Coming Up Blank

The wonderful thing about writing is that you can always make something out of nothing. It really is the original perpetual motion machine!

If you have a bad day, or a crap interaction, it immediately becomes fodder for your work. Inane conversations on the bus become a lesson in realistic dialogue. Annoying health problems or injuries suddenly manifest in your character and increase the depth of characterisation.

Today I was really stuck for something to blog about, then I realised I could blog about the fact I could not blog about something:)

All writers seem to approach their work from a different angle, and be inspired by different things. So what to do when you come up blank?

Some writers are inspired by natural settings, by the feeling of the landscape itself. I know for myself, some very weird characters and magical ideas can emerge from a quiet natural landscape, especially during storms and at twilight. At the very least it injects some reality into descriptions of scenery and setting.

Others are driven by the ideas themselves (this is very true for me). I can get inspired by interesting non-fiction, good books, films, and other weird ideas or what-ifs that occur to me in my more wistful moments.

Another thing that often gets me going is to plot out maps and put together drawings of the cities where the story takes place. Others might paint characters (I am total crap at drawing) or spend time imagining the settings of the story to get enthused. You can look for movies, books, pieces of music or art that inspire you for the piece you are writing.

I know many writers who write to music. Many take it even further than this - one writer friend of mine has collections of music for different types of scene. If there is an action scene coming up he puts all his 'action' CDs into the player.

Of course to be creative, you also need enough sleep (a challenge for me I can tell you) and to be in good frame of mind. The quality of your food, the amount of rest you get. Health is often neglected by writers, but has a huge impact energy levels. What do you do for stress reduction? That's important as well. How about exercise? Small amounts of low impact activity have been well demonstrated to have large positive effects. Walk the dog.

What do you do when you look for inspiration? Or do you subscribe to the notorious Idea of the Month Club?

I keep coming back to Creativity

Here is a small jeweller's crucible.

I keep coming back to the creative crucible because that is where we draw from. And when it runs dry we feel, or at least I feel, half alive.

Do creative people think differently from non-creative people?

This article looks into research on the topic. Researchers were studying the brain patterns of people who were asked to solve anagrams. They were looking for that Ah ha! moment.

Before they began the problem, their brain patterns were studied while they waited. Then their brain patterns were moitored while they worked on the anagrams, which could be solved by methodical unraveling of all the combinations, or by an intuitive leap. People were asked to report which method they used, then their brain patterns were studied. Guess what?

'the two groups displayed strikingly different patterns of brain activity during the resting period at the beginning of the experiment – before they knew they would have to solve problems or even knew what the study was about.'

Not surprising. If someone said to me wait here for fifteen minutes, I would be busy writing stories in my head. Never a dull moment!

The article goes on to say:

'One difference was that the creative solvers exhibited greater activity in several regions of the right hemisphere. Previous research has suggested that the right hemisphere of the brain plays a special role in solving problems with creative insight, likely due to right-hemisphere involvement in the processing of loose or “remote” associations between the elements of a problem, which is understood to be an important component of creative thought. The current study shows that greater right-hemisphere activity occurs even during a “resting” state in those with a tendency to solve problems by creative insight. This finding suggests that even the spontaneous thought of creative individuals, such as in their daydreams, contains more remote associations.'

Well, yes. If that is the way your mind is wired, that is the way you think all the time. It would be interesting to find out what percentage of the population are wired to think this way. I grew up in a non-creative family. But I can look back at the odd great aunt who was creative. So it could be a recessive gene.

Do you come from a creative family? Are all your friends creative types? What would you think about if you were told to wait somewhere for fifteen minutes?

The Legs of Passion

I've been doing a little brainstorming lately thinking about the things that all contribute to my own passion for writing. Humans are complex organisms and there are many elements.

Not to say you could not break this down any way you choose, but these are the categories that I came up with. I broke it down into the six 'legs' of the writing table.

The first leg was love of story. Ideas really propel me, but it often takes a bit of inspiration to drive them: interesting non-fiction, good books, films, other weird ideas or what ifs. Character is another driver. I don't think most of the MGC writers need help to get their characters to come out to play, but often mine do get a stale kind of feel. To try and reconnect I often let myself go a little left of field and explore their backstory a little more extensively - it's amazing how often this helps to solve plot problems.

