THE SYNCREATE PODCAST: EMPOWERING CREATIVITY
HOSTED BY MELINDA ROTHOUSE, PHD
WELCOME TO SYNCREATE, WHERE WE EXPLORE THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN CREATIVITY,
PSYCHOLOGY, AND SPIRITUALITY. OUR GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY THE CREATIVE PROCESS,
AND EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CREATIVE.
SUBSCRIBE / FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE
OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS
HOSTED BY MELINDA ROTHOUSE, PHD
WELCOME TO SYNCREATE, WHERE WE EXPLORE THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN CREATIVITY,
PSYCHOLOGY, AND SPIRITUALITY. OUR GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY THE CREATIVE PROCESS,
AND EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CREATIVE.
SUBSCRIBE / FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE
OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS
EPISODE 29: CREATIVE SPARK SERIES - ITERATION
WITH MELINDA ROTHOUSE & CHARLOTTE GULLICK
listen to the audio podcast here:
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO VERSION HERE:
In this episode of our Creative Spark series, Melinda and Charlotte describe the process of iteration, where we revise, refine, rehearse, and otherwise fine-tune and polish up our creative work to bring it to completion. Sometimes iteration requires radical cutting, editing, and reworking. We liken this process to pruning, which actually allows a tree or bush to grow and thrive more fully. It can be painful, but it’s often necessary to bring a piece of work to its final form. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, includes insights and prompts from our book, Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities.
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, take a piece of your creative work that’s in progress, and try editing it, radically re-working it, or starting it over in a completely new way. How might you tell the story differently? What needs cutting? What if you changed the tempo of the song? Notice how the project evolves as a result of this iteration.
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 7: The Syncreate Story, Episode 20: The Syncreate Model of Play, Plan & Produce, Episode 22: Creative Play, Episode 24: Creative Planning, and Episode 26: Produce!.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors, so if you have an idea for a project or a new venture, please reach out to us for 1x1 coaching or join our Syncreate 2024 Coaching Group, starting in July. You can find more information on our website, syncreate.org, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate, and we’re now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, take a piece of your creative work that’s in progress, and try editing it, radically re-working it, or starting it over in a completely new way. How might you tell the story differently? What needs cutting? What if you changed the tempo of the song? Notice how the project evolves as a result of this iteration.
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 7: The Syncreate Story, Episode 20: The Syncreate Model of Play, Plan & Produce, Episode 22: Creative Play, Episode 24: Creative Planning, and Episode 26: Produce!.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors, so if you have an idea for a project or a new venture, please reach out to us for 1x1 coaching or join our Syncreate 2024 Coaching Group, starting in July. You can find more information on our website, syncreate.org, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate, and we’re now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!
EPISODE-SPECIFIC HYPERLINKS
The Syncreate Book
Charlotte Gullick’s Website
Author: Katherine Anne Porter
Syncreate Podcast Episode 14: Anatomy of a Song with Singer/Songwriter George McCormack
Charlotte Gullick’s Website
Author: Katherine Anne Porter
Syncreate Podcast Episode 14: Anatomy of a Song with Singer/Songwriter George McCormack
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to be creative, and our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. I'm Melinda Rothouse, and I help individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life.
Charlotte: And I'm Charlotte Gulick. I'm a writer educator and writing coach. We are the coauthors of a book on the creative process, also called Syncreate.
Melinda: Great. So we're back with another version of our Creative Spark series. And today we're going to be talking about iteration, which is essentially the process of once you have your, you know, initial draft, initial version of whatever sort of creative piece or project you're working on, you know, moving through the revision process, the refining process, the rehearsal process to get to a final draft. So I think sometimes there's a myth that we just it just comes out and it's perfect. On the first try. And rarely, if ever, is that actually the case.
Charlotte: So think of it like a movie montages. Yeah, we can skip through the hard work. And I think we are asking people to not think about the creative process as a montage experience.
