Creativity Running A Bit Low?

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things. Ray Bradbury

While I don't have an amazing new insights to offer that my fellow Whores haven't mentioned earlier in the week, I do subscribe to this thought that Ray Bradbury expressed. I believe he was on to something. If you overthink anything that you normally do “in the flow” and fairly effortlessly, even brushing your teeth, you’ll suddenly get clumsy, start questioning yourself and the process breaks down. Overexamination modifies whatever you’re examining. If Tom Brady or Peyton Manning analyzed the way they throw a football every time they threw one, they’d have been sitting on the bench. If a ballet dancer like Misty Copeland thought through her every step and turn as she moved across the dance floor, she’d be behind the music.

Here’s another good thought: An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Edwin Land

Right! Don’t worry about whether what you’re doing is good enough, a final product, as good as someone else’s, as good as your own last effort – if you’re being creative, you’re probably learning an generating some kernel of useful stuff that you can build on, adapt, scrap but know you want to move in a different direction…a standard piece of advice I always give beginning writers is to not self edit as you write. Just get the words on the page and go back later and edit and polish. Let the words flow for now.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams

Creativity takes courage. Henri Matisse

Yup, you may look a bit foolish at times while you’re trying new things but who cares? At least you’re out there making the attempt to create art, dance, the perfect pass, a science fiction romance novel (that would be me by the way)…

I can always be distracted by love, but eventually I get horny for my creativity. Gilda Radner

Sometimes I just have to go do something else. I listen to music. I watch certain movies that I know get to me and inspire me to want to create my own stories. Ditto for books by certain authors in my genres. I read them and I’m on fire to get back to creating my own, not because I’m jealous of what they’ve done but because their wonderful worldbuilding, adventure and romance make me hungry to create my own again.

I go for a long drive on the open freeway and listen to music. Sometimes I’ll consciously think about a plot point and other times I just let the Beach Boys or whoever take over while I cruise to the beat, man. No better music for SoCal freeway cruisin’.

I organize something in my house. Fortunately there’s always some closet or spare room that needs to be organized. (Why IS that?!)

Trying to force creativity is never good. Sarah McLachlan

Sometimes I sleep on it. A good nap or even overnight. My subconscious is a dog with a bone, a cat with a mouse…and more often than not when I wake up the first thing my conscious mind holds is the answer the subconscious me has spent all that time working out. Like this morning – “Oh, the entire planet has become an alien experimentation  station….” Well then, I know where to go from there and is my main character ever in for some trouble before that HEA ending.

It's impossible to explain creativity. It's like asking a bird, 'How do you fly?' You just do. Eric Jerome Dickey

My personal anthem (song starts at about :59):