Creative Creativity: Inspiration and Tools for Creativity

My Head is Like a Factory: Creativity in the Industrial Age

I ran across this chraming poem by Butler Brannan in an old magazine on Google Books. Oringinally published in 1901, it compares creativity to a factory. The brilliant bit is that it acknowledges that we don't always control what the final product of that factory will be.  I think we've all had days when our heads produced nothing but hair.

My head is like a factory,
the windows are my eyes;
The Furnace is my mouth, - you see
I feed it meats or pies.

And when its Hunger I appease
My Head will do its share,
Sometimes producing Rhymes like these
And sometimes only Hair.

Instant Motivation for Creativity!

I want to pass along this great site I found that give you a quick burst of inspiration when you start to drag. It's call I Feel Unmotivated. Any time you visit, you're presented with something motivational whether it's a quote, a  random thought or even a video. If a particular bit of motivation doesn't work for you, simply click the button underneath for another burst of awesomeness.

I pressed the button and got this video of Anis Mojgani (some NSFW language):

Then I got this!

"Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." - Bruce Lee

I plan to use the site sparingly, if I press the button too much it's procrastination not motivation, right?

Click Here For Motivation!

Jumping and Creativity

I have been noticing lately how often the word "jump" is used in conjunction with creativity. In improvisational acting it is held as a truism that if you jump, a net will appear. Jumping implies taking a risk and propelling yourself over normal limitations.

Here are a few quotes to consider:

“If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall”

- Ray Bradbury

“To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.”

- Benjamin Franklin

“Look, I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively.”

-Mel Brooks

"You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you are doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle.”

- George Lucas

“If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.”

- Bruce Lee

"It took me years to figure out that you don't fall into a tub of butter, you jump for it."

-Claudette Colbert

And who, other than the lactose intolerant, wouldn't want to jump in a tub of butter?

Picture from Dancers Among Us by Jordan Matter

Massive Creative Recharge From Captain Beefheart

Captain Beefheart's music is not for everyone. That's a good things. I've seen this bit of his prose reprinted multiple times since his death, but I though it would be useful to reprint it again. The advice isn't for everyone, but it might be exactly what you need to hear at this exact moment. Don't be put off because it says it's about guitar playing. It isn't. It's a magic spell. It's about whatever you're doing right now.

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Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

1. Listen to the birds

That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.

2. Your guitar is not really a guitar

Your guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.

3. Practice in front of a bush

Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn't shake, eat another piece of bread.

4. Walk with the devil

Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're brining over from the other

Packaging as Content

The title to this post is the tag line to an interesting blog called box vox. Box vox is dedicated to the meaning and art of the packages that contain the things we consume. The perfect package makes what's inside it more desirable. Lets face it, some things we buy just because the package is so amazing we can't help it.

What if, for your next creative project, you created the packaging for it before you created the content? Imagine how easy it would be if you already knew the size and shape of what you were going to create. You'd know the name and maybe even the list of ingredients.

If you don't want to create your own, use another package and fill it. What's inside will be uniquely yours! If you want to write a book or story, find a book cover that's evocative to you and write what would go inside. The same goes for old movie posters, advertisements and album covers.

For me personally, the best thing is to find an awesome package with a bad product. That way, you can create something that finally lives up to the promise of its packaging.

Less disappointment in the world is a good thing!

Strategies for Overcoming a Creative Block

I wanted to point out this great post that has the opinion of 25 creative people on how to overcome a block. My favorite comes from Erik Spiekermann:

There are 6 strategies for this situation:

1. Avoid
Do something else, wash the car, back-up your data, do errands…
2. Think
Sit back and think about the issue, just let your mind go…
3. Research
Look up stuff, go through your old projects, but avoid Google — it takes too long to find anything useful…
4. Collect
We all have lots of stuff; there must be something in there that is waiting to be used…
5. Sketch
Drawing is great, even if you have no talent. Just visualising the simplest things makes them come alive…
6. Deconstruct
Take the problem apart, look at the parts and then put them back together…

Don't forget to check out the comments, I found some interesting stuff there as well. 

Read it here

David Byrne on How and When to Handle Criticism

David Byrne posted in his blog today that one of his friends warned him not to read a review of his current tour in the New York Times. It was less than flattering and was written by someone who had not liked his work in the past. He passed on this advice.