Melinda: Yes, exactly. So, you know, maybe we could each share a little bit about our own creative process. You know, it did take me a while personally to learn this, like, particularly with writing. I think for many of my younger years, I just thought, you know, you write it and you sort of edit it while you're writing, and then you're kind of done, and that's it.
And I learned, particularly when I started teaching writing, that actually no, and we've touched on this in some of the Creative Spark episodes before where, you know, there are multiple, multiple stages in any piece of work and, you know, some of the most accomplished writers, musicians, creatives of all kinds go through multiple iterations, multiple drafts before the work is finished. That's why it sometimes takes years to write a book, right?
Charlotte: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think about how this is so critical to one of our missions at Syncreate is to demystify the creative process. And I want to say that again, to demystify the creative process, so important and you hinted at it, but like the idea that you sit down and genius comes out is so destructive and actually antithetical to helping people feel joyous and powerful.
We've talked about this before, but Katherine Anne Porter, a really beautiful, beautiful Texas writer, who wrote about Texas and Mexico. She supposedly revised her pieces 60 times before she said she thought it was finished. And I use that. I mean, I definitely do not revise 60 times, but I wonder what would happen to my work if I did, if I were a little more patient.
Melinda: Yeah, well, I mean, I know that you've been working on one of your books for many, many years now. Tell us a little bit about how it's shifted and changed over time.
Charlotte: Well, I think it's so interesting about how you mention how much time things take. And it definitely has shifted. And I believe that oftentimes our creative impulses come to us of a place where we see it. We have the vision there, and it's only through the iterative process that we actually get there. And I think sometimes we'll be like, I don't know how to do it yet.
So we might give up on a project when it might mean we actually need to grow our skill, our objectivity, our understanding of that core thing that we're writing about. And that's what's going on for me, is because I'm working on this novel that's based on my father's life and I still have to grow my maturity and maybe actually be a little bit older, so I can understand more and fictionalize in a way that's really authentic.
Melinda: Yeah, and I think that's such an important point. You know, sometimes we have an idea and we have an aspiration that we want to create something and we can start it. And then we need just simply more life experience before we can actually bring it to completion. And that can be frustrating because we want to get something done.
But the more we can allow it to sort of simmer, you know, things, when we were kind of talking leading up to this, it's like things take the time they take. They don't always take the time we want them to take. Right?
Charlotte: Absolutely. And I think it's so important to, sometimes I'll look back on my early work and it'll be cringey to me. And I think that actually that's not a generous place to look at my early iterations. I couldn't have gotten where I am if I hadn't written that piece. So I think it's like with a kindness and admiring what those earlier pieces were trying to do, and knowing I'm not giving up, but I'm not ready yet to return to them, and seeing it all as a spectrum in a way, that like that first piece is moving us along, that spectrum to where we get to where we're satisfied with the work.
Melinda: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. So, I mean, I just once again came from rehearsal with George, one of my collaborators, who we featured in Episode 14. And he, you know, he was playing a song for me that, you know, he had started years ago. And I was like, “How many of those do you have?” He goes, “Hundreds.” You know, of these little snippets, these little voice memos, these little ideas.
And then, you know, at some point, maybe years later, like it's ready to come, come out, to you know, take some more final form, you know. So there's no, and there's no set timeline for this kind of thing. And one of the things I think is really important is, you know, kind of the editing process. So sometimes we create something and then, you know, we feel like it's our baby and we don't want to take anything away, even though it actually needs editing or maybe some things need to be cut and that can be really painful.
I had a writing client one time who, anything that she cut out of a of a piece of work, she would kind of stick it at the end under the label of “Orphans.” You know. They're still there. They're just not part of the current version. Maybe they'll find their way into something else. You know, but being willing to go back and get feedback on our work from people that we trust to give us honest, productive feedback, and then having that kind of bravery to edit and cut what needs to be cut. And, you know, kind of like the metaphor of pruning, you know, we have a tree or a bush.
And you know, me personally, I kind of cringe at the idea of like cutting anything because it's alive, you know. And you know, you want it to be able to grow and do its thing. But sometimes it actually benefits from the pruning. It stimulates more growth and it creates a healthier shape. You know, it takes away the, maybe the parts that aren't thriving, and allows the rest of the organism to flourish. So I think there's a metaphor there with our creative work.
