10 Creativity/writing Tips
So you want to be more creative? Here are 10 creativity/writing tips
1. Ignore everybody.
If you’re the writer then you are the decider of what you write about, how you write, and what you want to write about. If you pay attention to others you will be hearing them say what they want you to write, or why they think what you write sucks, or what topics you should write about. Who is writing? The writer decides. If you guide yourself you may write well, or you may write poorly, but one thing is for sure, what you write will be of you, from you, and representing you. Isn’t that the point?
2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.
The two are not the same thing.
I have read some trite formulistic westerns, and then I read The Ox Bow Incident. The Ox Bow takes a tired genre and made it magnificent, something that brings forth universal questions, records the human struggle to cope with the more difficult issues of life, and it was anything but formalistic.
3. Put the hours in.
To write you have to do one thing, write. That means putting in hours on the key board. That means writing, not when you are inspired, but all the time. Once I accepted this simple truth, and decided that I wanted to write, to be a serious writer, I started writing constantly. To get time to write I started getting up three hours before work, walking the dog, brewing some tea, and writing like mad until it was time to go. I took my shower the night before, so it is roll out of bed and start writing. I carry three notebooks with me all the time. If I’m in a waiting room, I am writing. At lunch, at my desk, I am writing. At night, even sitting with my wife watching TV I am writing. Writers write. It doesn’t matter that I have few readers, that I rarely publish, that I may not even be good at it, I am a writer, because I am serious about my writing, and the evidence of my serious commitment is that I put the hours in.
4. If your motivation for writing depends on being "discovered" by some big shot, by becoming rich and famous, then your plan will probably fail.
If you want to be famous, win a hotdog eating contest. Fame is not writing. Fame is being a celebrity. Some writers are celebrities, but that is a coincidence. Writers write. Some are known, some are famous, some are admired, and most are known by only a few. The motive for good writing is good writing. If you want to be a famous writer you will fail. If you want to be a great writer, you might be famous, but that will never have been the primary goal.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
Nobody can tell you if what you're doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. By it’s nature, writing is a lonely solitary activity. To write is to plant your seat in a chair and write. Others may say you are good, or that you suck like a vacuum cleaner, but the only assessment that matters is your own. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is. If you need a lot of company, be a marriage planner.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Children are naturally creative. Children dance. Children color with a simple mystery admired by our greatest artists. Children tell stories, and make up songs. Then something bad happens. You hit puberty, they take the crayons away and replace creative activity with an algebra book. Boys discover girls and need to look cool. Girls discover boys and need to look cute. Creativity is rarely cool to teenagers. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is like hearing that still small voice saying, "Give me my crayons back, please."
Creative writing by an adult is similar to marathons for senior citizens. It is unusual when it happens, and the competition is great, and no one can really explain where or why you have the urge to be creative.
7. Everybody has their own private
We may forget, we may ignore, we may postpone, we may kill and bury our creative hopes and dreams, but they were once there and the quality of life is always enhanced when we honor and follow our dreams. You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow-line, years later you will look back and find yourself lying on your deathbed, and as your life ebbs away all you will feel is emptiness. Who wants to end life that way?
8. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
For a long time there was this image of creative people being hard drinkers, dopers, promiscuous hard fast living people who live on the edge, they are the life of the party, they tempt death, and that ole “live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse” is the preferred way to live and die. Creative people create stuff, and being the life of the party may be fun, but it is not creating a body of original work. Creativity is not imitating the trends, or following the crowds, and there's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. Let creativity be the goal and nothing else. Be committed to do creative work daily, and constantly.
9. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it's going to. I know. It sucks. And yet, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have ever. If you can pull it off the creation of a poem, novel, play, painting, sculpture, or art doll made from plastic bread bags, well, it's worth it. Even if you don't end up pulling it off, you'll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It's NOT being a creative being that is sad, when you know you HAD the opportunity- and did not cease the opportunity, well, that hurts FAR more than any failure.
10. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.
The more you practice your craft, the less you confuse worldly rewards with spiritual rewards, and vice versa. You may never earn a dime, you may never have an audience, but it won’t matter if you just focus on the creativity, focus on the work, and stop comparing yourself to others. When you look at others, you see the outside. This is true for all of us. If anyone is come close to knowing anyone else, it will be because creative people have taken what was inside themselves, and turned it, via creativity, into somethings others can see, and understand, and in the knowing their humanity and yours will, briefly be one. Maybe.
Article submitted Saturday, May 23, 2009 & read 750 times.
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