Taken by the Wind » Creativity

Personality Types and Blogging: How Personality May Affect Your Writing

Reannon Muth — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:52:18 +0000

Photo by Ed Yourdon

Side-stepping away from travel for a half-a-second, this post is about my second favorite activity: writing. I stumbled upon this girl’s blog a while back and found it fascinating. In it, she outlines the strengths and weaknesses of various personality types as they relate to people’s ability to write. If you don’t know your Myers-Briggs personality type, you’ll have to take the test first (a shortened version is available online for free). You can view a complete list of all 16 ‘writer’ personality types on her website, but I’ve included a few interesting ones below.

INFP Writing Personality

From the blog:

“Work best in a quiet environment where they won’t be interrupted. They like autonomy so they can perfect their writing according to their own high standards without having to follow someone else’s schedule.

Prefer writing about personal topics. You may lose your creative drive if the subject isn’t meaningful to you. If so, try taking an angle that allows you to write about your feelings on the topic. If you’re an INFP technical writer, look for ways to connect with readers by anticipating and meeting their needs.”

Famous INFP writers: Shakespeare, Yeats, Emily Bronte, JRR Tolkein, Amy Tan

ISFP Writing Personality

From the blog:

“ISFP writers are acutely aware of the sensations in their physical world. They are adept at conveying the feelings associated with texture, color, and sound. ISFPs want to connect with their audience on a personal level and can have difficulty writing if unsure of the audience’s expectations. Their focus on others is so strong that they may hesitate to express their own deeply held beliefs. But if they learn to trust their voice, they can communicate their gifts of quiet joy and keen perceptions to their readers.”

Famous ISFP writers: Eminem

ENFP Writing Personality

From the blog:

“ENFP writers are creative souls with an ear for language. They find abundant inspiration in the world around them. But they can lose steam quickly if the topic is dull, which can lead to procrastination and missed deadlines. If you’re an ENFP, you’ll likely find that talking about the topic with others can help you maintain your interest and discover new approaches. Too much isolation can make writing a chore.

Famous ENFP writers: Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Dr. Seuss

Creativity: Where does it come from?

Reannon Muth — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 02:40:15 +0000

I watched this 19-minute speech by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love) the other night and loved the little anecdote she gave about creative inspiration. I’ve included a transcript of it below, but you should also watch the whole clip. Her speech about ‘nurturing creativity’ is honest and spot-on.

Here’s the exert:

“I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone, who’s now in her 90s, but she’s been a poet her entire life and she told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet.

She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, “run like hell.” And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page.

And other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she’d be running and running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it “for another poet.” ”

I could relate to this, especially that last line about the poem looking “for another poet.”

About three years ago, I had an idea for a young-adult novel. I was working at a bookstore in New York at the time, when Alanis Morissette’s famous break-up song “You Oughta Know” came on the stereo. I remember being struck with this idea to write a novel about a 16-year-old girl whose ex-boyfriend records a break-up song about her. What might it be like to get into your car, turn on the radio and hear your ex-boyfriend’s voice singing about the intimate details of your relationship? I wondered. I felt the idea swelling up in me like a balloon. And I had this intense urge to get it down on paper before it burst and disappeared.

Well, although I did get the idea down on paper and thought about it often over the next few years, I never did much with it. Then a few months ago, I was in Barnes and Noble when I saw it. My book! It was called Audrey, Wait! and here’s the School Library Journal’s recap of the plot: “When 16-year-old Audrey decides to dump her band-singer boyfriend, she has no idea that he will go on to write a chart-topping song about their break-up.”

I actually read the book and it’s good. It’s funny and clever and perfect in every way except for the fact that the name on the cover is Robin and not Reannon. And get this, this Robin girl (a first-time novelist) worked in a bookstore and was inspired to write the novel while listening to a break-up song.

Coincidence? Probably. But I prefer to think when I failed to listen to my muse, she gave up and pawned the great book idea off to someone else.

