Since a writing class I took was probably one of my favorite courses in college, I used to hold writers in high regard as creative people.
Not anymore. For example, what Gladwell just wrote simply illustrates that he has no knowledge whatsoever of how creative process works. For one, all creativity is tweaking. Einstein obtained his relativity theory by basically iteratively tweaking known theories and some others until they looked good enough and fit the observed facts. Not trying to diminish what Einstein did in any way -- very few people if any at the time would have been able to tweak just the right equations. In addition, that iterative tweaking Einstein did required a helluva lot of thinking, something Gladwell surely didn't bother with.
Getting back to Gladwell -- I hope it is clear now that what one ends up with is a world-famous writer who doesn't understand creativity yet manages to write with an "intellectual" voice and publish in The New Yorker.
This is very troubling.
Barely any visual artist or sculptor or architect or even a musician one could name would fall into the category of those who don't understand how creative process works. Yet writers routinely do fall into that category. Not all writers, I'm sure -- I bet Shakespeare knew a few things about creative process that he could teach even Jobs. Yet a disturbingly large proportion of writers -- like 80% of them have no idea what they are talking about when they are talking about creativity.
Only goes to show that one doesn't necessarily need to be creative to speak or write well -- it is enough to serve as a relatively dumb medium through which a fixed language (invented by someone else) passes through.
It's an iterative process of tweaking, then stepping back to take a wider view, then tweaking some more, then stepping back again to evaluate, etc... until either (1) you're intuitively happy with the result or (2) your result conforms to some objective standard, or (3) both. It requires introspection and knowing how to "hack" your intuition. Different people hack their intuition in different ways, here is one way to do it, one that doesn't require drugs and going on a trip to India to meet holy men: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3175272
Some people have this naive romantic notion that you basically go through some period of "suffering" as an artist and then suddenly you have some "grand vision" unfolding in front of you that's hidden to everybody else. What they miss is all the boring, often tweaking-like work that you have to perform before you are faced with that vision. Suffering without doing work doesn't lead to anything.
Sorry that Gladwell has sullied your opinion of writers... but all the good writers (emphasis on "good") I've known and currently know are insanely good at the creative process and lead the way in creative development.
It's the copywriter who produces the creative concepts in an advertising agency. Those commercials you see and those taglines/slogans you remember? Those were the brainchild of a copywriter sitting at a desk somewhere, mulling over ideas, soaking up culture and transforming it into a memorable view of that culture. The copywriter imagines. Then documents. Then edits. Then reimagines. Then lets a bunch of others give their opinions. Then edits some more.
Not sure what writers you've come across, but you might want to ease up on making sweeping statements about all - or even 80% of writers. Oh, and most working writers -- the ones who aren't starving -- are hard workers who don't believe in climbing the mystic mountain to seek out the Muse, as you describe.
Well if the article in question exemplifies Gladwell's thinking, then I will save reading more of him for a rainy day, and will instead read about those people who do things instead of those who talk about those who do. As someone said, one's time on Earth is limited.
Since a writing class I took was probably one of my favorite courses in college, I used to hold writers in high regard as creative people.
Not anymore. For example, what Gladwell just wrote simply illustrates that he has no knowledge whatsoever of how creative process works. For one, all creativity is tweaking. Einstein obtained his relativity theory by basically iteratively tweaking known theories and some others until they looked good enough and fit the observed facts. Not trying to diminish what Einstein did in any way -- very few people if any at the time would have been able to tweak just the right equations. In addition, that iterative tweaking Einstein did required a helluva lot of thinking, something Gladwell surely didn't bother with.
Getting back to Gladwell -- I hope it is clear now that what one ends up with is a world-famous writer who doesn't understand creativity yet manages to write with an "intellectual" voice and publish in The New Yorker.
This is very troubling.
Barely any visual artist or sculptor or architect or even a musician one could name would fall into the category of those who don't understand how creative process works. Yet writers routinely do fall into that category. Not all writers, I'm sure -- I bet Shakespeare knew a few things about creative process that he could teach even Jobs. Yet a disturbingly large proportion of writers -- like 80% of them have no idea what they are talking about when they are talking about creativity.
Only goes to show that one doesn't necessarily need to be creative to speak or write well -- it is enough to serve as a relatively dumb medium through which a fixed language (invented by someone else) passes through.