Putting more humour into your story or dialogue is another fun thing to do. Depending on your inclination, plotting out maps and drawing the street plans of cities, or painting characters and settings is also a good way to get enthused. Look for movies or books or art that inspire you for the piece you are writing.

My second leg was the excitement of a potential market. Where are you thinking of sending your work? What publishers are doing great things in your genre? I find having a potential market in mind - a deadline is even better! - to be really motivating. I love writing with some destination in mind, like a themed anthology for example. Hunt for books at the local bookshop or library. Find something that excites you then research the publisher. Think of this as a potential market.

The third leg was health and energy. Yes, we are human animals. Health is often neglected by writers, but has a huge impact energy levels. Sleep. Strangely most people need it. The quality of your food, the amount of rest you get. What do you do for stress reduction? That's important as well. How about exercise? Small amounts of low impact activity have been well demonstrated to have large positive effects. Walk the dog.

The fourth leg is support. Share your dreams with the people you love, reach out to other writers. Go out to crit groups even if its just for coffee and a bitch. Open as much communication as you can. Go to cons. Meet other writers. This is important, and also neglected, often by new writers. That's why the impact of your first convention as a writer can be overwhelming and a revelation at the same time.

The fifth leg is belief. Dream. Don't be afraid. Create your future in your mind. Look at your stories critically, examine their strengths and their weaknesses. When you send out your work, know it well enough to believe in it - if you know it well you will be able to immediately rebut unfair critique or review. Stay positive. One thing is for certain, if you don't have your work out there you will not publish.

And lastly, the sixth leg, celebrate! Many writers are perfectionists with impossibly high standards. When you do achieve a success milk it for all it's worth! Take the family out for dinner. Go to the cafe and have that piece of cake. Take 10mins and just look wistfully into space. Take the time to recharge. Have a break and rest - knowing that you have taken one more step on the path.

OK. Well there is my brain dump for this week:)

Have I forgotten any legs? Remember - leave off one leg and the writing table falls over! And I'm not coming over to clean up the mess!

Beyond the End (The Other Side)

What lies on the Other Side?

Does this question conjure up creepy images of the afterlife? The shadowy realms that border graveyards? OK, ignore me, its my horror frame of mind at the moment as I contemplate a Brisbane ghost story.

What I really had in mind was probably something equally horrific - well at least for me. And that is what lies on the Other Side of my last work in progress.

I usually conceive the story before I start. I might fill in gaps as I go, and everything certainly comes alive, but by the time I am steaming toward the end I am picking up some appreciable pace. By the time I write to the end (I'm talking first draft here, not all the other thousand times I rewrite it) I am sometimes so pumped that I can hardly sit in the chair. I guess I'm a finisher - which probably explains the trouble I have with beginnings. Or starting something.

Once I've finished a project, I have a pretty massive creative crash. Going from that level of immersion into a new project is tough for me. I know this is the absolute opposite of many others, but facing the first, blank page of a new world is like sitting on the floor after harakiri contemplating my entrails in a state of mortal agony. OK. Might be getting a little dramatic. I guess you probably realise I am there right now. Related to this is my problem of holding onto things way longer than I really should.

Don't get me wrong, starts are exciting as well. Its fun being able to leap conceptually in any number of directions and give birth to something completely new.

So how do you face The Other Side? The period of completion after your creative project? Do you jump for joy, light up a cigarette and crack a bottle of champagne? Do you crash mentally and emotionally? Do you breath a sigh of relief and reach excitedly for the parchment?

What is the Other Side like for you?

The Art of Ice-Breaking

Recently I have been really battling life. I always manage to get some writing in there somewhere, but it starts to tell. At the moment it seems to be on the bus, at lunch times, squeezed in before work - you get the idea.

One of the biggest problems is breaking the ice - getting motivated and creative in two seconds flat to make the most of the fifteen or twenty minutes that I might have.

Ideally (when life co-operates) I like to write in 2 hour blocks. I find this gives me time to warm up, tune in and really get into some sort of flow. At the moment this is impossible.

The thing is you might be able to 'write' for two hours in a day - say half an hour on the bus each way (that's one hour), then another hour at lunch perhaps (in the cafe' or park). This adds up to 2 hours, but if it takes me ten minutes to reconnect and establish some sort of flow then its really only an hour and half! That's not counting the time taken to grit my teeth and drown out the two idiots at the back of bus talking much too loudly and giving their opinions on everything I really don't want to know about.