Where do you think creativity comes from? And how does the creative process work for you? Do your creative ideas come to you suddenly like lightning bolts? Or is it more of a gradual process that you have to work at (like it is for Elizabeth Gilbert)?

Living abroad makes you more creative…But what happens after you return home?

Reannon Muth — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:15:00 +0000

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.” — Henry David Thoreau

Lately I’ve been felt so uninspired…so stuck. It seems that every time I settle down in front of my computer with a cup of coffee and the resolution to work write something (anything!), I just end up spending the entire afternoon watching the screen cursor go blink, blink, blink as my mind mutinously continues to go blank, blank, blank. It’s so frustrating! And I’ve tried all of the usual remedies, (reading, napping, going for a walk) but to no avail. It’s like my well of creativity has dried up. And even though I know that’s a horribly cliched comparison, it’s all my uninventive brain can come up at the moment.

This was never a problem when I lived in Japan. Or in Austria or Germany either, for that matter. No, when I lived abroad, my mind seemed to be overflowing with an endless surplus of creative ideas. And not just ones that involved stories or blog posts either, but business ideas and art projects as well. My closet is stacked with notebooks outlining plans for the coffee shop I’d one day open or the design ideas for the youth hostel I’d eventually own. In Japan, I’d stay up late into the night painting and spend my weekends sitting in cafes knitting handbags for friends. But back at home in America, I spend most nights watching Project Runway; dazed and unmotivated.

Apparently though, it’s not just me. Artists and writers have long been known to do some of their best work while living abroad. Just look at the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life, or Ernest Hemingway who was inspired to write The Sun Also Rises during after a trip to Spain. Irishman W.B. Yeats won the Nobel prize for the poetry he wrote while living abroad, as did Seamus Heany. And the Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov, wrote Lolita while living in Manhattan.

Researchers William W. Maddux (INSEAD) and Adam D. Galinsky (Nortwestern University) attribute this to the psychological change one undergoes when adapting to a foreign culture. Learning a new language and struggling through culture shock cause a shift in perspective, which opens the mind to new ideas and sparks creativity. As explained in Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers:
The Relationship Between Living Abroad and Creativity, not only are people who live abroad more creative than people who don’t, but the longer they remain abroad, the more creative they become.

Interestingly enough though, the increase in creativity doesn’t occur in those merely traveling abroad. Apparently, two weeks in Tahiti does not a Picasso make. You’ve actually got to live in another culture for an extended period of time, learn the language, embrace the customs and make an effort to assimilate in order for the change to happen. In other words, a year spent exploring the inside of the local Expat bar doesn’t count.

So what’s an uninspired writer/artist/composer to do? Country hopping every few years in search of inspiration may work for some, but most of us need a little more stability and structure in order to stay sane.

Well apparently the simple act of recalling time spent living abroad helps reactivate the experience and keeps the creative juices flowing. As does learning a new language, making foreign friends and living in multi-cultural cities within your own country.

Huh. It’s hard to imagine how reminiscing about my life in Japan could possibly begin to compete with the experience of actually living there. But for now, I guess, that’s all I’ve got. Although I want (need!) to finish this novel I’ve been working on since, like, forever and a half ago and right now I’m thinking that another long stint abroad might be my only hope.

Watch this interview with one of the researchers. I found this on Miss Move Abroad’s blog, (which is also worth a visit, by the way). It’s fascinating.

Have you seen my Muse?

Reannon Muth — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:53:00 +0000

I can’t write. And when I say that I can’t write, I mean that I can’t write. Anything. No thing. Not a blog post, not my grad school application essay. Not even something as minor league as an email. It’s like my muse has up and abandoned me. He’s found someone new. He’s probably off inspiring some painter in Poland at this very moment while I’m stuck trying to tough it out on Writer’s Block all alone.

I know, what a jerk.

