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.

And also where not to find good ideas. What better way to start the week than with a little bit of inspiration.

Seth’s Blog: Where do you find good ideas?

Waiting for inspiration is another way of saying that you’re stalling. You don’t wait for inspiration, you command it to appear.

Those words from Seth Godin were quite apt for me this past month or so. I am writing a book. Not just any book, a commissioned 40,000 word novel, with a deadline, the real deal.

The problem was I had come to a full stop. The words weren’t coming and the prose that had seemed so easy for the first 10,000 words had dried up. I was at an impasse and the deadline was fast approaching.

The first hurdle was to renegotiate the deadline. I thought, that if I could reduce the pressure on myself, then the words would return. They didn’t.

I found myself continually staring at the word processor day after day and not getting anywhere. This was not going well, I really had a case of writer’s block. I was becoming overwhelmed and sinking fast.

When things get on top of me, I normally sit down with pen and paper and plan my way out. I list  what needs to be done, and that process often shows me the way to go. So I did the same with the writing. I already had the outline of the novel and also the chapter and scene breakdown. But could I break things down even further?

I began to write a sentence or phrase for each paragraph. Slowly the scenes and chapters began to fill up. As they did I found it easier to return to these sentences and elaborate on them, the block had been broken and the flood of words began to flow.

It worked for me and perhaps it will work for you. Keep reducing the task until you have the final version filling the space. As Seth says, you command inspiration to appear!

Feeling totally (or maybe just a bit) drained and out of creative ideas? Perhaps you need to take a break, or make time for some creative input. Why not take a micro-sabbatical? You’ll find the reasoning behind it and some practical ways to have one by reading a great post by Bradley J Moore called Six Ways to Take a Micro-Sabbatical.

I’m off for a micro… care to join me?

These are uplifting as well as inpsirational. 12 videos from Vimeo to blow on your creative spark.

Here we go, hold on tight

Found this wonderful video by Terry Timely via the equally wonderful SynthGear.

Just the thing to get the creative juices folling on a Monday, or any day in fact.

In 1978 Karol Józef Wojty?a became Pope. He was born this day in 1920, and 58 years later became the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. The odds were stacked against Karol becoming pope as he was also from a Slavic country, a country that has never delivered a pope before.

When someone becomes pope they take on a new name. For Karol, he took the name of his immediate predecessor. The pope before Karol has reigned for only several weeks. But Karol was inspired by the one who had come before and, in honour, and to lead himself to achieve even greater things, he took on that name.

The rest, they say, is history. Karol became Pope John Paul II. And Pope John Paul II, became a pope who far surpassed his predecessor. Karol was inspired to do greater things than had been done before. What are you being inspired to do today?

John Paul II (pope)

In recent years Dr Who and Battlestar Galactica have been successfully reinvented and given a much needed creative boost. The original ideas had run their course and had been relegated to nostalgic archives to all but the faithful. The same is just about to happen with Star Trek as the new movie is released around the world.

• How have these franchises managed to reinvent themselves?
• What can I learn in my own creative journey?

Dr Who successfully returned to the small screen in 2005 after an almost twenty year absence. But it also had an unsuccessful return in 1996. Why was the 2005 version a success?

Effective series

The original Dr Who was characterised by its poor special effects and cliffhanger endings. When it returned advances, and reduction of cost, in computer graphics allowed it to step into the same league as films like Star Wars. It also changed the format from half-hour cliffhanger episodes into the popular hour long length. It replaced the cliffhanger with the story arc. So along with good characters and writing it was set.

Unbelievable shocks

Battlestar Galactica returned to our screens after a similar break in time. This series hadn’t had any abortive attempts to revive it beyond the extension of the original series with a few TV specials. When it did return it came back with a radical reworking of the original. Gone was the glitzy, safe, middle of the road TV series. In its place was a hard hitting and edgy series that pulled no punches and surprised its watchers week in, week out.

Fit Trek

And finally we have Star Trek. Its success is pretty much guaranteed. JJ Abrams has taken control after several other successes, he’s on a roll. But he is also about to tweak the untweakable and mess with a story that has been filled in by the fanatical fans of this Sci-fi franchise. But that is why it will work. Star Trek has faded from popularity with the masses because it became tired. The new film will pull away the fat from the original kernel, and breath life once more into Roddenberry’s child.

So what can we take away into our creative journey?

• Use new tools as they become available – open source is great for cheap or free software
• Change format, learn from what else is popular
• Be prepared to go against what everyone is used to
• Don’t be afraid to change things from what people expect
• Get back to your basics, why are you creating. Live your dream

Happy New Year by Electrabel – Fubiz™

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