The joy of creation

In the waiting room at a specialists office today I picked up the exhibition booklet from a 2007 exhibition of 'outsider art'by Arts Project Australia (APA). I flicked through the book and started reading the opening notes about the exhibition, which were about the history of 'outsider art' and the very notion of classifying the art of people who have mental or intellectual disabilities as 'outside' the cultural art norm.

Unusually, the specialist was running on time so I didn't get to read all the opening notes or look at all the art in the book. But one thing the critic wrote really struck me: that all the pieces in the exhibition possessed the 'joy of creation'.

Sometimes when I'm reading fiction I feel the writer's hard work as they strive for that 'right' word or phrase, that doesn't end up coming out 'right' at all because the strain of striving shows. And then I read other books (recently, Notes on a Scandal, The Master and Margarita) and the joy within the writing really shines through.

Too often in writing I (and others) get sidetracked by the need to be clever or new or fresh or groundbreaking or whatever. When really that is missing the point. Good writing doesn't come easily, but in some ways, great writing does. Because great writing comes when you let yourself go and just let the words out.

You might be the only person who ever reads those words. But if they really express your personal joy in writing, then that is great writing.