Charlotte: Absolutely. You know, the thing about the, I think the trick with the work, is you're not actually cutting them right away. You're just moving them. And you might, there might be seeds for something else. And they're, but they're still there in their way, because they were part of the process.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. So we usually end our episodes with a Creativity Pro-Tip, and the one that's coming to mind for me right now with this is that, you know, maybe challenge yourself. If you have a song, or a piece of writing, or a piece of art that you're working on, you know, try approaching it in a different way, like creating a new draft that's a variation from what you had before. Or maybe you, if it's music, to speed up the tempo or slow down the tempo or, you know, a piece of visual art, you know, maybe whatever it is that you were trying to create, you know, I know artists who paint something and then they'll just completely paint over the canvas and start over. Or they'll have something on the canvas and then they'll like, whitewash the whole thing.
So you can still kind of see what was there. But then, you know, just start something new or maybe it's just a totally different version. Like you save Draft 1 and then you tackle a Draft 2, in a radically different way and see what happens.
So at Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. So if you have an idea for a project or a new venture, please reach out to us for one on one coaching or join our and create 2024 coaching group starting in April [postponed to July].
And we're offering a 10% discount on the coaching series. If you mentioned that, you heard about it through the podcast. So just reach out to us through our website.
Charlotte: You can find more information on our website, Syncreate dot org, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok at Syncreate. And we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: And we're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Charlotte joining us from the Hudson Valley. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us and see you next time.
Charlotte: And I'm Charlotte Gulick. I'm a writer educator and writing coach. We are the coauthors of a book on the creative process, also called Syncreate.
Melinda: Great. So we're back with another version of our Creative Spark series. And today we're going to be talking about iteration, which is essentially the process of once you have your, you know, initial draft, initial version of whatever sort of creative piece or project you're working on, you know, moving through the revision process, the refining process, the rehearsal process to get to a final draft. So I think sometimes there's a myth that we just it just comes out and it's perfect. On the first try. And rarely, if ever, is that actually the case.
Charlotte: So think of it like a movie montages. Yeah, we can skip through the hard work. And I think we are asking people to not think about the creative process as a montage experience.
Melinda: Yes, exactly. So, you know, maybe we could each share a little bit about our own creative process. You know, it did take me a while personally to learn this, like, particularly with writing. I think for many of my younger years, I just thought, you know, you write it and you sort of edit it while you're writing, and then you're kind of done, and that's it.
And I learned, particularly when I started teaching writing, that actually no, and we've touched on this in some of the Creative Spark episodes before where, you know, there are multiple, multiple stages in any piece of work and, you know, some of the most accomplished writers, musicians, creatives of all kinds go through multiple iterations, multiple drafts before the work is finished. That's why it sometimes takes years to write a book, right?
Charlotte: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think about how this is so critical to one of our missions at Syncreate is to demystify the creative process. And I want to say that again, to demystify the creative process, so important and you hinted at it, but like the idea that you sit down and genius comes out is so destructive and actually antithetical to helping people feel joyous and powerful.
We've talked about this before, but Katherine Anne Porter, a really beautiful, beautiful Texas writer, who wrote about Texas and Mexico. She supposedly revised her pieces 60 times before she said she thought it was finished. And I use that. I mean, I definitely do not revise 60 times, but I wonder what would happen to my work if I did, if I were a little more patient.
Melinda: Yeah, well, I mean, I know that you've been working on one of your books for many, many years now. Tell us a little bit about how it's shifted and changed over time.
Charlotte: Well, I think it's so interesting about how you mention how much time things take. And it definitely has shifted. And I believe that oftentimes our creative impulses come to us of a place where we see it. We have the vision there, and it's only through the iterative process that we actually get there. And I think sometimes we'll be like, I don't know how to do it yet.