So how do you write? In snippets? In large blocks? In the emergency stairwell (yes it's been done)? If you do write in small parcels, how do you manage to reconnect with your work and get back into the flow?

Teachers who inspire us!

In Australia last weekend was a long weekend. I spent the Saturday at my daughter's school (she's a student teacher) helping her clean her classroom/office. She is a specialist music teacher so she gets a little office to teach her students in. It's a lovely room, in that it has air conditioning and a new view of the oval. But it is boring with standard carpet, standard desk, standard windows and standard pale green painted walls.

So, once we'd cleaned it, we went to Spotlight (material and craft store) to do up the room. We bought pale blue chiffon for the windows. Rainbow chiffon to make a fabric rainbow, sparkly butterflies to put on the walls and curtains, stickers of birds and flowers for the walls and stick-on little green frogs to hide in corners and give the boy students a thrill. She rang me this evening to say that the kids loved the class room!

All this is leading up to how important teachers are. They can turn a fascinating subject into a chore or they can inspire us. When I was in school, every Friday afternoon we had to write a composition (essay). The teacher would give us a topic and we would write a story. I LOVED this and looked forward to Friday afternoons. No matter how staid and boring the topic, I always found a way to turn it into something interesting. Aliens taking over the world? Sure, why not? Kidnapped by a space ship? Sure, I can do that.

And every Monday I would get my marks back. Not one word about the story, just an irritated admonishment to spell the words correctly or I would never get anywhere in life, with a list of spelling words I had to write out ten times.

Contrary to my teachers' warning, I went on to write and be published!

So did you have any teachers who inspired you to be creative?

Do your surroundings influence your Creativity?

We're selling our house.

It's been a great house. We've been here 20 years and our children have all gone to the local school and we've been happy in this house but everything is falling apart.

Now that our children are leaving home we're going to do it up and buy a smaller place. And this brings me to what is important to me as a creative person.

Call me shallow, but I love beautiful things. A walk through the art gallery leaves me feeling like I'm walking on air. A piece of beautiful music will bring tears of joy to my eyes. Conversely, a messy house, makes my head feel fusty and I can't think straight until the house is straightened up.

I suspect it is a female gene because my husband seems to be able to walk through snow drifts of mess and still function.

I haven't been able to write, I've been feeling overwhelmed by the house. At one point we had 9 people living here and three sets of furniture, as adult children moved back with their belongings. Now that some of them have moved out, taking their furniture I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

So we are selling our house and I want to live somewhere beautiful, preferably by the sea. I want to feel that uplifting sense of wonder when I walk down the road, catch a glimpse of the sea, see storm clouds rushing in ... you get the picture.

When I was a child I used to capture beautiful moments so I would always have them, like treasures. I still do. And I go fishing through those beautiful moments when I need a setting for a scene.

I feel more creative in a beautiful setting. I feel like I can't wait to get ideas down on paper (or computer screen). Bringing up our 6 children, we surrounded them with ideas both challenging and fun, we watched documentaries, and shared our love of music and art. Will they become creative people? I don't know.

As a teacher in a computer games college I come across creative kids all the time. And I wonder how they will get on in a society that values football players ahead of artists.

Can artists (creativity) be taught or is it born in us? This article looks at the question and answers it in a measured way. It raises the point that if you are living in the back of beyond and no one ever sees your art or hears your music, and you receive no stimulation from other artists, then you will never produce to your full potential. So as parents, the best thing we can do is stimulate our kids and stand back.

Maybe I am shallow, but I want to live somewhere beautiful. I believe I'm more creative in beautiful surroundings, especially, if the dishes are done.

Do your surroundings influence your creativity? Do you have to be sure the bed is made before you can write? Does it help you, if the cat sits on your lap and purrs while you write?

What is Writing?

This might sound like a rather obvious question, but for someone who tortures themselves trying to squeeze some writing time out of life between all the various other fires that need putting out, it’s a pretty important question.

Is staring into space while musing over the plot of your latest bestseller writing? Is editing writing? Is proof-reading writing?

Australian author Louise Cusack describes editing as ‘creative bookkeeping’, and views it separately to ‘writing’ – at least in so far as the personal resources required to achieve it.

