creativity

Get Cozy with Your Creative Chaos

Lynette M Burrows

Creativity is easy when you’re a preschool-aged child. Slowly but surely, the need for the “right” answers and approval grows and creativity shrinks. We become afraid of the chaos that is creativity. Stop being afraid. Get cozy with your creative chaos. Count to Five and Start Starting is the hardest part, facing a blank page you balk. Your brain wants to find order. There’s safety and security in order. But creativity is not a straight line from concept to the idea to execution to product.  What Creative Chaos Looks Like Allow Failure Part of creativity is failure. And often, failure sets off alarms in our brain. It triggers the fight-or-flight response. There are no right or wrong answers. Does that make you uncomfortable? Good. You can’t create without a little discomfort and a lot of chaos. Plan for failure. For writers, that means write a crappy first draft. Plan for it to be crappy. Editing it will turn it into the polished piece. Input Feed your creativity the images, words, sounds, rhythms it needs to replenish. Gathering lots of ideas is critical to creativity. Use all the arts, all the media you can get your hands on. The things you […]

What You Should Know About Creativity

Lynette M Burrows

What should you know about creativity? You know you can “Undo the Brainwashing,” that there are more than “3 Ways You Can Be More Creative,” and it’s possible to find “creativity in a time of chaos.” There’s much, much more to learn. Here are a few more inspirational thoughts. What Is Creativity? Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected. William Plomer Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas. Donatella Versace  “Creativity involves breaking out of expected patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” -Edward de Bono Creativity is intelligence having fun. Albert Einstein In the end, creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s the things we choose to leave out. Austin Kleon Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature. Eric Hoffer Creativity is based on the belief that there’s no particular virtue in doing things they way they’ve always been done. Rudolph Flesch Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous. Bill Moyers Who Can Be Creative? “The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.” — Dieter F. Uchtdorf “The creative adult is the child who survived.” — Ursula Leguin In order to […]

Undo the Brainwashing: Be Creative

Lynette M Burrows

Do you confuse being creative with being original? You might confuse being original with being unique. And do you think there’s no way you can be creative because your life is so ordinary? Society has brainwashed you. Undo the brainwashing: Be creative. Definitions According to Merriam-Webster creative means one is marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating, having the quality of something created rather than imitated. Original means the source or cause from which something arises; that from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made; a work composed firsthand; a person of fresh initiative or inventive capacity; or a unique or eccentric person. It’s easy to see why original and creative get confused. If one is the source or cause from which something arises that thing is an original created by someone who is creative.  A creative person can create something original (never having been in existence before). But a creative person can also “create” a variation on something in existence. “To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.”  — Kurt Vonnegut Contemplate Sometimes creativity needs rest, solitude, and meditation. Give your creativity time.   If you have […]