Non-linear creativity

Another example in a very specific area is given by a client in a follow-up interview as he explains the different quality that has come about in his creative work. It used to be that he tried to be orderly. “You begin at the beginning and you progress regularly through to the end.” Now he is aware that the process in himself is different. “When I’m working on an idea, the whole idea develops like the latent image coming out when you develop a photograph. It doesn’t start at one edge and fill in over to the other. It comes in all over. At first all you see is the hazy outine, and you wonder what it’s going to be; and then gradually something fits here and something fits there, and pretty soon it all becomes clear – all at once.”

Carl Rogers – On Becoming a Person Pg 152

Does this describe your own creative process? It certainly resonates with me. I generally start writing and, as I continue, I gradually start to realise what it is that I’m writing. Though I’ve often tended to assume that this was a fault i.e. that my reticence about planning and structuring was symptomatic of an underlying laziness.