Blurb:

Chapter 15 centers on what scholars and researchers understand about the creative process, and what poets and writers say about how they write. The author introduces the chapter with “Grandma Came Down,” a poem she wrote that “came without warning” while she was driving the car. It’s coming was a mystery to her, but seemed like a “gift” from her deceased grandmother. Chapter 15 addresses “How Writers Write,” applying Dorothea Brande’s concept of the “dual nature of the writer – artist (unconscious, emotional self) and artisan (conscious, workman self, critic) and E. M. Forester’s question: How do I know what I think until I see what I say? With the artist and artisan in mind, Chapter 15 offers tips for discovering the creative process: write from your heart, edit with your head; separate the creator and the editor; the creative process is less linear than recursive. The author references the five-stage creative process delineated in Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s pioneering research study. Chapter 15 includes Interdisciplinary Applications for Teachers and Students and an in-depth discussion of the Forester aphorism based on Richard Swedberg’s “The Aphorism, Science and the Creative Process: How do I know what I think till I see what I say?” Swedberg affirms “courting your subconscious” as a major strategy and then “switching gears” to explicate and build the idea.” Chapter 15 concludes with “Discovering the Creative Process: Artist and Artisan” writing prompts.