The hardest part is not understanding why he left. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t try to keep things interesting. I did! I provided him with countless writing topics and all he had to do was chose one. Just one. Like my trip to New York, for example. Or my new job. Or my near fatal plane crash or the “befriending death” workshop I took last week, (which, by the way, was taught by none other than Oprah’s personal spiritual advisor). I mean, that’s some good stuff. Some top-notch material right there. But no, he wasn’t interested. I guess that now that I don’t live in Japan anymore I’m not worthy of his attention.

My biggest fear is that he’s moved on for good. What if I end up like one of those tragic “almost was” types on E! who were dumped by their muses too soon in their careers? I’ll be the Eve Plumb of the writing world. Just another eccentric who once upon a time almost wrote a novel that almost got published.

Coming Clean

Coming Clean

Reannon Muth — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:02:00 +0000

Photo by Macwegen

“I’m like a bird
I’ll only fly away
I don’t know where my soul is
I don’t know where my home is”

- Nelly Furtado

It’s about time I aired a little dirty laundry. I’ve got a confession to make that I’ve been keeping a secret for far too long. So here goes:

I’ve recently come out of the closet.

No, not that closet.

I’m referring to the closet that’s home to all of the travel-holics who live secret ‘hush hush’ existences, working at office jobs but dreaming of hotel shampoos and airplane peanuts. They stay up nights watching the Travel Channel with the sound on low so the neighbors won’t hear and harbor secret crushes on No Reservations host Anthony Bourdain.

I used to be like them. That might seem like a peculiar thing to say being that I have a blog where I write almost exclusively about my love-affair / obsession with travel, but that’s really limited to my life on the Internet. In the real world, I’m just another lost and confused girl on a ‘gap year’ (okay, five gap years) from the Real World. As far as everyone here’s concerned, I’ll eventually find an office job and live out the remainder of my life in an excitement-free existence in suburbia.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

It’s funny, I used to think that my love for travel was wrong…maybe even unhealthy. Afterall, well-adjusted middle class Americans with happy childhoods do not purposely abandon their family and friends for permanent lives abroad. I must be running away from my problems. It must be an addiction, because it’s just not normal.

But then I realized that my love of travel isn’t rooted in fear or an elaborate form of avoiding problems. True enough, traveling has a way of making your problems disappear, but that’s not necessarily because you’re avoiding addressing them. Travel just provides perspective into them, an insight into the bigger picture. And compared to witnessing the effects of starvation on a five-year-old beggar in India, a fight with a boyfriend or stress over a missed credit card payment becomes a non-issue. You’re problems disappear because you realize that they weren’t problems to begin with.

Two weeks ago, I was in Singapore. It was two in the morning and the taxi driver had just abandoned me in front of a deserted outlet mall, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he drove off. Probably something to the effect of “Get me the Hell outta here” because the place was definitely one of those neigbhorhoods that’s “super sketch” no matter what country you’re in. Boarded up windows, homeless men sleeping on the stairwells…and rows of mannequins chained to a fish tank.

Even though I found it slightly unsettling to be alone in a foreign country in the middle of the night and with no “Backpacker’s Hostel of Chinatown” in sight, it was exhilarating, too. It was unfamiliar, uncomfortable and maybe even slightly dangerous. But mostly it was a challenge. A puzzle. Like, Hmm… Now, How am I gonna get myself out of this one?

There’s just something about stepping off of a train or a plane into a new country or city that is so surreal and captivating. It’s almost a form of meditation. All of your senses are heightened and you’re completely in tune with what is happening at the moment. Your mind’s chatter fades into the background and you aren’t worrying about the emails piling up in your inbox or the calorie content of that Snickers bar you just ate. For a short time anyway, you’re 100 percent centered

Some people use yoga to reach this place of inner peace. Others scale mountains. Artists paint, writers write and surfers surf. Well I travel. And that’s all there is to it.

I’m tired of trying to fight that. Ask an artist what they would do if they couldn’t paint anymore and they’d tell you that they’d rather die. I feel that way about traveling…and now I’m finally learning to accept that. It’s okay. It’s just who I am and there’s nothing I or anyone else could do to change that. But more importantly, there’s nothing wrong with it.