One of the questions writers hear over and over is: Where do you get your ideas?, often followed by the statement: I’m just not creative. I don’t have a hard time answering the first. I get my ideas from everything I see, read, experience, and bits of the world I discover, often while looking for something else. Like this picture of my grandmother and her best friend.
One day I will tell a story about this photo. I found it looking through a photo album at my mother’s house. I made a copy of the photo and added it to my flat file where I keep bits and pieces of ideas until I have enough to put together a project.
The second statement is so hard to hear. I detest the idea that creativity is a gift. I don’t think it is, because there are so many ways to be creative. It is not only writing, drawing, or painting or any of traditional ideas of what being creative means. Being creative is allowing yourself time to think, to do something only you could produce with your thoughts, and hands, and time.
Lack of time is the greatest barrier to creativity. If you want to create you have to set time aside to think, to plan, to play with your ideas, and to experiment. If you want to create make a plan, schedule it into your life. Set aside time to think and discover. Anyone can create. Fine arts are only one aspect of creativity. Do you like to make changes and adapt recipes? That is being creative. Do you spend time decorating your home or planting a garden? That is being creative. Creativity is what happens when you stop and let yourself imagine, and dream. Give yourself permission to look at life sideways. Take the walk, visit the museum, read, and absorb the world around you. Creativity is a habit. It is work. Rewarding, delightful, soul filling work. Do the work.
Wonderful piece Brenda, so much truth here. I’ve only just started delving into a more traditional art “painting”… but have done many of the others you mentioned through the years. Lack of time to truly sink into the process is definitely my biggest obstacle, but when I get the chance too , it is very sweet and fulfilling indeed. Even with very little time you can be a constant explorer and observer of the world around you… my phone camera is full of inspirational pictures with bits of color, texture, composition, and inspiring visuals… that I at least always make time for.