Letting the Letters Run Ahead of Me: A Study of Writing Practices That Support Creative Thinking

Through this research I realized that the literature I need to explore to contextualize the project stretches from creative writing, to critical auto-ethnography, to poetic inquiry and beyond. Practice-led research has many excellent examples of writing that evokes creative thinking, but very little discussion of how to develop ones practice as a writer. The practice of writing is often taken-for-granted and assumed to be transparent in this literature. I have found it very interesting to develop materials on writing as a practice and to consider how this supports creative research. The two full-day workshops with another CLeaR Fellow, Dr Esther Fitzpatrick and I hosted as part of this research went well – held in the Education and the CAI faculties, they created very valuable opportunities for collaboration and exchange and provided many insights on the project. Esther is a lecturer in the School of Learning, Development and Professional Practice and a Co-Director of the Narrative and Metaphor Special Interest Network. With the intention of developing practical writing resources that are useful to students in practice, I developed Smudge Skittle: A Little Inventory Entangling Creative Practice Research and Writing. ‘Smudge Skittle’ is a deck of 90 cards, each one with a different starting point for developing writing. This resource is organized around 10 provocations for understanding writing as supporting experimental, playful, intuitive, tangential thinking. Within each of the 10 themes, are 6-15 practical writing ideas, each on their own card. I know that the project contributed to my students learning due to the fact that I received positive feedback by email and in conversation regarding the workshops from PhD students and staff who attended. This research has also influenced my supervision practices with creative practice students and my teaching of writing for undergraduate students. This project contributed substantially to my learning as it provided support to engage in a targeted, extensive literature review, providing theoretical and practical pedagogical ideas, with the workshops providing opportunities to test pedagogies and develop collaboration. I am currently working on a plan to disseminate the resources created through this project through printing the cards in decks. I also have an invitation to contribute to a new publication on supervising creative practice research which this project forms the basis for. Finally, I am working on a book proposal to Palgrave MacMillan for which this research is central.

As part of developing practical resources for writers that are useful to students in practice, Alys developed Smudge Skittle: A Little Inventory Entangling Creative Practice Research and Writing. This resource is a a deck of 90 cards, each one with a different starting point for developing writing. It is organized around 10 provocations for understanding writing as supporting experimental, playful, intuitive, tangential thinking. Within each of the 10 themes, are 6-15 practical writing ideas, each on their own card. Some of the provocations from Smudge Skittle are: 1. Your state of embodiment is entangled with your practice of writing and the meanings your writing produces 2. Style can enable new perspectives on how ideas are understood and shared. 3. Imagining and writing for different kinds of readers with different forms of written address can allow us to see our work in different lights. Keep an eye out for publication of the full resource.    

SMUDGE SKITTLEs : a little inventory of resources entangling creative practice research and writing

In creativity research, the value of intuitive, playful and unpredictable studio methods is well accepted, yet in some circumstances, conventional approaches to writing and the values of proof, explanation, predictability, analysis and linear argument, may constrain, rather than enable, creative research. Each SMUDGE SKITTLEs card provides a short task that tangles artistic thinking with written reflection. These cards frame writing and knowing as playful, open-ended, idiosyncratic and relational.

10 Propositions for enabling creative practice to spill into writing practice

1. Neurodiversity disrupts logocentrism. 2. Writing exists through relationships. 3. States of embodiment produce bodies of writing. 4. Patterns of duration and scale telescope the imagination. 5. The pleasures of journaling and documentation are engines of embodied research. 6. Writing is curation. 7. Tangential thinking makes space for ideas. 8. Writing rides on material, sensory activity. 9. Style gives life to concepts. 10. Endless models exist for thesis writing.

RULES OF PLAY

SMUDGE SKITTLEs is organized around 10 provocations (or suits) for writing with creative thinking. Each suit has an accompanying image. Players are invited to create their own game rules. You might begin with shuffling the deck, you might deliberately decide to complete 5 cards from different suits, you might throw the cards in the air and see which ones you catch. You can play SMUDGE SKITTLEs with any number of people. For ideas and further information on playing SMUDGE SKITTLEs, including essays, reference lists, feedback portals and information on the author and her team, please visit the website:

www.smudgeskittle.com

CREATED BY: Alys Longley DESIGN: Alys Longley and Jeffrey Holdaway PHOTOGRAPHY: From Mistranslation Laboratory by Alys Longley and the Eleventeen Collective. Photos by Jeffrey Holdaway, Alys Longley and val smith The SMUDGE SKITTLEs resource was developed with support from the Centre for Learning and Research in Higher Education (CLeaR), University of Auckland; the CLeaR Fellowship Writing Writing Everywhere Programme and the Schuler Educational Enhancement and Development Fund, under CLeaR’s 2017 theme “Writing, writing everywhere. THANKYOU: Helen Sword, val smith, Esther Fitzpatrick, Caroline Yoon, Jeffrey Holdaway, Elena Holdaway, Rosalind Holdaway, Lyn Collie, The Dance Studies Programme, University of Auckland.