While taking criticism on board can be constructive, it can also be detrimental to the creative process if it’s considered while that process is still under way. It undermines one’s enthusiasm and will — which is OK, beneficial even, but only after a tour (for example) is over. This review, by all reports, wasn’t helpful criticism anyway — it seemed to be one of those reviews that comes from some psychological issues the writer has — and therefore even a belated reading is not going to help us refine what we do.

David Byrne

Creativity is a Conversation

Reading Ken Robinson's book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. So far, it's amazing. It's about finding out what your passion is, how to get good at it and how that will make you happy.

Passion + Talent = Happiness

This quote has stuck in my head for a couple of days because it just seems so right:

"You can think of creativity as a conversation between what we're trying to figure out and the media we are using."

I think it should be "figure out or express," but that's just nit picking. Lots to think about in that statement.

Seth, Sweatshirts and Creativity

The amazing Seth Godin cast his spotlight on creativity this week. In a short post he does a good job of using a sweatshirt as a metaphor for creativity.

For me, creativity is the stuff you do at the edges. But the edges are different for everyone, and the edges change over time. If you visualize the territory you work in as an old Boston Bruins sweatshirt, realize that over time, it stretches out, it gets looser, the edges move away. Stuff that would have been creative last year isn't creative at all today, because it's not near the edges any more.

It's true, creativity is moving all the time. That's why if you write an idea down and forget about for a few years, you'll likely find someone has already done it by the time you get around to it. Seth uses this to persuade you to spend more time near the edge, which I agree with.

However, since creativity is a moving target, doesn't that mean we should be moving quickly on our ideas? Each creative impulse we have is correct for a moment, but that moment will pass. Don't spend time on the edge and then not take action. That's the definition of creative frustration.

Act quickly and often, that's the way to make progress. If you don't, you're just setting yourself up for regret.

We've all had to sit next to that guy on the bus that claims he invented Post-It notes in his basement in 1967, but never got around to doing anything about it and now all he has left to do is ride the bus and tell the same story over and over again about what an unrecognized genius he is.

Don't be that guy. And don't sit next to that guy if you can help it, his breath smells like tuna fish and socks.

Read Seth's post here

The ABC's of Staying Creative

 Do you experience lulls in your creativity? Do you run hot and cold with ideas? Want to be ready when you need your creativity the most? Here's one way you can be sure that you are always at the top of your game.

In David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin shows up to deliver a motivational speech to a room full of salesman. Really it's more threatening than motivational, but one of the bits of simple "wisdom" he shares with them is the ABC's of sales. The letters stand for "always be closing." To a room full of people struggling to make a single sale, this advice seems more like a cruel taunt than a guiding philosophy.

What if we changed the C from "closing" to "creating?" Always Be Creating. Is it a taunt to use this as a philosophy of creativity? Let's take away the idea of failure. We aren't using the phrase to imply quality, just quantity. So, there really isn't a way to fail except by not doing anything. It's not a taunt, it's a cheer!

Instead of working on something, finishing it and then waiting for the next project, what if you always had multiple projects going on? They shouldn't all be equally important. In fact, having a few low priority creative projects to work on for fun is completely freeing. What about writing Bacon Haikus? Or doing a drawing a day? Or even wearing a different outfit every day? It doesn't have to be something you're good at, in fact, being bad at it might be better in the long run.

These seeming distractions are actually keeping you at your top creative level! Your creativity isn't a faucet that you can turn on and off, it's an exploding geyser in the middle of your brain. The problem is that if you don't go there all the time, you might forget where it is.

Multiple projects. Plans. A giant novel about a war between the ant-people and the walrus-people.  The perfect cupcake recipe. An elf outfit for your bulldog. A list of believable lies about Abraham Lincoln. A list of heavy metal band names that haven't been used yet. (That last one is harder than you think.) Designing underwear for chickens. Anything you want!

ABC, Always Be Creating! Don't take a vacation from doing what you love. Keep your projects secret or put them on the web. It doesn't matter! The whole purpose is to maintain your highest levels of creativity at all times. 

It's as simple as... well.. you know...