How often do you take the time to really look at, listen to, or understand a good piece of creative work? We can find so much inspiration from other people but it is rare that we actually delve into why the ‘piece’ is creative and how that can help us in our creative journey. Well here are a couple of things to bear in mind to aid us when we do decide to look a little deeper.

1. What makes this piece original? Has the piece mixed two different genres, has it pushed the boundaries further than the traditional medium? Try and ask yourself these and similar questions and discover why and how creativity was used.
2. What has the creative put in? Moving on from the first question you need to look for what has been added to the piece that makes it different. These are the constituent parts of the piece. You’ve looked at the whole, now look at the pieces.
3. What has the creative left out? Space is equally important, less is more, so they say, and it is the same in art, in all its forms. The pieces that the creative has left out are as important as what the creative put in.
   
4. How would you have expressed the idea?  This isn’t about how you would improve what has been done, but it could easily end up that way. What you need to do here is take the end result (what the ‘piece’ says to you) and think about how you would have expressed that.
5. What would this look like in another medium? The book is always different from the film. The play is always different from the film. The live performance is always different from the recorded version. What if you were to think about what you were analyzing in a different medium. What would that image look like as a piece of prose? What would that story sound like as a song?

Give your creative energy a boost by taking note of what other creative pieces there are surrounding us everyday.

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We’re all naturally creative, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t get stuck at times as we try to express ourselves. Here are five simple ways to kick-start your creative imagination; very simple yet very effective.

• take a different route – routine is one of the worst enemies of creativity, get stuck in a rut and you’ll stay there. Think differently and you’ll be creative, take a different approach than you normally do and you’ll solve the issue.
• lie down – this is basically making you relax, putting out of your mind all the worries and cares of the day and letting your creative thoughts run free. I often lie down, forget about everything and then focus on one creative task, within minutes my mind is being creative, the only danger is drifting off to sleep but that is my problem.
• stand up – ‘eh? You just said lie down.’ Well, if you are hunched over a blank piece of paper, trying to be creative, concentrating and worrying, it can be deadly. If you focus too much on an issue or problem you may miss the simple solution. So stand up, walk around and change the environment, stretch, rub your neck, anything… just get away from the blank paper.
• change the genre – still stuck? If you were a musician how would you solve the issue if you were a writer? Or vice-verse. If you’re stuck think how someone else would think, it can be a revelation.
• phone a friend – and remember you are not alone, two creative minds are better than one. Working on the same problem two minds can solve a seemingly insurmountable problem.

Go on, have some creative fun.

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Many of us don’t sit around with paper and pad on the arm of our comfy chair waiting for a light bulb to appear above our heads, bringing the most amazing creative thought into being. Many of us, okay me, (but feel free to join in as I go along) often get frustrated that creative ideas, of any shape or form, never materialise or even threaten to appear.

With this in mind here are a few simple ideas to provoke an imaginative spark in your life that can be fanned into creative flames.

1. Think in metaphor:  Just like I did above, by describing the creative process as a fire. Thinking in metaphor allows the brain to make connections it doesn’t normally make, and new connections mean new ideas.
2. Describe in another sense: We normally describe something we see by describing what it looks like. However, why not try describing an image by the sense of sound. Or a sound by the sense of smell. Again this will provoke your brain to go against its normal programming.
3. Excessive use of adjectives and adverbs: This could well annoy those you are near very quickly, so perhaps put a time limit on it. Use adjectives and adverbs to ‘colour’ your language everytime you speak. You’ll notice how often you use the same few words, so try to think before you speak. This in itself will stop any automatic phrases being spoken.
4. Imagine you are a famous artist: Take a few moments to imagine you are a famous creator. This could be any type: artist, author or musician. Now what are you going to create today as them? This can help you think in a different way to how you normally approach the creative process.
5. Doodle design: Take a piece of paper and doodle on it, preferably without looking at what you are doing and definitely without thinking of what you are drawing. After a few seconds or minutes, look at what you have done and use it as the basis for creating something, perhaps a picture or piece of prose or even a song. This will force you to think about being creative and open up new creative connections.

Have fun, and may your days be creative.

Here’s a nice and simple exercise to get the creative ideas flowing. And all you need is a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.

1. write a word on the centre of a piece of paper
2. around this word write ten others that are related
3. use these words in a poem, or piece of prose

Very simple and a quick exercise that can be done at almost anytime – not that I would advocate such a thing in the middle of a long meeting at the office.