Creative Conflict

From ‘grrr’ to ‘yay’: Creative collaboration may not be easy, but the results can be satisfying and unique.

Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving… Conflict is the sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity. John Dewey, American educator and philosopher.

Baker and Smith don’t always agree, but is this really such a bad thing? Short of stomping and screaming, a bit of disagreement can be a productive and positive force, and here’s two reasons why. See if you agree with us.

1. It forces us not to be lazy with our work
Sometimes one of us has worked hard on some particular words and the reaction from Baker or Smith is “Meh! It’s just not doing it for me”. Or “the words look good but they don’t make emotional sense”. Or “I can’t imagine that character saying that”. And the reaction is usually right. Our first choice is not always our best choice – and if it is, we’ve had to actively justify it rather than letting a hackneyed image or a cliched word slide through. We’re always reminded of the lesson of the great writing instructor Robert McKee who says (wildly paraphrasing here) that amateurs can never edit their work because they fall in love with their first draft; professionals are never satisfied.

2.  Difference creates stronger work
Baker is a flitterer, Smith is a craftsman. Baker is a generalist, Smith is a specialist. Baker likes big ideas, Smith can happily work away on details for hours. Baker’s into laissez-faire (is that a fancy French word for lazy?) and Smith likes to work at it. We drive each other nuts on a regular basis.

But when it comes to building a story, Baker is inspired by the big ideas she loves to collect (teleology anyone?), Smith picks up the ball and turns a concept into a beautifully written first draft – but one that we definitely won’t fall in love with. Baker likes to refine and revise, checking the logic seeing what doesn’t fit, what’s missing, where the rhythm is out, where the grammar is wrong. Smith is never happy with the final draft and will keep pushing for improvement, even if it means junking 17 versions and starting the story from scratch. Baker likes to rescue the best parts of early drafts and meld them with the new story. And refine and revise again until eventually we have a story that hopefully children will love to read.

The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker

I know plenty of 40-year-olds that don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. I know kids that know exactly what they want to be.

I remember a 5-year old school friend that wanted to be a fox. I don’t know if it was for the working hours and benefits, the fur, or if it was simply a lifestyle choice, but it was a cool idea. It sure beat my half-hearted plans to be a motorcycle cop, a decision based entirely on the aesthetics of wearing reflective sunglasses and racing around dirt roads while a funky soundtrack was amplified to all my good citizens. The man was in town.

Some top choices by kids: Astronaut, teacher, ballerina, rock star, ninja and …

What did you want to be when you were very young? Let us know.

Dreaming with your feet

Somebody once said there are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them. Actually, many people have said things about dancing, and now Baker and Smith are happily dreaming up their own spin on movement in a little tale about the poetry of the feet.  Matt Davidson has visualised some rough imagery for our story of love, loneliness, joy and a cat and dog.

The Benefits of Daydreaming

Baker and Smith reckon that daydreaming is a bit underrated on the scale of life’s curriculum.

Life seems to start off with us thinking anything is possible before options inevitably narrow and we accept our lot. Freewheeling attitudes in our youth are often a thin veneer for a conservatism ready to take over at ‘a certain age’. One time radical uni-types fall into middle age and demand their cherubs knuckle down or be damned. On the other hand, creativity has had pretty good press in recent years and people are seeing it as one important ingredient for the kit bag you take into the big wide world.

I have had conversations with well meaning parents that list a child’s schedule; maths tutoring, violin lessons, language class, ballet, after school care. ‘I wish they were a bit more creative’ is an occasional admission. Just where you squeeze that in to such a schedule though is the conundrum. Head in the cloud equals free play. Daydreaming can’t be hothoused, and you can’t study it in accelerated units.

Baker Smith has benefitted from staring into the big blue sky, and probably more so than from trying to memorise the table of elements. Daydreaming has solved many of our problems and created useful ideas to incorporate into life. I’m not saying we drift about in a perpetual cumulonimbus bliss reinventing life as we know it, but it’s worth trying sometimes.

Our unofficial list to the benefits of daydreaming:

1. Connecting ideas that may not normally belong together
2. Calm the mind
3. Solve problems
4. Escape
5. Thoughts can become things to benefit the future
6. Cure for boredom (not a result of it)
7. No age barriers
8. Invent new worlds
9. Entertain yourself
10. It’s not cost prohibitive