If you give yourself a daily word target of say – 500 or 1000 words – what happens to that target when you have to spend your precious writing time editing your latest piece to send out?

Personally I think its all valid. Everything from daydreaming a weird characteristic of you latest pet character to scribbling notes about a key plot point on the back of the nearest piece of cardboard. There is a famous story about Red Dwarf; how the original writers came up with the idea in a pub. They kept the original beer-coaster that they scribbled their ideas on and there was actually a picture of it in the back of one of the Red Dwarf books I read.

I think its dangerous to rate the creative process. Who knows when that five minutes of daydreaming will actually provide the core of the next best thing since Stephanie Meyer/JK Rowling?

Having said that, I think new writing – where its just you and the blank page and you are dragging words out of nowhere to create something new – uses a unique psychic muscle. Editing, where you are not just proof reading but actually concentrating on the writing craft and structure, also uses something close, but its like a light warm up Vs bench training. If you really want to build that writing muscle, you have to spend time first drafting.

So what you think? What is writing? Do you change your goals and targets when you switch from first drafting to editing?

Where to get ideas

This is a map of the galaxy by Samuel Arbesman which is repeated here without permission for review purposes.

As you can see, it is drawn in the style of the London tube map. The current tube map style was devised by Beck in 1933 and was a graphic design breakthrough in the Beck used schematics to convey the sense of the system rather than a confusing literal map of London. Arbesman has done the same thing for the Milky Way, or Mutter's Spiral as it appears on Time Lord four dimensional maps.

This is a rather laboured instroduction to the main theme of today's blog - What should and SF&F writer read?

They read SF&F fiction, obviously, to keep a weather eye on the opposition and sneer at clearly inferior works that have somehow been published when their own works of genius have been rejected - again.

They read other fiction, as Tom Lehrer so cogently argued 'Don't just use your eyes, plagiarise' - or as I prefer to put it - artists borrow.

But most of all, they should read non-fiction. In particular, read narrative histories and biographies.

Narrative histories are a superb source of events to set a background for a story and to inspire a cast of characters. I have just finished 'Empire of the Seas', a narrative history of the struggles between Turkey and Spain, or more properly the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs, in the Mediterranean in the 16th Century from the battle for Rhodes in 1521 to Lepanto in 1571. I will not review this excellent work, you can find reviews elsewhere, except to say that it is not a simple military history but puts matters into their political context.

The only fault that I would find with it is a final section portraying Lepanto as the decisive battle to save Christian civilisation. Lepanto was no such thing. Like most 'decisive' battles it had very little little long term effect. It did not represent the high water of Turkish naval arms, that was at Malta in 1565. At the end of the battle, Spain, France, England and some smaller Christian states held the Western Roman Empire and Turkey held the Eastern Roman Empire.

Plus ca change, geopolitics overuled religion. Valois France had been a Turkish ally, even letting the Ottoman fleet base in Toulon in 1543, and the merchants of Venice had changed sides more frequently than Italy in the modern world. North Africa was a pirate stronghold who lived mainly by enslaving Europeans on an industrial scale. Millions of Europeans were kidnapped in slave raids that went on into the 19th Century and reached as far north as England. Maybe we should demand apologies and reperations.

But I digress, something my wife is often forced to reprove me for. This superb book is a mine for anyone wanting to write a story set in an SF universe with spacefleets battling it out for an arm of the galaxy (see above).

The other works that are immensely valuable for inspiration are biographies. David Drake has pointed out to me that autobiographies are even more valuable as they show what people were trying to achieve, not just what actually happened.

I am currently reading 'Lord Byron's Jackal' by David Crane. This is the biography of Edward John Trelawny who, as you can tell by the name, is a Cornishman - like me. It contains the immortal line about Trelawny - 'It is given to few men to kill two major poets..'

Trelawny was an uneducated failed naval officer, he reached the dizzy rank of midshipman, who reinvented himself as a dashing corsair and lover, became a friend to both Shelley and Byron, managing to assist both in getting killed, hid in a Greek cave while fighting in the Greek War of Independence alongside a bandit leader called Odysseus, married a thirteen year old bride and was shot in the back twice by English assassins to be eventually rescued by another Englishman by the name of Francis D'Ancy Bacon. Those are only the bare facts that he failed to embellish.

