Creativity is impossible, I think, without the ability to change one’s perspective, to see the world from disparate vantage points and with different eyes. I cannot adequately capture in words,even in thought, the experience of a woman giving birth to a child unless I attempt to put myself in the position, psychologically, of being a woman and birthing a child. While I may never truly understand either experience, I cannot even come close without attempting to let go of myself and become someone else.
I think it would be interesting, if daunting, to try to write an imaginary autobiography of a person with whom I share virtually nothing. Perhaps a black female, a Muslim, who has joined an ISIS cell; a woman on the verge of carrying out a suicide attack on a Christian nursing home situated next door to a charitable foundation dedicated to eliminating hunger in African countries. The amount of research involved in such an undertaking would be enormous. The amount of creative personal displacement would be staggering. I doubt I am up to the task at the moment. But I cannot know unless I try, right?
I beg to differ. I contend that writers have to experience what they write about, not physically, but in their minds. Call it imagination if you like, but I call it something more. It’ like putting oneself in someone else’s shoes, but on steroids. 😉
You have to use your imagination, babe. You can’t experience everything you write about. That’s what literature is for.