“An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come”

Victor Hugo

Sometimes when the creative idea arrives you really don’t need to do much at all, apart from going with the flow.

There is a great post over at David Seah’s blog in which he relates some personal thoughts on how his productivity has recently been affected. The link is at the bottom of this post, it’s a great read. However, it also got me thinking on a couple of issues that he raises.

He mentions the ‘blues’ being an issue when trying to be productive. That is certainly the case. Feeling down doesn’t lend itself to getting things done. But it is quite good when it comes to inspiration. Think of all the great songs that have been written about that negative range of emotions, and all the other art created at those times. The key here, is being able to capture those feelings in order to ‘create’ something when the right time comes. I’ll be looking at the right capture tools in a future post (that’s the near future).

David also talks about scheming with others. This struck a deep note with me. My personality type is ‘introvert’ and so sharing and scheming with others is a big energy sapping time for me. However, the importance of it for being creative can’t be measured. Bouncing ideas off others and developing them in a brainstorm can be wonderful. It is what Steven Covey calls the sixth habit, ‘synergy’. When you work on an idea with another person, you get more than the sum of the two parts.

There is a lot more in David’s article and a wonderful metaphor regarding James Bond villains too, so take a look from the link below.

David Seah : Motivation, Villainy, and Double Takes

Picture it, you’re in the ‘creative’ zone, pulling together your masterpiece; pouring out soul into your art… and then you take a step back, look/listen to it and think, ‘that’s rubbish.’

It is all to easy to throw away what you’ve done, becasue you don’t think it is good enough. Perhaps it isn’t the best that could be done, perhaps it does need some more work, perhaps it isn’t great. But it is something that you have created.

At these times, why not use the following quote from John Cage to question whether it really is rubbish.

‘The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.’

John Cage

Those nice peeps over at Signal vs. Noise, the blog from 37signals who brought us some wonderful Web 2.0 tools, have posted a nice list of quotes by Stephen King. All the quotes are nice and helpful for writers of all sorts of material.

What is even better is that the comments list below contains even more gems for writers, this is blogging and community led synergy at its best. So if you want some writing tips from one of the most successful writers of modern times follow the link below.

Stephen King quotes

I am often drawn into discussion when a new piece of ‘modern’ art is thrust into the limelight, or should I say ‘post-modern’ art, or perhaps we have even moved beyond this, I am no art historian. I am refering to pieces of art such as Emin’s bed  , but it also goes back further. The ‘print splatters’ of Jackson Pollack  or the blocks of colour by Mark Rothke . The discussion is something like this, in fact it is exactly like this…

‘I could have done that, left my bed unmade, spilt some paint on a canvas or painted large squares of colour’

My response is always the same, ‘perhaps, but you didn’t.’

Without wanting to go into any deep discussion about what is and isn’t art, I want to focus on the one fact that is true here, the process, the actual expression. These pieces would never have been done unless the artist, and I do use that word, hadn’t decided to express their creativity.

The same is true for us. We can have lots of ideas, many thoughts and countless dreams, but unless we actually sit down and express them they will remain unrealised. Currently you and I may not receive many thousands in commission to create an installation in a famous gallery, but there is nothing stopping us from being creative except ourselves.

Go on, you may not want to spill some paint, colour some squares or leave your bed unmade, but do something to realise your creative potential.

There is a great post at Copyblogger that will come in useful for writers everywhere, 5 tips for writing well as proposed by Ernest Hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway’s top 5 tips for writing well.

The positive point stands out for me. Often as I write I find myself camparing things in this manner.

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month and can be found here. Basically you sign up and attempt to write a 50,000 word novel (novella?) in the month of November, along with a whole bunch of others who are wanting to do the same thing – visit the site as they explain it much better than I can.

You’ll either love the idea or hate it, depending on your personality type, however, if you really need a little push to get writing then this could be just for you (and all the others who sign up).