Quiet creativity

One of the chapters in Susan Cain's book Quiet Power which really caught my eye was the one titled Quiet Creativity.  "We'll talk about the many ways to communicate feelings and ideas other than conversation" she says there.

This really resonated with me as an introverted writer.  She describes a girl in one of her case studies like this: "With her ability to focus for hours at a time, she labours over her laptop, outlining new stories."  This is a perfect description of the way writers work.  And it's not just in writing that quiet creativity flourishes.  As Susan Cain points out, the incredibly innovative animation studio Pixar has an introvert at its head. 

While we can collaborate with others, we gain far more power from going it alone.  As Cain says: "Introverts have a remarkable ability to be independent. We find strength in solitude, and we are capable of using our precious alone time to focus and concentrate."

The business world would have us believe that better work comes from "teams", but my professional work experience runs completely counter to this.  I was always less effective when compromising to suit others.  The requirement for teamwork is extrovert-centred, and studies are now beginning to challenge its effectiveness.

Mastery in our writing comes from practice, practice, practice, all of which we have to do alone.  We have to lock ourselves up in our own worlds, worlds which only exist because we as individuals have dreamed them into existence.

Agents and editors always say they're on the lookout for fresh new voices.  And we discover and hone our individual voices by writing alone.  It needs to be us putting our ideas down on the page without distractions or interruptions from others.  We need the quiet to write our story in our own unique way.

'Quiet' people are still sometimes considered not as powerful as noisy extroverts.  We can sometimes be bullied to "speak up", or "tell us what you think about this."  But often our preferred way of expressing our ideas is by writing things down, by working out our thoughts and feelings on the page.

That, too, is part of quiet power.  For sometimes, in doing that, we create some truly great writing.