Want to be creative in November but don’t want to do NaNoWriMo? Then take a look at this wonderful list over at Abundance Blog. There’s 30 creative things to do each day, and to be honest many could be full-time projects on their own.
What is the most influential influence on your creativity?
January 29, 2011 By 1 Comment
As we wander through life we are influenced by many and varied things. As teens we will dress according to the latest fashions and as adults we will often let our peers influence us. I have a feeling that peer pressure is more active in adults than in teens. Teens have their tribes, adults don’t. But that is another post at another blog I think.
Multiple influasms
Depending on what you get up to in your creative life, you’ll have a variety of influences. You may have a painting influence, or you may have a writing influence and so on. I can list a long line of people who have influenced and inspired me on my creative journey; Stephen King, Gary Numan and Mark Rothko to name three. I’ll be creating my own influence board in a few days. You can too by downloading the template from fox-orian.
But is there one specific influence that stands above all the rest?
All time influential moment
I think the most influential moment in my creative life is related to music. What is interesting is that the moment doesn’t belong to one of my all time favourite songs. The moment I am talking about is the opening minute of Dreams Never End by New Order*.
I like the rest of the song but it is the opening that has had the most influence on me. It has influenced the way I both play the guitar and how I have written a great number of songs. I first heard it at the age of fourteen and it was at that exact moment that I was teaching myself how to play the guitar.
If you want to know what I am talking about then listen here.
Influence not interference
But if you let an influence take control you’re on the road to plagiarism, or just plain disappointment. We need to let our influences inspire us and move us on. There is no point in imitating. We need to be influenced and then take that influence to another dimension.
For me those sixty seconds have influenced the way I strum the guitar and the way I break down a chord when I write something new. In the end, that influence isn’t evident but I know that it has been fundamental to any guitar part that I create.
So what are your influences? And more importantly, how do you let them influence your creativity?
*The track is from the album Movement, which also has an amazing cover. I admit I am totally smitten by Peter Saville’s design and the whole attitude of Factory Records. They have all influenced me. But this one minute is still my moment.
The top ten ways to deal with a blank page
January 8, 2011 By 3 Comments
The Blank Page
You know the situation. It is there staring at you, teasing you with complete nothingness. Laughing at your impotent attempts to make a start. The blank page. Scourge of creative people everywhere. Okay this blank page may not just be a piece of paper. It could be a metaphor for paper, canvas, sound recorder… you name it. The thing is it is blank, you don’t really know what to do and it is there staring at you.
Being the loving person I am I don’t want this to happen to you. So here are the top ten ways to deal with a blank page that is refusing to accept any form of creativity from you.
- Walk away – you really don’t need this sort of pressure right now. And you certainly don’t have to put up with the mocking blank page in front of you. So walk away. No seriously, walk away. The more you look at the page the more you’ll do nothing. So walk away and do something else. The page will be there when you come back and then you will be ready to deal with it.
- Take a tiny step – often a project can seem too big for us. We see the beautiful end product and just can’t see how we get from the blank sheet to the point of completion. So think, what is the one thing I could do now to begin the journey? However small that step is, take it.
- Fall asleep… almost – that twilight moment just when you are drifting off into dreamland is a highly creative time. Quite often if I’m stuck I’ll go and lie down and wait for that moment. When it comes it seems like the creative floodgates have opened and the ideas begin to pour out. The only problem is making sure you get up and don’t fall asleep and forget what has just revealed itself.
- Make some templates – you know that blank page doesn’t have to be blank! One thing that helps a lot is to have some templates ready. I write music, I enjoy composing songs and recording them on my little computer sequencer. This is my blank page. But I have created a series of template files that already have some of the basics preloaded. You can do the same when writing poetry or prose, and preparing backgrounds for images is helpful as well.
- Read – but not anything. Find a book that is not linked with the subject of what you need to create. Read and take in what it is about. Then take the subject, or the situation, and mix it with what you need to do. Do a little bit of creative surrealism. It’ll break the blockages that are stopping your creative energy and create some new and very interesting solutions.
- Listen – put on some music and let it interfere with your stuck thought process. The music will take some of your mental energy away from the problem and while it is doing that the rest of your energy can focus on the task at hand, perhaps with a little bit of subconscious automation thrown in.
- Run – any exercise could help but as Murakami
says, we think about things when we run. Bjorn from Abba used to come up with a lot of the bands lyrics when he went running. Actually any exercise will be helpful, it gets the adrenalin running and if you’re staring at a blank page that is exactly what you need.
- Rip it out - actually do you really need to do this, this way? Go on, just don’t do it. Grab the piece of paper and put it in the bin; the recycle bin of course.
- Mind-map – perhaps the problem is that you see the blank page as part of the final product? However the blank page can be the place where you simply pour out your ideas for the project. Mind-mapping is a wonderful tool for doing this. Write a central idea in the middle of the page and then any write any words that relate to it radiating out. If you want to know more about Mind-maps then follow this.
- Just start – to be honest you’re just delaying the inevitable. You know what you have to do and how to do it. You just need to make the first mark. Go ahead, go on. There is always an undo, delete or erase mechanism somewhere.