He died in bed at the age of 89 after becoming one of the great prose writers of his day. His last known words were 'lies, lies, lies'.

Try inventing an anti-hero like that!

So to help you write fiction, read non-fiction.

Anyone know any other real larger than life antiheroes?

This is a 'There's no excuse, I'm just having fun' Post.

Because we all need to take a break some time. Down here in Australia nothing happens from early December until the end of January. We call it the silly seasons.

The schools and UNIs have their holidays (UNIs don't go back until March). In the business world staff take their holidays so, except for retail, all businesses are on go-slow. From what I've heard it's not like that in the northern hemisphere. But it's midsummer here and so hot, all you want to do is lie around by the pool or at the beach.

So here are some fun things because writers are insatiably curious about people and the world in general.

First of all 9 Things we learned about us in 2009, by Rachel Rettner. For instance, did you know that some adults still have baby fat, or late sleepers are more alert than early risers?

And from that we move onto Humans: The Strangest Species by Robert Roy Britt. You could spend hours trawling through this page and all its links. Why do humans get freckles, get birthmarks, spread urban legends, see things that aren't there, join cults or believe in UFOs? Just for starters. Ever wondered why we're not all beautiful, since females supposedly choose who fathers their children?

Then, because it is a topic that's guaranteed to wake up a bored audience, The 9 Most Provocative Sex Science Stories of 2009, by Sally Law. Would you believe pulling out is almost as effective as using a condom? (Don't try this at home folks. And if you do, don't sue me. I'm only repeating what I've read).

And on the same topic, Sally Law's 10 Surprising Sex Statistics.

These holidays I'm going to recharge my creative batteries. I'm going to read heaps of books, both fiction and non fiction and see lots of movies. What are you going to do, to recharge your creative batteries?

Primordial Soup

Just as Rowena talked about the different ways that we writers stay inspired, there are no doubt myriad ways in which we all first approached the Muse.

What was the writer's ‘Primordial Soup’? Were you drawn by the prose itself? Did it sing in your head? Did sentences appear before you written in fiery letters?

Or was it a sense of character, building up inside you until you just had to let those critters free on the page? Or perhaps it was emotional – something from your past that drove you to explore a theme that strongly resonated with you. Perhaps you recreate the same emotional landscapes that haunted your childhood, and your protagonist is an aspect of you, saving you over and over again (guilty as charged).

Or was it the ideas themselves? Those Wow concepts that electrified your brain. ‘Oh, my God! What if . .. ?’ And this was so compelling that it drove you to weave an entire world around it, just so you could communicate it? My SF definitely comes into this category (not that I’ve written much lately).

Of course wherever we start, as writers we have to create all the elements of a story landscape – character, setting, conflict. And answer all those questions of Rowena’s – what is the story about? What does the character want? What does the character have to overcome to get there (or try to)? We need a plot – a series of events that define the story and show the character’s journey.

But where did you start? What was the first form of that passion that drove you to the page?

Where would Writers be without Chocolate?

Okay, I confess.

I love chocolate, especially chocolate with nuts.

My idea of heaven would be a coffee, some chocolate and a good idea that I can't stop writing. You know, one of those days where you are in the 'zone' and the story just flows.

Of course, you have to do your ground work. You've been reading about related subjects for years, just because they interest you, so you've done your research without realising it.

Every spare moment, when you've been bored while waiting to pick the kids up from school or in the checkout queue, you've been taking the characters out of their 'green room' and chatting to them, finding out what happened in their childhood, what makes them the way they are, finding out what they really want from life and how they interact.

And then the day comes when it all meshes and the story just comes bubbling out. Of course it helps if you have a supply of chocolate and a fresh cup of coffee.

Then there are those days when you've deliberately done the research, you've text-book planned the characters, you've actually planned a story arc and you sit down to write and even chocolate and coffee don't help. Everything you write is flat and uninspired.

What do you do? Why do some stories come naturally and others are hard labour?

What do you do to get in the 'zone'? Do you plan and plot or plunge and grab the story tiger by the tail?

Do you indulge in chocolate to help get the creative juices flowing?

Creative fire

“No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.” Aristotle.

