Creativity and
Editing
with Jen Chen
image by Field
words by KaldorThe premise of Laws of Creativity is that being creative and being a lawyer are not mutually exclusive.
But this general premise doesn’t always hold for particular activities: going to a court registry is rarely creative, throwing paint at a wall bears little connection to legal practice – and the act of editing feels like a more natural fit with the legal process than the creative process. That categorisation would surely draw support from the many lawyers who have pored over drafts in hard-copy, red pen in hand, searching for the prize of a missing apostrophe. They all might say that editing is procedural, mechanical; legal, not creative.
Jen Chen would disagree.
A lawyer and a poet, she speaks about editing with reverence and respect. For her, it’s integral to the “discipline” of creativity: “editing is where the real work lies, after your imagination has been allowed to run wild in messy first drafts”.
Chen credits this view to the influence of a mentor, Martin Kovan. Chen describes Kovan as someone who “takes his commitment to creativity to the extreme”; someone who believes “meaning can be open-ended, but it can't be open-ended accidentally”. Kovan has encouraged Chen to think of writing as a small fraction of “what you’re meant to do”, with editing “the majority of the process”.
Of course, you still need that “small fraction”. As Chen acknowledges, you can’t reach the hallowed heights of editing “if you have nothing on paper”. Here she draws from another influence: Anne Lamott, the American novelist. In Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Lamott recounts advice from her father about writing “every day for a while”: “Do it by prearrangement with yourself. Do it as a debt of honour.” Chen lives by this intention.
Chen is thoughtful and reflective. Snippets from our conversation could fill a book of aphorisms on editing poetry – with each maxim itself well-edited and poetic. Like her description of editing as “a sedimentary process: a form of pruning, whittling down until what’s left is really quality”; or her reminder that: “a well edited poem isn't necessarily longer or shorter; it's tighter”; and perhaps the strongest statement of her creative ideology:
“Poetry is about precision. The sound of each word as it drops, the way they relate to each other, where your pauses are, where your commas are – it's a real discipline.”
Chen soaks up influences and rinses their wisdom through her creative practice. But as with her poems – and perhaps all things – Chen is effortlessly intentional about her sources of inspiration.
Her reflections might also foment insecurity for those of us with less evolved editorial habits. Chen has put together a resource with advice she’s collected about editing poems, which she happily shares with other poets. The opening lines might scare off any last-minute creatives: “After leaving your poem for a few days or weeks, edit by checking the following…” And then there’s the hauntingly placed “almost” in Chen’s observation that “you know a poem is almost finished when you're down to the point where it just turns on one word”. (And in light of her views on precision, it’s safe to assume she intended for something to turn on that word.) But her generous and collaborative spirit takes the edge off this sharp advice. There’s never any doubt about Chen’s commitment to “sharing and affirmation”.
Kovan, Lamott: Chen soaks up influences and rinses their wisdom through her creative practice. But as with her poems – and perhaps all things – Chen is effortlessly intentional about her sources of inspiration. Organic and sedimentary, patiently whittling down to real quality.
The most obvious downside of editing is that it takes time (which may be why it’s in such short supply in the age of instantaneity). Even Chen, the personification of the practice, sometimes wonders when the final version will be ready:
“I have been emerging for such a long time. I should just emerge.”
Afterthought
During our interview, Chen shared that she would never “want to be a full-time creative”; she felt she needed “to be in the world and getting bumped and bruised” to find “the best kind of material”.
This philosophy seemed sensible: when we spoke, Chen was pregnant and unsure how much time she would be able to give to writing once the baby arrived (not to mention the bumps and bruises of being a new mother).
A year later, staying “in the world” is looking like the right approach for Chen. She’s published poems, as well as an article about her experience with confinement (the Chinese postpartum practice), which has been noticed in writing and parenting communities.
Both mother and writer – she has, it seems, emerged from the editing process.
Jen Chen is an Australian Chinese poet and lawyer (@jen.chen.rhymes). She has worked in international aid, domestic violence policy and mental health law. Her poetry and writing explores themes of justice, resilience and family. Her work has been published by Red Room Poetry, SBS Voices, Hunter Writers Centre, Manly Art Gallery and Museum and Verity La.