and research differently. An example is that the creative writer caught in the act of active reading is always on the lookout for writing material.' (p168) *LINKS TO WALKING THEORY.

'Research itself, I content, proceeds fro this crystallisation as thoughts are articulated more consciously according to what might be called a methodology of active consciousness whereby knowledge emerges from the unknown to the known. New knowledge is thus produced in three steps: Inductive, deductive and retroactive. In other word, new knowledge is produced "out of synch" from a dialectical process between consciousness and the unconscious.' (p168) (**SEE BELOW ON MY NOVEL RE 'OUT OF SYNCH)

'...the reality of the unconscious, which is the truth which leaves its trace when we write.' (p171

(Me: talking about reflexive practice, she suggests asking specific questions of ourselves as writers, such as How do I write? What conflicts do I identify in myself and in my work? P172)

'This self-reflection promotes what I have called a "methodology of active consciousness"...I mean the process of bringing to consciousness what previously lay beneath the surface, namely something pre-conscious or unconscious.' (p172) (she's referring to Freud, 'The Unconscious', 1915, SE X!V pp166-7) "Methodology of active consciousness" highlights the active participation in the reflexive method of inquiry which is particular to creative writing research (p172)

**LINK TO LOFFLER'S 'ACTIVE REVERIE'?

ME: In terms of process, the refers to: 'those [of us] who describe themselves as "explorers" rather than "planners"... overtly use a "problem finding style", which means that they don't know what they are doing until they have done it.' (p172) THIS LINKS TO A CONVERSATION I HAD WITH ALISON MOOR AND NEIL CAMPBELL LAST WEEK.

Interestingly, I also read something written by an ex-workmate of mine, Lance Hanson, who is also completing his PhD at Wolverhampton in film studies. His article is: Hanson, L. 'Edgelands Aesthetics', Writing Visual Culture, 6, 2015 pp4-19. Here are some exploratory notes and changes I want to make to my novel. I'm wondering if this makes me a 'planner' now...

Andrea Arnold was looking for a setting the feels like an island (Hanson, p3)

'Fitting for a film that deals with isolation and entrapment.' (p3)

Giles Deleuze (1992) '"any-space-whatever" is useful as a means to illustrate the belief that edge lands need not be defined by their relationship the either/or of the country and the city but are spaces imbued with an aesthetic of their own.' (P4)

ME: I NEED TO 'DEPLOY EDGELAND SEMANTICS' (P4) SO, DESERTED FACTORIES, BURNT OUT CARS, SPACES OF LOSS AND LOSS POTENTIAL, CAR LOTS WITH CHEAP CARS, PYLONS, SCRAP YARDS, ALLOTMENTS, TOWPATHS, MOBILE PHONE MASTS (OBJECTS OF POWER).

ALREADY MAPPED OUT LIVES OF PEOPLE.

NEED TO DEPICT THE CANAL NOT AS A SPACE OF SOCIAL DECAY, BUT AS A 'DARK MIRROR THROUGH WHICH THE...PROTAGONIST MUST VIEW THEIR OWN PREJUDICES.' (P5)

Consider CHRONOTOPES.

Edgelands are 'not meant to be seen, except perhaps as a blur from a car window, or as a backdrop of our most mundane activities.' (Farley & Roberts, Edgelands, 2012, p5) THIS IS EASY TO LINK TO WALKING - PERHAPS THEY ARE PLACES WE STUMBLE UPON, OR DRIFT INTO.

'They can be real or they can be imagined or dreamed (Thomassen in Andrews, H. & Roberts, M. 2012 (eds.) Liminal Landscapes: Travel, experience and spaces in between. Abingdon. Routledge). Drifting, physically or cognitively into these edge lands, and perhaps even just acknowledging their existence, removes (or displaces) their reputation as 'non-spaces' or spaces of danger and decay, and instead, re-identifies them as 'a new kind of frontier with an emergent sense of uniqueness.' (Chell, E. 2013. The Soft Estate. Liverpool. The Bluecoate).

