Why And How Should A Writer Be Like A Sponge?
Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him?
Sigmund Freud
The writers or rather aspiring writers (here I am not talking about social media activists whose sole aim seems to post silly, meaningless and/or ready-made tidbits to get more and more attention), in search of new ideas, have to constantly absorb material from multiple sources, whether it’s blog posts, books, newspapers, magazines, movies, or conversations/debates with people of knowledge and wisdom.
And although writing is an art or rather a craft that one needs to learn but writing well and conveying a meaningful message through this craft is a constant struggle and as T.S.Eliot aptly puts it there is always “the intolerable wrestle with words and meanings.” However, the most difficult or rather a dreadful challenge any writer can face, in the opinion of many, is that of writing the first few lines (or first few pages in case of a book) after having decided or felt an urge to write or convey something that can have some value for the readers. Thus as a literary pundit points out, “every writer faces the terror of beginning, a dread rivaled only by the struggle to find an ending that achieves a sense of fullness, if not of completeness or closure.”
Another notable point is that even though purpose of writing is more important than one’s desire to express oneself and writers play an immense role in society’s development, serving as distributors of ideas and information, if one has no ability to write in an organized way then purpose can also not be achieved. And though to attain this ability one has to learn many rules (like keeping a diary or journal to note and save ideas, never judging your first draft, keeping it simple, getting feedback etc.), but being a sponge is believed to be the only part of what it takes to be a successful or celebrated writer.
Thus starting with “being a sponge” is the first and crucial step in the creative process. It means remaining open to the whole experience of life without prejudices/preconceived notions or unconscious biases and absorb as much and as diverse ideas as possible. It also means remaining aware of one’s surroundings, noticing, allowing openness and curiosity. It also means to be tirelessly driven to seek and absorb new information. In the words of Dave Balter (financial services professional and writer), this means someone who is highly curious, possibly even somewhat obsessive, about gathering data and learning from it. However, writer is more concerned with gathering knowledge and ideas than just data.
Once your “Idea-Box” seems full to the capacity or you feel that now it is time to share, then comes the next step that is of filtering. Sponge not only does absorb a lot, but it also filters the information that has been absorbed. It means separating the components of the mixture. It enables one to evaluate and then throw away the unwanted, valueless or shallow information/ideas. Coming up with ideas is relatively easy — anyone can have ideas but the important thing is to know which ideas are worth sharing.
After you have swallowed and then filtered the ideas, you have to share it with your readers. It means being able to return what has been absorbed but only after purifying the material and separating the relevant and valuable from the irrelevant and useless and necessary from the unnecessary.
There is also another category of writers who are called “Electric Fan Writers” and according to Peter Pesic (director of the Science Institute at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico and a writer, pianist and educator), almost all writers can be divided into electric-fan writers and sponge writers. Sponge writers , according to him are those whose strong ability to read and analyze their surroundings lets them bring together a multitude of knowledge, organize it, think it through, and transform it into a work of literature, whether fiction or nonfiction, whether the writer is a poet, narrator, or essayist. And he considers Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig, and Pérez Galdós, for instance, sponge novelists. On the other hand he defines Electric-fan writers as those who do not work from the outside in but from the inside out: their writing reproduces their inner world, as occurs with poets and with authors such as Dostoevsky and Edgar Allan Poe.
However, you can be an “electric-fan writer” only by default and not by design. Therefore, if you don’t have a natural instinct or talent for writing, you must try to be like a sponge. And the first step towards the achievement of this objective is to start reading and becoming a great reader. Read. Read everything. But you must also have the ability to observe and reflect as mere reading and reading will not help. Observing and reflecting will also help you do better filtering. When you acquire the ability to filter too then you can read all kinds of stuff without any risk or danger of being influenced. Hence you can read stuff you know you like and stuff you don’t like. Read everything you can get your hands on because what you absorb will subconsciously become a part of your writing. The more diversely you read, the more distinctive your voice will be when you write.
However, last but not the least, never make earning money or attention your primary motive otherwise your writing will lose all the charm and novelty. Writing only for the fame and fortune will not enable you to have positive impact on the world around that is already suffering due to spread of disinformation and propaganda in the name of information and knowledge.
And as some critics are of the view, writing for fame or fortune only can also create wrong priorities. What talents God has given us, He has given us for a reason. They are gifts, but they are also responsibilities.
In short as Freud puts it, “The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously — that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion — while separating it sharply from reality.”
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References:
i) https://imagejournal.org/article/the-humiliation-of-the-word/
ii) https://unlockedbox.com/creative-process-how-to-be-a-sponge/
