A collection of hand-written and hand-printed improvisations

Recently, I stumbled across a great YouTube clip from music great Chick Corea where he talks about improvisation. When it pertains to writing, improv is a theme worth visiting and re-visiting multiple times over. No one may be able to fully develop the perfect definition of what improvisation is. Most people think of improvisation as being tied to comedy performance. Another demographic understands improvisation to be tied to music. Corea gives a great demonstration of music and improv in the video clip I have included. It’s about adding flavour and substance to something in form. It can be giving form to something.

For writers, a good session of free writing is improvisation. A few words on paper or typed to the screen will result in coming up with something that works. Free-writing is meant to be without form. It can be the start of substance that gets built up as things are added. One sentence, word or paragraph does not have to tie into the previous.

For me, a freelance assignment is going to be partly improvised where appropriate. The research portion of the work will involve some creative improvisation. The client request is important to follow. The message is the content. My deliverable product needs to reflect exactly what they want so it gets sent back with few, if any, required revisions.

Fortunately there has rarely been any sort of writer’s block for me in my professional and personal writing. It’s been so long I cannot remember the last time it may have happened. It’s become vital to get in the chair at the desk and just start working. Or to open a fresh page and fill it with words, arrows, anything to start bringing something words into organized form.

Improvisation is taking steps forward. Every word, letter and sentence is a push towards something bigger. Something improvised that you might think will become nothing, still is work accomplished.

So it is still something.

@WriterDann