Creative Process

Many people believe that creativity is an innate skill—you’ve either got it or you don’t. This is not entirely true. Just as with art, music, gymnastics, dance, and computer science, anyone can begin where they are and improve their skills.

One (of a few) definition of creativity is the ability to create new links between different bits of information. It doesn’t matter whether someone else has thought of them before or not, as long as your brain is capable of doing the same (discovering 100% original links is one definition of genius).

It stands to reason (or creativity) therefore that one key to finding links between ideas or facts or items or whatever is to first possess many such items. Once you’ve got something to work with, you’re more likely to find something happen, something that works.

The Process:

  1. Create. Brainstorm. Generate. Come up with a huge list of whatever it is you’re looking for. If you’re trying to make a good description of something, close your eyes and envision all the small and large details. Use all of your senses—what you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel there. Use different perspectives—what would a child see that an old man wouldn’t and vice versa. What if you were an animal? A plant? Look at it from different perspectives of time. What had been different—or the same—ten seconds or ten minutes or ten billion years ago? Would it look different to different genders or races? When you’re hungry or tired or fresh, naïve or experienced, jaded? Need more ideas on doing this? Read up on your concrete details or show not tell.
  2. Look for comparisons. Look for metaphors. Look for similarities and differences. Look for insight and the banal. The more you analyze the bits and pieces of whatever you’ve got, the better prepared you’ll be to describe or explain it clearly. And the more you’ll be prepared next time to come up with something spontaneously.
  3. Watch your world. Watch people’s actions and reactions. Watch your own thoughts.
  4. Exercise your creative mind. It will grow—a principle that applies to everything.
  5. NEVER say you’re not creative again. Don’t be pig-headed. If you choose to believe this, you lock yourself into that fate, but who you are and become depends more on your choices than on your starting position. Instead, decide that you’re becoming creative.
  6. If you still have troubles being creative but really wish you could do better, there's a good chance you're "blocked."  Stuck for whatever reason.  One of the best tools for getting past these blocks is to write three pages every day, of anything, of whatever's on your mind.  For an in-depth (and highly recommended) look into this process and more, read The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.