The similarities between film and literary representation of space can be examined. Andrew Higson's notion that urban space tended to be aligned to entrapment, and associated with the everyday, whilst rural settings represented pleasure and escape (Higson, A. (1984) "Space, Place, Spectacle: Landscape and Townscape in the 'Kitchen Sink' Film'. Screen 25 (4-5): 2-21. CAN LINK THIS TO ROB'S IDEA OF WRITING POETRY FROM A STILL PICTURE IN HIS MIND, BUT A NOVEL IS FROM A FILM BEING PLAYED OUT IN HIS HEAD.

SO...

This made me think about my own rationale:

Representing the Black Country as having an essential quality of its own, challenging any negative pre-conceptions and presenting it as a space with what Chell 2013 might regard as having 'an emergent sense of uniqueness.' Moreover, that this sense of space and place can be presented in the form of Black Country fiction writing to create a topoaesthesis (an edgeland that now has a sensation of place.)

Protagonist Peter is in exile. He is represented as a wandering protagonist who was drawn to the pleasure and escape of the farmland edgeland of the Black Country, yet he exists on his own edgeland location (the canal) beyond the farm within which he has become confined. The edgeland locations of both his place of work and his home are sites of conflict, escape and illusion.

I need to make him meaner:

Does he fight Young Frankie or is it ok that he fought those men in the church?

Does he kill the dog?

Does he have a tattoo of a tiger on his chest? (symbolising his fearsome character).

Does he have an image on the wall in his boat from artist Zdzislaw Beksinski who said 'I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams.'

I love this image: red sky/fire. Perfect.

Some might see confinement - the narrowboat, the canal, the place itself, but I see this differently. This is like 'Gamble', really about one person, Peter. The space is his, the narrative space. The distance is created by the narrative style: 'He'll say/he'd say/he'll tell us.' This lack of surety creates narrative tension, and according to Hanson: 'Edgeland space is...a stage for transformations.' (p11).

In Savage Messiah, Laura Oldfield Ford uses the term 'Spectral presences' to describe the atmosphere of loss, memory and otherness inherent in edgelands http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/laura-oldfield-ford-interview-i-map-ruptures-london-riots

Peter's narrowboat is within hearing of the road, with the threat of a new 'orbital route'. The boat represents stasis (being moored and being only able to move within the canal system/network anyway) and it also represents movement (ie, not a permanent dwelling - one that can move and isn't permanently moored anywhere) with the sound of traffic in the distance, and the prospect of the Canal & River Trust moving him on. This juxtapositioning of these two things suggests, through ideas of possibility, escape and hiding, only a circularity - as if there isn't any escape.

There must be some mystical, sedate scenes - when the boat starts moving. Here escape and permanence collide but Peter remains between spaces in his old boat, previously used to transport coal and steel, and in the (man-made) canal amongst the rural. This edgeland is a metaphor for his permanent otherness, yes, but it's a place where lurks his imagination, his dreams/nightmares/fears/joys, where he can put things right - a Deleuzian any-space-whatever of 'pure potential (Deleuze, G 1992. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. London: The Athlone Press).

Lefebvre (2006, 9) refers to 'intentional landscape' in cinema. By focusing on specific objects, by PRESENCING them in a contemplative way, I hope to reinforce the topoaesthetic mood. So, say, the lapping of the water from the canal against the breached edges of the towpath, and the horses eating and galloping, whilst, in the background, the stillness of a mobile phone mast or a pylon, with the sound of buzzing in the background. The breach of water onto the earth might represent what Farley & Roberts refer to as the "shifting sands" of edgeland space. I took this picture today, which is good one:

See what I mean. The movement of the grass, you can virtually see (or imagine)and the stillness of not one, but two shopping trolleys right there in the middle.

This isn't about decaying or destroying or spoiling, but full of mystery and possibility. Moments of contemplation.