Taking it as Far as You Can

Bob Dylan & word play

I recently saw No Direction Home, the Martin Scorsese documentary of Bob Dylan in early years, going to the UK and performing.

A snippet of the film showed Dylan riffing off some “dog care” and more signs outside a store. It made me think about how creating grows in layers, and if you don’t jump in and start with the first layer, you will not find your way in—deeper—to the most interesting layers. And the “new” that can come with that.

Take a look:

Note the playfulness. Even Dylan’s body seems to wake up in some way—the way a child does when excited by something. He moves, he waves his hands… This is creativity!

Sometimes I tire of the “outside the box” phrase. We’ve heard it too often.

Rather, we stretch the box. The “box” can be form or structure, or it might be finding this set of signs; whatever is your material is your “box.” And then you have somewhere to be, and to explore. Dylan does not actually step outside the material he’s stumbled over (“found” poems or artwork). He just grows it.

He takes the signs as raw material, and pushes it to an edge. It’s not creating-from-nothing. It’s finding, and pushing.

Are you stuck for inspiration? Get out of your house, go somewhere. Look for words. Or open up to creating words inspired by something—an image, a view, a person walking by. Then immerse in the words, the experience of the words; watch and feel them shift. Let them carry you. Somewhere.

Or take a piece of your work-in-progress, and do the same. Immerse and carry. Let yourself get caught by undertow. Undertow is hidden and dangerous, and going to some unexpected place.

Play! Be aware of the play. Enough to enjoy. Laugh at the end.

Please feel free to post any work you come up with in the comments section. I’d love to read, and am sure others would, too. If you’ve worked through a number of layers, and don’t want to post all, post at least the first and the last, and even note how many iterations are between the two.

When writing deeply, we cannot move from a first vision of a project to some wild and wonderful place; we have to dig. Start with the initial material, and let it go…