Kay Redfield Jamison, Johns Hopkins University, analyzed the mental health of forty seven of England's most highly honoured poets, novelists, playwrights, artists and biographers. More than a third had diagnosed mental-health problems, thirty times higher than the norm. Fascinatingly, while a third of creative writers, such as poets or novelists, showed mood-swing problems this was not the case in factual writers, such as biographers.

Scientists do not seem to be as prone to mental illness as do other creative people and it has been speculated that this is because of the more rigid nature of scientific research, which requires at least some measure of stability and predictability. As a professional research scientist, I would point out that the word ‘scientist’ covers a multitude of jobs from routine technical to strategic research. Having worked in elite research institutes, I find the figure of one third having mood-swing illnesses about right for creative scientists.

Mood-swing mental illness covers a range of disorder including depression, maniac-depressive cycles, bipolarism and even possibly schizophrenia. Self-harm and suicides are also symptoms. So do you have to be mad to be creative? Is it the madness that drives creativity?

The answer to that appears to be yes and no. First of all it is quite clear that mood-swing disorders are found in certain families and that creativity is found in the same families so there is a genetic correlation. Also, children born of older parents are more likely to suffer mood swings. To a biologist that suggests that genetic mutation is involved.

This has been confirmed by modern molecular biology research. There is much yet to discover but it is becoming clear that mood-swing disorders are connected to a complex mix of mutations in genes that influence brain function. For example, a recent Russian paper reported an analysis of 62 unrelated Caucasian students. They found a significant correlation between verbal and spatial creativity scores and polymorphism (variation, mutation) in the 5-HTT gene. This gene impacts serotonin neurotransmission indicating the connection between serotonin and creativity. And SSRI’s (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) are a common treatment for mood disorders.

So, to go back to my original question - do you have to be mad to be creative? The answer really is yes and no. Mood disorders and creativity are both the result of certain complex combinations of gene mutation. Creative people who show no sign of mood disorders are statistically likely to have relative who are sufferers. Deeply mentally ill people such as schizophrenics are often too ill to be creative.

So far, I have only looked at the biochemistry and it is quite a jump to trying to understand how variations in neurotransmitter performance raise creativity. I would speculate that it is connected to how well the model of reality in your head that you perceive is more or less bound to the actual reality, which you can not perceive. Schizophrenics, for example, seem unable to distinguish between the outside world and their internal voices and I would suggest that fiction writers dance to internal voices as well.

The creative mutations have fixed at about five percent of the population suggesting that a ratio of one creative in twenty gives the optimum advantage between the upside of creativity and the downside of madness. And it is creativity that separated our species, Homo sapiens, from other primates and hominids. Our very name means ‘wise man’. In our madness we created abstract art and fashion, spear throwers and bows.

Our species has been scorched by the fire of creativity. It remains to be seen how long we can dance in the flames without getting burnt.

John Lambshead

Altered States

Every now and then in the arts (some arts more than others), you see artists who swear that they are more creative under the influence of drugs then while 'straight'. Favorites range from the psychedelics enjoyed by visual artists to the headbanger's cocktail of speed and alcohol (Motorhead). Reading Stephen King's On Writing, he mentions that he could not even remember writing some of his books he was that high - I think Misery comes to mind (he speculates the writer in the story was actually himself, held prisoner by his addiction). Its not just illegal drugs either. David Gemmell once related how he had tried to give up smoking, but looked at what he was writing, realized it was crap then started smoking again. In the end he died of heart failure at 57, and I guess the smoking would have had no small part in his untimely death.

I have always been suspicious of these claims, and I guess I have come out pretty much strongly on the other side of the argument -- that you will be more creative the more healthy and drug FREE you are. I think what often happens is that artists will be such long term users that they become functional addicts, and when they try to quit they actually do find their performance dropping. But this is just a short-term effect. If they persevere they will find themselves more creative than ever.

One of the odd things I do is read musician's autobiographies. A recent one was Eric Clapton. In it he rattles off a series of famous recordings and concert events where he was completely off his head either on dope (heroin) or alcohol or both. Even as an Eric Clapton fan some of his playing on these latter records sounded like shite to me. Not saying I did not enjoy them, just that I got so frustrated he could not lift his game. When I hear something like that, I can't help but feel cheated. How much damn better could that guy have been if he wasn't hiding in a bottle?

So what do you think? Is there some truth to the assertion that drugs enhance creativity? Or is that just the seductive reasoning of an addict?