Creative Marathon Report - Summer Solstice 2010

So, I pronounced the creative marathon officially over around 7:30 pm today after a solid 13+ hours. The goal was to create 20 pieces of original work in one day. Did I make it? Read on to find out.

Here's a run-down of what my day looked like:

I woke up around 5:30 (I haven't been sleeping well lately and having a bad head cold did not help). Ate breakfast and checked the online world to make sure everybody was still here.

About 6:15, I got to work and wrote my first song, on a topic suggested by a conversation with Cynthia Gunsinger at Jamie Ridler's Groove-Back Dance Party last Sunday night. I like to gather ideas before a marathon, though if I'm adhering strictly to the rules, I don't work on them at all in advance, I just write them down and save them up for the day of.

I finished that first song around 7:30 and leapt into the next one, a quickie, which I finished around 8 a.m.

My fingers were sore after that (I haven't been playing guitar frequently enough lately), so I took a break to create a pastel abstract, humming while I drew. That humming sparked words, which sparked a poem/spoken word piece. Pieces #3 and #4 done.

After that, I sat at the computer for a bit and created the artwork for my new album cover (Item #5, though this was kind of cheating because I already had the concept totally worked out beforehand. However, it needed to get done and it was a nice break.)

For Item #6, I wrote another song, but wasn't very happy with it. Discouraged, I decided for Item #7 that I would create a nap - a completely unique and original nap. I lay down, but couldn't get to sleep and instead, wrote another song, an epic murder ballad with 9 verses.

Then, I started writing another song (Item #8), but stopped to make lunch and took another internet break to update on the marathon, check in with the rest of the world and cavill about the G20 disruptions in Toronto.*

Then, I started this blog post, which either counts as Item #9, or as the final item, depending on how I decide to tally everything at the end of the day.

Afterwards, I finished the song I had started earlier (Item #8) and wrote it down. I gave myself a hypothetical gold star for using the word "oligarchies" in it - definitely a first for me.

I was a bit at a loss after that, I must admit. It was about 1:30 and I was getting tired and thought maybe I'd just pack it in. Then I thought about my YA novel. Big confession: I'm a closeted novel-writer. I almost never talk about it. To anybody. ("If you talk about it, you won't write it." Though, to be honest, I've neither talked about it NOR written a word for almost a year. I started writing this book in 2002 - it's okay, you can go ahead and laugh, I understand.) So, anyway, I opened it up and completely reworked the beginning of the book, writing 5 brand new chapters in the remaining 5 hours of the marathon.

So, total tally: 5 songs, 1 album cover, 1 pastel abstract, 1 poem, 1 blog post and 5 chapters of a YA novel. Total pieces of original work: 14, but the writing was pretty significant and I feel like it brings the total to the equivalent of 20 items, or maybe more, even with the deduction of the album cover, that wasn't conceptualized during the marathon. In my personal opinion, the album cover, 2 of the songs and the 5 chapters are keepers and the rest is pretty much dreck. Not bad for one long, happy day.**

*I had a lot of fun sharing my creative marathon on Facebook and on Twitter (using the hashtag #creativemarathon). Many thanks go out to my Facebook friends and Twitter comrades for all of their encouragement.
**I wish to note that this was a great way to spend a day with a bad cold. It kept me at home and quiet, without getting bored or down-hearted. Plus, I am now totally exhausted which gives me a better shot at a decent night's sleep tonight. After my rehearsal for Thursday's Pollinator's Cabaret.

Greater than the sum of its parts

I'm busy working out the track order for my upcoming cd, The Day the Money Run Out. I am finding it a fascinating process. We've recorded 14 songs, so how many possibilities does that add up to? Anyone want to do the math for me? (If I remember anything from Grade 10, I believe that might involve exponents).

Some choices are so easy: the first and last songs are no brainers (Buy More Buddhas and Never Too Late, respectively), and for some unknown reason, it seems dead obvious to me - like a law of nature - that the title track should either be Track 3 or Track 4. Why? I have no idea, except that my favourite song on an album is so often the third or fourth, that it can't be a coincidence. As for the rest of it, it's all trial and error, moving things around, listening, rearranging, trying to create the right flow of tempo, theme, key.

How do you approach these kinds of tasks? Not necessarily in terms of an album: what about set lists or scenes in a story or play, arranging quilt squares or photos in an album or pieces of art for a gallery show (or on your walls at home)? What are the rules you're guided by, the beliefs, the prejudices? I'm curious to learn more about how ordering contributes to the impact of creative work, how a greater whole is created out of different elements.

Creative Marathoning

I know a lot of long distance runners, which is a pretty weird thing since I am a sprinter (in the sense of being willing to run short distances to catch a bus). I guess I got jealous of all of the training and the runner's high my friends described, and thought, there must be some way I can get the same effects doing something I love.

So, I started doing creative marathons. Marathon is really a misnomer here, because the event is more like a Creative IronMan. It requires stamina as well as inspiration, since it is a 12-hour event in which participants devote an entire day to creating in any way they choose. The goal is to create 20 original pieces of work in one day, in one or more creative disciplines – it might be 20 songs or 20 paintings, 20 quilt squares, 20 poems, 20 photographs, or 20 of anything! It’s amazing what great songs and art can be created in these sessions, and no surprise that some truly awful songs and art also get produced. And that’s all part of the fun.

And, it's also part of the point. Often, we are held back from creating by the voices in our head that say, "This is no good. It's not working. I can't do this." During a creative marathon, those voices usually get exhausted and give up, freeing each participant to create work without editing themselves. This is usually accompanied by giddiness, euphoria and an 'anything goes' attitude: the creative's high.

At the end of the marathon, participants can organize an optional potluck dinner party and show some of their work: I encourage people to share the work they like the best and the piece they think is the worst and/or funniest. In a context that makes creating feel like play again, we open ourselves up to our creativity and delight in our own and each other's abilities and talents.

I try to plan the marathons to take place near an equinox or solstice, but they are notoriously rescheduled. I welcome people to contact me to join in on the next one, which will take place on June 19, 2010 - or organize their own. The idea for these marathons was inspired by the book, “The Frustrated Songwriter’s Handbook” written by a Nicholas Dobson and Karl Koryat, a couple of members of the Immersion Composition Society. Visit their web site and/or buy their book; you'll find lots of great ideas to get your creative juices flowing.