So we might give up on a project when it might mean we actually need to grow our skill, our objectivity, our understanding of that core thing that we're writing about. And that's what's going on for me, is because I'm working on this novel that's based on my father's life and I still have to grow my maturity and maybe actually be a little bit older, so I can understand more and fictionalize in a way that's really authentic.
Melinda: Yeah, and I think that's such an important point. You know, sometimes we have an idea and we have an aspiration that we want to create something and we can start it. And then we need just simply more life experience before we can actually bring it to completion. And that can be frustrating because we want to get something done.
But the more we can allow it to sort of simmer, you know, things, when we were kind of talking leading up to this, it's like things take the time they take. They don't always take the time we want them to take. Right?
Charlotte: Absolutely. And I think it's so important to, sometimes I'll look back on my early work and it'll be cringey to me. And I think that actually that's not a generous place to look at my early iterations. I couldn't have gotten where I am if I hadn't written that piece. So I think it's like with a kindness and admiring what those earlier pieces were trying to do, and knowing I'm not giving up, but I'm not ready yet to return to them, and seeing it all as a spectrum in a way, that like that first piece is moving us along, that spectrum to where we get to where we're satisfied with the work.
Melinda: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. So, I mean, I just once again came from rehearsal with George, one of my collaborators, who we featured in Episode 14. And he, you know, he was playing a song for me that, you know, he had started years ago. And I was like, “How many of those do you have?” He goes, “Hundreds.” You know, of these little snippets, these little voice memos, these little ideas.
And then, you know, at some point, maybe years later, like it's ready to come, come out, to you know, take some more final form, you know. So there's no, and there's no set timeline for this kind of thing. And one of the things I think is really important is, you know, kind of the editing process. So sometimes we create something and then, you know, we feel like it's our baby and we don't want to take anything away, even though it actually needs editing or maybe some things need to be cut and that can be really painful.
I had a writing client one time who, anything that she cut out of a of a piece of work, she would kind of stick it at the end under the label of “Orphans.” You know. They're still there. They're just not part of the current version. Maybe they'll find their way into something else. You know, but being willing to go back and get feedback on our work from people that we trust to give us honest, productive feedback, and then having that kind of bravery to edit and cut what needs to be cut. And, you know, kind of like the metaphor of pruning, you know, we have a tree or a bush.
And you know, me personally, I kind of cringe at the idea of like cutting anything because it's alive, you know. And you know, you want it to be able to grow and do its thing. But sometimes it actually benefits from the pruning. It stimulates more growth and it creates a healthier shape. You know, it takes away the, maybe the parts that aren't thriving, and allows the rest of the organism to flourish. So I think there's a metaphor there with our creative work.
Charlotte: Absolutely. You know, the thing about the, I think the trick with the work, is you're not actually cutting them right away. You're just moving them. And you might, there might be seeds for something else. And they're, but they're still there in their way, because they were part of the process.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. So we usually end our episodes with a Creativity Pro-Tip, and the one that's coming to mind for me right now with this is that, you know, maybe challenge yourself. If you have a song, or a piece of writing, or a piece of art that you're working on, you know, try approaching it in a different way, like creating a new draft that's a variation from what you had before. Or maybe you, if it's music, to speed up the tempo or slow down the tempo or, you know, a piece of visual art, you know, maybe whatever it is that you were trying to create, you know, I know artists who paint something and then they'll just completely paint over the canvas and start over. Or they'll have something on the canvas and then they'll like, whitewash the whole thing.
So you can still kind of see what was there. But then, you know, just start something new or maybe it's just a totally different version. Like you save Draft 1 and then you tackle a Draft 2, in a radically different way and see what happens.
So at Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. So if you have an idea for a project or a new venture, please reach out to us for one on one coaching or join our and create 2024 coaching group starting in April [postponed to July].
And we're offering a 10% discount on the coaching series. If you mentioned that, you heard about it through the podcast. So just reach out to us through our website.
Charlotte: You can find more information on our website, Syncreate dot org, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok at Syncreate. And we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: And we're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Charlotte joining us from the Hudson Valley. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us and see you next time.