I've had some people ask me this one and usually expect a solid answer.
You can't force it and when you try to, it shows in the end.
The best you can do is figure out the place/time or whatever it maybe when you're the most creative. Once you figure that out, try recreating that environment.
That's my two-cents about being creative.
What's yours?
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Caleb Monroe
Posts: 147
Karma: 4
Re:How to be Creative?
Posted: 2008/01/24 05:58
I think creativity has two elements:
1) The kappa, or mystery element. This is the part that cannot be analyzed. There's no how. Divine inspiration, poetic madness or (in the words of Warren Ellis) two ideas mating in your hindbrain like lizards in a swamp. We can use metaphors to describe how it seems to us, but it can't be taught. There is no concept, then suddenly there is. It's our human version of ex nihilo creation.
2) The work. Honing your skills, learning your craft, expanding your toolbox, but most importantly, spending time sitting down and writing. Regularly. If you don't keep this part of you constantly working, then you're more likely to miss the mystery when it speaks, because you haven't trained yourself to listen. Without a working gun, you'll never be able to fire the bullet.
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Elton Pruitt
Posts: 78
Karma: 4
Re:How to be Creative?
Posted: 2008/01/24 13:45
Well I was all hyped up to respond to this excellent question, Howard, till I read Caleb's post and he stole all my thunder...
So, my answer is, I have no earthly idea! Sometimes I feel like it's a miracle I've ever written anything at all, because I so do not understand how that has happened.
I used to work pretty hard at the "having ideas / being creative" end of things. Now ideas are constantly coming to me and it's more a crowd control issue, making room in my brain for the ones with potential, so they can percolate there for a while, and letting the others just dissolve away.
I think it has to do a lot with what Caleb said: working at it, keeping after it, Butt in Chair and all that.
And then the magic part of it that can't be explained, which is the scary part to me. Well, scary but exciting. Right now, I'm experimenting with embracing the magic and trying to actually gain some small bit of control (perhaps influence is a better word) over it, via a Boston Red Sox cap that I only wear when writing.
I realize that may sound insane but so far, it's working for me.
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Caleb Monroe
Posts: 147
Karma: 4
Re:How to be Creative?
Posted: 2008/01/25 06:19
Elton Pruitt wrote: Now ideas are constantly coming to me and it's more a crowd control issue, making room in my brain for the ones with potential, so they can percolate there for a while, and letting the others just dissolve away.
I still try to right everything down, even if it's not useful now...because who knows what concept it may bolster a few years down the line.
Right now, I'm experimenting with embracing the magic and trying to actually gain some small bit of control (perhaps influence is a better word) over it, via a Boston Red Sox cap that I only wear when writing.
I realize that may sound insane but so far, it's working for me.
Doesn't sound insane to me. It worked for Pavlov, it can work for us. I do the same thing through location, music cues, etc. Train a habit into your brain--a signal that means "time to work." You're smart in doing it with something portable that you can take anywhere and can (theoretically) be a writing aid anywhere.
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Howard Wong
Posts: 58
Karma: 1
Re:How to be Creative?
Posted: 2008/01/28 12:16
I write everything that pops into the brain, but I found there many times that it never comes out the same way. I invested in a cheap digital voice recorder and it has done wonders for me--though talking to yourself in public may get you weird stares.
This may it's own topic. How to store all those juicy ideas that keeps exploding in your head. Then there's the how do you filter through it all?
Collected together for the first time the smash hit sold-out series! Check out previews at my comicspace page
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but so far, it's working for me.