Friday, February 13, 2009

Creativity and Results

For the creative people who, like me, are astounded by the work and genius of those successful in our respective fields. Who want to start creating something meaningful, even if they don't know exactly what.

I recently watched Merlin Mann's talk entitled "Towards Patterns in Creativity" [link]. I'm not going to explain who Merlin Mann is, because I don't really know. I found the talk through yet another blogger that goes by Greyscalegorilla who recently got caught up in idea of input and output as actions in our lives. Point being that we, the creative people, are constantly saturated with input. We're all reading, and watching and sometimes even taking notes, hoping to find that something that will inspire us into doing something really amazing. Greyscalegorilla's assignment to we-the-viewers, was to do some creative output today. Just assume that you already have all the tools you need to do what you want to, and go and do it.

In Merlin's talk he showed a slide with the following, "Creative work, summarized: In the time you set aside each day to work your ass off, ignore anything that makes you consider stopping."

Here are some of the things I've been thinking about.
  • Creative professionals have no shortage of inspiration, the hard part is turning it into something awesome.
  • Those of us stuck in between spend too much time reading books about how to do things. It's not about tips and tricks, it's about focus.
  • "Scratching" (per Twyla Tharp). Get a box. Set time aside to go and find stuff to put in it. Have a high tolerance for ambiguity, and trust that you will find a way to interpret what you've collected. The point here is that you have a place to collect your inspiration.
  • Be willing to make sacrifices along the way. Again, "...ignore anything that makes you consider stopping."
I'll end this here, knowing that anything else I write will likely be a vacuous effort to end with a profoundly inspiring and witty message. Forget the wit. Forget the how-to books. Make something.

1 comment:

Student Nurse said...

Confidence in yourself and what you have to offer often produces the greatest results for me! Thoughtful post.