what appears to be learning technique is also about stretching your writerly capacities and repertoire of ways to write things.

Yes, absolutely. I was using the word 'technique' to cover every way of expressing your ideas effectively.

Technique/Voice/Style is all kind of mixed up together, I think. One grows a little, allowing the other to stretch a little.

I was considering an amoeba metaphor there but I think I shot my bolt already with the Narnia thing.

I really appreciate all the comments. I've just read them all through again and they're brilliant - thanks to Emma, Michelle, Terry, Sam and everyone.

I've copied some of it to my learning journal, but that's only for my eyes so hope nobody minds.

I'm really starting to understand this. A real breakthrough for me. I am terrible if I don't completely understand something. A lot of people are okay with that but I always want complete clarity.

You're welcome, Deb

Technique/Voice/Style is all kind of mixed up together, I think. One grows a little, allowing the other to stretch a little.

Yes, that's so true. I spend a lot of my teaching life teasing them apart, and they're always trying to curl themselves back together. Which is as it should be, of course.

I am terrible if I don't completely understand something. A lot of people are okay with that but I always want complete clarity.

Never mind voice, what about the Universe? Clear that up.

I used to lie awake at night when I was a kid trying to understand what was outside everything. Now I vaguely understand the scientists' answer, but I'm not satisfied with it. But I'm not going to do better than them, so I simply try not to think about it these days...

I'm really starting to understand this. A real breakthrough for me.

That's brilliant!

And it's been a great discussion

I'm convinced writing is a mixture of intuition and craft, and that we need to draw on both to produce our best work.

In fact, just last night I was reading a really interesting article exploring (amongst several other things) the mix of conscious vs. unconscious in the (self-asserted) writing process of a number of poets. It's a fascinating subject.

I'm convinced writing is a mixture of intuition and craft, and that we need to draw on both to produce our best work.

I'm sure that's right. The initial burst of creativity, followed by editing and improving. (Not that I'm saying it's entirely one and then the other.)

Interestingly (to me, anyway), my brother is a programmer - a real dyed in the wool one who loves what he does - and he says he considers programming a creative process, while most people would consider it logical and technical and mathsy. I mean, it certainly is the latter too. He reckons it's like fiction writing in that it uses both aspects of us.

Yes, it has been a great discussion... You guys are fab!

my brother is a programmer - a real dyed in the wool one who loves what he does - and he says he considers programming a creative process, while most people would consider it logical and technical and mathsy. I mean, it certainly is the latter too. He reckons it's like fiction writing in that it uses both aspects of us.

I agree with your brother. I did it for years, and enjoyed the creative process. And boy, does it train you to find errors. Those missing full stops were logic killers, especially at the end of an If.
That's when the first buds of my wanting-to-write blossomed - when I used to write stories for use as test-data.

Not sure about the programs themselves being works of fiction writing, though. It's difficult to put voice into:
Move X to Y.
or build irony into:
Subtract A from B giving C.

And you could only use present tense. No Added, or Divided, or Moved, or will Go, in a minute or two. Maybe that's why I like to write in present tense, now.

I don't know. Maybe the programming languages now have more opportunities for writerly licence.

considers programming a creative process

Completely agree ... My partner is a programmer (although he uses programming to create is computer-based art & interpretation) and he came to it after training in fine art with a sculpture specialism. He sees plenty of parallels as well. In general I think the divide between the arts & sciences is much smaller than many people think.

[Sorry for the rushed post - just running out the door to work!]

Not sure about the programs themselves being works of fiction writing, though.

Indeed not.

Not sure about the programs themselves being works of fiction writing, though.

That's reserved for the project plans and tech specs.

LoL Gaius.

he says he considers programming a creative process, while most people would consider it logical and technical and mathsy. I mean, it certainly is the latter too. He reckons it's like fiction writing in that it uses both aspects of us.

Oh, I'd absolutely agree. Anyone else read Richard Sennet's The Craftsman? Two of his examples of how true craftsmanliness operates (and yes, we need a gender-neutral term) are the Stradivari workshops in the 18th century, and Linux programmers (I think it was Linux.)

Once you realise that Einstein imagined himself as an electron first, and then worked out the maths to express what he'd experienced imaginatively, you realise how in many ways creative thinking is creative thinking, whatever the field it's happening in. There's an excellent book by Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein (he's a physicist, she's a historian) about creative thinking across all disciplines from ballet dancers to cosmologists.

Pythagoras thought of himself as a poet, and Stravinsky thought of himself as a mathematician...

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And my artist great-aunt said this of her scientist uncles (in which term she included her father, because after all a father is "only a special sort of uncle":

"in their scientific work they showed many of the characteristics of the creative artist: the sense of style, of proportion; the passionate love of their subject; and, above all, the complete integrity and the willingness to take infinite trouble to perfect any piece of work."

I'm convinced writing is a mixture of intuition and craft, and that we need to draw on both to produce our best work.

I'm new here and might be a bit late to the party but wanted to say three years ago I had an academic voice and for the purposes of writing creatively - writing fiction - I saw it had to change. That process has come about by reading others' writing, by trying to adapt the lessons in ways which 'fit' so I assume that underneath it is still my voice.
And while I don't think voice necessarily has to dictate what one's characters say - a seventeenth century blacksmith isn't going to sound like a 21st century journalist - it underpins the whole piece. Something which is perhaps more obvious when readong others' writing than one's own.

LOL Gaius.

That's all very interesting, Emma. It doesn't surprise me. I have been around scientific circles a little, too, and yes, creativity and logic is necessary in many disciplines! I guess it's the magic combination - one without the other can provide some value, but it's the two combined which hit the spot, whether in science, programming or fiction writing.

Sandra, it's being very interesting doing my RLF job, helping with academic writing, because it's actually reinforced what I half-knew anyway: that they're only "different" in the sense that their purpose is different. As we were discussing further up the thread, in some ways once you're really clear on what you're trying to do - work by academic rules in an academic spirit of precision, or evoke feeling and the messiness of real life in creative writing - then the question of how you do it sort-of melts away.

I must blog about the RLF stuff, come to think of it - thanks for reminding me!