Many Minds

This article is the first part of a two-part series about revision.* When we think about revision, we usually think about reworking the way we are expressing our ideas: restructuring our thoughts and refining the words we’re using to express them. These types of changes are referred to as structural, copy, and line edits—and are usually made in the mid and late stages of the content development process. But there’s a type of revision that comes earlier in creative problem-solving. It’s focused on shifting the approach you’re taking during the formative stages of ideation: revision as the art of seeing from a different perspective, with a fresh mind.** 

Occasionally, when we’re stuck in the middle of working on a project, our approach to solving our problem is pushed in a new direction by a random event, or a new strategy introduced through the use of a pre-programmed random-event generating system such as Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies card deck.*** These random and quasi-random collisions send us off in an unexpected direction that can lead to new and surprising results. But there’s another way of re-envisioning your ideas and working through creative blocks that doesn’t rely on the impact of random events: it’s the conscious development of a council of many minds.

Darwin’s Machine Mind

The educator and author Jason Wirtz has been exploring the creative processes writers use to discover and develop original ideas. Wirtz begins his research article “Creativity in 3D: Poets and Scientists Converge on Writerly Invention,”**** with a story on the limits of looking through one perspective at a time. "Too often," Wirtz writes, “the single vision of one’s discipline is thought to possess all that is necessary to understand complex phenomena holistically.” 

Later in his introduction, Wirtz shares this passage from Charles Darwin’s autobiography on the unintended consequences of his lifelong focus on collecting and categorizing:

I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. [. . .] I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure. [. . .] My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts [. . .] if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness. 

— Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (1887)

When we deprive ourselves of the variety of experiences and perspectives that make up a full, rich life—when we treat our mind like a machine—it becomes a machine. A machine in a closed room. In a previous article, I wrote about “the adjacent possible,” the continuous probing of limits and openings that’s the modus operandi of creative thought. When we close ourselves off from other minds, from art and other forms of creative expression, we close ourselves off from the possibility spaces engagement with other minds creates. We impoverish ourselves. We limit our ability to evolve.

The Shadow Side of Our Culture of Visionaries

We have a cultural tendency to attribute significant creative achievements to one person, one vision, in part because our celebrity culture is focused on spotlighting individuals, not teams or organizations. For example, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, and Lin-Manuel Miranda are rightfully celebrated as visionaries, but they didn’t do it all on their own. Along the way, they sought the support and guidance of others. They sought and incorporated the contributions of others. We should recognize and celebrate those who make life-changing contributions to our culture. But we need to peel away the promotional packaging. They didn’t do it all on their own.

Our tendency to primarily see creative work as the expression of one dominant voice has a shadow side. It’s often the reason why we get stuck in the creative process—we think “Steve Jobs created Apple on his own, I should be able to do it all on my own too.” It’s an unfair comparison, not because we’re not Steve Jobs, but because in this context “Steve Jobs” isn’t a person, he’s an amalgamation of everyone who contributed to Apple’s success.

The collaborations we undertake with others often enable us to produce our best work. But the creative work we do on our own is also a collaboration: A group effort by the many minds we bring to our work—a collaboration between those who embody our fears, those who inspire us, and those who guide us.

Writerly Invention

Jason Wirtz uses the term “writerly invention” to describe “the creative process writers use to originate ideas.” Writerly invention, as Wirtz describes it, integrates three dimensions of knowledge:

Craft knowledge*****: An advanced level of domain knowledge, techniques, skills, and discipline that enables the writer to write “effortlessly.” The development of advanced “craft knowledge” in our chosen domain enables the brain to use its “auto-pilot” mode for the basic cognitive functions required to produce the work we’re focused on and focus on the higher cognitive functions associated with creativity itself: situational awareness, intuition, and improvisation. When we engage these higher levels of cognition, we tap into what neuroscientists refer to as the brain’s “plasticity”—its ability to recognize new connections, form new patterns, and literally change its shape.

Emotional knowledge: The ability to tap into our emotions to move beyond logical thinking and use “the holistic intelligence of emotion” (Wirtz). Neuroscientists and psychologists are increasingly focused on the role that emotions play in helping us make decisions that are beyond our capacity to perform any effective cost-benefit analysis. As Wirtz notes, “In the face of complex decisions the advantages of an exclusively reasoned, logical approach quickly fade.” Our emotions guide us, they help us discover and validate connections between ideas, decide on our next actions, and know when our creative explorations have reached their end point.

The social dimension: The ways we are influenced by others. The social dimension is an expression of the writer’s development of empathy for their imagined audience and the creative work of others. Wirtz connects the social dimension to the Theory of Mind (ToM) concept in psychology—the cognitive skill that enables us to think about mental states, both our own and those of others. Our ability to develop a theory of mind gives us the ability to predict and interpret the behavior of others. The poet William Olsen says:

The mind becomes most aware of itself in the presence of others. Writing towards an audience, even if itís unconscious which for me it probably is, whether it’s an intimate or a real audience or your mother or God is a way to encounter the self more fully. [. . .] When writing you are choosing your own company. You’re saying today my friend will be this writer and this writer and this writer.

— Willam Olsen, as quoted in conversation with Jason Wirtz in “Creativity in 3D: Poets and Scientists Converge on Writerly Invention”  

The poet Diane Wakowski describes another approach to internalizing the influence of others—trying to reinvent “ideal” poems she’s discovered to make them as her own poem:

I say I could never write Wallace Stevens’ “Snowman” or I could never write DH Lawrence’s “Snake” or I could never write William Butler Yeats’ “Song of Wandering Aengus” or “The Second Coming.” On and on is the list of things I couldn’t write but in some way I’m always trying to reinvent perhaps one of those great poems in some way. It’s different from modeling. I hate to use a word like deconstructing, but it’s taking the model apart and putting it together in a different way.

— Diane Wakowski, as quoted in conversation with Jason Wirtz in “Creativity in 3D: Poets and Scientists Converge on Writerly Invention”

Consciously integrating multiple perspectives is like being fluent in several languages. When you explain something in a different language, in many cases, the language you’re translating to doesn’t have the exact same word as the language you’re translating from, so you have to find a conceptually similar word. In the process, you’re expanding your understanding of the concept. You are reaping the benefits of many minds.

The Receptive Stance

Writerly invention—the process of discovering and expressing original ideas—isn’t the result of a set of fixed techniques or tricks. It’s the byproduct of a state of mind that develops as you learn your craft, learn how to integrate the intelligence of your emotions, and expand your empathy for others. As your creative confidence grows, you’re able to move into what Wirtz calls “the receptive stance,” a position of “extreme humility in the face of discovering new ideas.”

In the receptive stance, you are the conduit for creative ideas, not the originator. You’re not trying to control the outcome of your work; you’re surrendering to the material and following it wherever it leads. You trust that the writing process (or creative process) is smarter than you are. The work isn’t made, it’s revealed—to our surprise and delight.

In the next article in this series, I’ll introduce “the council of many minds”—a framework for getting past your creative blocks, integrating new perspectives, and working toward your creative goals.

Footnotes

* I’m using writing as the medium of creative expression in this article, but the ideas I’m covering can be applied to creative work in any medium.

** The editing that takes place in the early stages of the creative process is often referred to as developmental or conceptual editing.

*** See my article "Random Events and Other Useful Distractions" for more on the privileged role of chance and Eno's Oblique Strategies cards.

**** "Creativity in 3D: Poets and Scientists Converge on Writerly Invention,” Wirtz, Jason. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Vol. 39 No. 1, March 2014.

***** Wirtz uses the term "automaticity" for this type of domain expertise.