I’m not creative,
except in the sense that every human being is creative,
and, if every human is creative,
the word is fairly useless.
I’m not a creative writer,
except in the sense that every writer is creative,
and, if every writer is creative,
the word is superfluous.
I am simply
a person who writes,
a person who writes frequently
a person who writes in a certain style.
(I used to write letters every day and thought my letters were attractive.)
I’m cheesed off by the quantity of left-handed people who are ‘creative’.
I know the word has colloquial meanings –
people with original ideas
people who find brand new ways
artists, designers,
theatre, television, radio, film people
engineers, architects
marketing people
people who get their work exhibited
many more I can’t think of.
(As if dentists & grave-diggers weren’t creatives)
How useful is creative as a distinguishing word?
How often do you wish to say
‘you’re a creative person, a very creative person‘
and, by implication,
‘that person over there isn’t creative,
has barely a creative bone in their body’?
(I like ‘creativity means not copying‘
Feran Adria from elBulli said that)
When I write something people call creative,
I don’t know what they’d label ‘ordinary’.
I don’t know what criteria people use.
(I fear the lowest common denominator is ‘creative’.)
If I knew what standards people used
to describe a writer as creative
I’d understand.
The one thing I’m sure of,
I don’t dream of myself as a creative being.
