In the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, Joe Vastano has a lovely essay on how writers have to acknowledge the duality inside them in order to achieve artistic triumph. I couldn’t agree more. Here’s a brief snippet:
Creative people are walking paradoxes; both shrewd and naïve, libidinous yet prudish, and so on. I believe that this paradox forms the basis of the creative tension so essential to artistic triumph—the friction of opposites setting fire to that “third thing,” which goes by yet another name: the Sublime.
Go read the entire essay, “Into the Sublime,” and see what other gems await in Glimmer Train’s latest bulletin.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
I love this! Just what I needed for my morning of writing. I love this way of describing creativity and the sublime. Jane, you sure know how to pick’em.
thank you, Shirley. I always recommend that creative folks I know read Carl Jung’s essay, “The Transcendent Function” for a supremely detailed and amazing explanation of the phenomenon. Blessings to you, and write hard!
Joe Vastano
Thank you for this. I agree wholeheartedly, only because I find myself battling both sides, trying to come to some sort of compromise. Compromise in this context, in my mind, equates to adequate or vanilla or even worse, average. I’ve printed his article and am pinning it to my board. It bears frequent reads, until I “get” it.
thank you, Cindy. I always recommend that creative folks I know read Carl Jung’s essay, “The Transcendent Function” for a supremely detailed and amazing explanation of the phenomenon. Blessings to you, and write hard!
Joe Vastano
For more info on the paradoxical creative personality, I highly recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=creativity+flow+and+the+psychology+of+discovery+and+invention&sprefix=creativity%2Cstripbooks%2C180
Blessings and good fortune to all!
Joe Vastano
Fascinating!