These are the top ten ideas that run through my mind when the blank page is mocking me, how about you?
How do you capture your ideas?
June 29, 2010 By 1 Comment
By far the best way to capture ideas is with a pencil and paper. The fewer things that can hinder the collection of an idea the better. A tablet may come a very close second these days and I live in the hope that they may take over; hey I love sci-fi and the future for me is always bright, shiny and wonderful.
One thing I saw that seemed quite interesting was The Musician’s Notebook: Manuscript Paper for Inspiration and Composition (Parchment Journals).This book, and several others, take the next step from just a piece of paper or notepad. They give you some templates for you to use.
By providing you with a set form to plunge your creative ideas these pages take some of the load from your brain, allowing the creativity that little bit extra grey matter to play with.
If we don’t need these particular books we can always make our creativity that little bit easier by creating our own forms or pages. Any resources that we can prepare for when creativity arrives is of use. Personally I have tried many different pre-made pages to help. Some have worked while others have limited my creativity. When that happens the pages get a reworking or end up in the bin.
What capture tools do you use? Or have you ever created your own?
Be dictated to, then subvert
June 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
It’s the beginning of a new week, or the start of a new day. Or perhaps you’re stumbling on this at some other time. Well it doesn’t matter when. It’s time to think about doing something creative.
What’s the weather like? Go on, look outside if you need to, I’ll wait. Is the sun blazing down? Is the rain hammering into the puddles it has already formed? Is the atmosphere as grey as the mood it has just put you in? Well that doesn’t matter either.
What does matter is that you can use the inspiration of the outside to engage your creative thoughts. What does the weather make you think of: warmth, heat, dryness, arid landscapes, global warming, rising sea levels, end of the world, drowning, depression, moods, angst. ? The list is endless.
Use the weather as a starting point to do something creative today. But don’t just see a shining sun and paint a shining vista. Turn things around, the weather is just the starting point. Let your imagination run and develop the theme. Go and create that subverted weather image, wordscape or aural texture.
Where to find good ideas by Seth Godin
May 10, 2010 By 1 Comment
And also where not to find good ideas. What better way to start the week than with a little bit of inspiration.
Five more ingredients for compelling writing
November 6, 2009 By 3 Comments
Writing can be seen as mix between a dark art and the pursuit of the unhinged. Sitting down for ages crafting words isn’t always as enjoyable as it could be. But if you approach your writing as a chef creates his signature dish, then this just might help.
I thought it only fair to return to the creative cookbook and find a few more ingredients you could add to your literary larder. If you haven’t seen the previous post of ‘Compelling writing ingredients’ then follow the link.
Remember, a good recipe doesn’t use all the ingredients you have all of the time, and sometimes the subtle flavour is more effective than the one that hits on the first mouthful. But enough of this extended metaphor, let’s get on with the post.
- Conflict – two or more characters, in disagreement, in any shape or form will draw the reader in! ‘No, it won’t.’ ‘yes, it will, your reader wants some kind of resolution… or the sequel.’
- Emotion – love, hate, joy and fear, if you can get the reader to engage with these emotions you’ll have them hanging on every word you write. Why do you think love and horror stories are so well read!
- Progress – a story, should move from A to B, it shouldn’t be static. Even waiting, as in for Godot, is progress; implied progress counts in writing if not in business.
- Variety of language – the use of passive vocabulary, which consists of words people know the meaning of, or understand in context, but don’t use everyday, is something to keep well stocked. Try eating the dictionary.
- Use your voice – all great cooks have a signature dish, or a specialty, as a writer you need to find an ingredient that is your own, unique to you. Sounds daunting but it is an ingredient you already have stocked, you simply need to use it.
So out with the utensils and start cooking. You have a story to write.
The top 5 Ingredients of compelling writing
November 4, 2009 By 5 Comments
It takes a little more than pure inspiration to write that killer content. Although the idea is the kernel to any great literary dish, you should always have on hand the following ingredients to lift your words to the writer’s equivalent of haute cuisine.
You may find that taking these ideas with more than a pinch of salt is just what you need. But you shouldn’t assume that you need all these ingredients all the time, mix and match; experiment.
There are many more ingredients you could use, but these are my top 5:
- Nearness – The reader can be drawn in with any geographical or experiential situation that they can identify with, try and create the ‘I’ve been there’ factor.
- Consequence – Try to make the content deal with matters that have an effect; create consequence in what you write.
- Human interest – Go on you know you want to, go all out for the cute vote, the shaggy dog story at the end of the news keeps you hanging on for the weather report. Alternatively the opposite is also true, a report on the cost to life of any disaster can be a compelling read.
- Drama – Action and intensity… if you’re writing a story, this can be quite a good hook.
- Oddity – Pique that mind, interest that soul. Let eyes pour over your words, washing them into the bowl that awaits like open mouth – sometimes being weird works, trust me, I’m an editor.
Remember these are ingredients, it is up to you how you use and mix them, or even add a few more of your own.
And if you want more: