Friday, I got to hear Natalie Nixon (author of The Creativity Leap) speak as part of an alumni panel. She was asked to define creativity and gave what may be my favorite definition:
creativity is the toggle between wonder and rigor
What a beautiful envisioning! As I sat with it, it called to my mind Octavia Butler’s “screw inspiration.” Butler was warning about how the dangers of relying on inspiration, that inspiration could become an excuse not to write if she wasn’t feeling it, and that she made a point of writing everyday, whether or not she felt it. The rigor that accompanied the wonder.
Nixon also quoted Twyla Tharp:
Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box.
This variation of “you need to know the rules before breaking them” feels more holistic than the original. A rule is a two-dimensional line in the sand (metaphorically speaking) whereas a box surrounds one in three dimensions. I write mythic fantasy set in an alternate history. Trying to ground my writing in the actual cultures of the ancient Mediterranean brings the rigor, the box into which I fit my writing. The wonder leaps out of the box of actual history into a world in which the pantheons of various cultures muck around with human affairs. And sometimes I rule break just for a better story. But the rigor makes sure those violations are motivated and not just accidence of ignorance, that they bring something that enriches the wonder.
Natalie Nixon was a wonderful speaker. And her definition will stick with me for a long time.
Ramblings 
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