In 1992, Penguin Group published a book by Julia Cameron titled The Artist 's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. The self-help book helped coin the term "creative well."
What exactly is a "creative well"? As bloggers, writers, creative business people, most of us are very creative. The creative person may come up with dozens of new ideas in a single day. Because the creative person is always pouring things out in the form of new projects, writing, and work, there does come a point where the creative person 's inner well from which all this creativity flows runs dry. It must be "refilled" from time to time in order to keep the creativity flowing.
"Serious art is born from serious play.” - Julia Cameron
Cameron 's theory in a nutshell
…show more content…
Cameron gives two main tools to help free your creativity, but within each chapter are many other tips, tools and techniques that will help build your creativity.
The two big tools that Cameron offers that you can apply starting today and help expand your creative side are:
freewritingMorning Pages
Cameron recommends writing in a journal for a minimum of three pages every morning. This is done in a freewriting style, where your thoughts flow and you write them out. You do not worry about punctuation, spelling, or grammar. You simply write. If you can 't think of something to write, then you write: "I don 't know what to write." You write those words until something comes to you.
This is called "getting rid of the clutter" and helps free your mind of all the junk that goes on in a given day so that your brain can focus on the task at hand - writing.
Artist Dates
artist dateAn artist date is something you do completely by yourself. It should be something fun, different, exciting, or something you love. The idea is to refill your creative well so that you have more ideas than you had before. Some examples of artist
…show more content…
Idea starters can kick start the creative process and get ideas flowing.
Write a fabulous headline. Jerry Low has some examples from top bloggers out there. Write a headline that not only engages the reader, but has good SEO, and the rest of the article may just flow easily.
Take a walk around the block. Exercise gets oxygen flowing through your body. There is also something about walking that seems to free the thought process.
Read an article on improving a writing skill. We have many here at WHSR to get you started.
Work on improving your website 's design or style. Sometimes focusing on a different aspect of your blog can free up your creativity for the actual blog posts.
Listen to music.
Read similar articles to the ones you 're working on. You never want to copy another writer or website, but sometimes reading your competition will show you where there are holes in their copy and you can then fill those holes with unique topics of your own.
Ways to Refill Your Creative Well refilling wellIf you are completely burned out and all of the above ideas simply aren 't cutting it, then it is time to move to emergency measures to refill your creative well. First, don 't try to write at the moment. If you have to, hire a writer to create a few pieces for you to give your mind some time to heal from all the stress it 's
Shaughnessy, M. F., & Wakefield, J. F. (2003). Creativity: Assessment. In N. Piotrowski & T. Irons-Georges (Eds.), Magill's encyclopedia of social science:Psychology (pp. 459-463). Pasadena, CA: Salem Press. Van Hoose, W.H. (1980).
Richard Florida also goes on to say that creativity is energy-absorbing, tiring work. To come to think of it, it can be very laborious. My husband likes to design clothing, and sometimes he stares into space for hours daydreaming. Suddenly, he’d sprint into the bedroom, grab his notebook and start drawing. He could eat up a whole pencil, eraser and all, for that one drawing. Beads of sweat would form on his brow, and the nerve in the middle of his forehead would protrude. And I’d know to keep our daughter away and leave him at peace. You see, I think my husband is creative. He’s got a great sense of humor, and he’s an artist.
As stated by Anaïs Nin, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” Writing is a beautiful way to express how we feel, to make experiences memorable and to also be whoever we want to be. Writing is not easy for me. I always feel anxious before I begin to write, and this is because I’m always telling myself that “I don’t like to write.” In order to get rid of the nervousness, I start reading about whatever I have to write about so I can enrich my mind about that particular topic. Most of the times this does not work out, therefore I go to sleep and recharge my brain. As soon as I get back up I’m ready to write. My room is an ideal environment for me to write. Nobody’s there to distract me, so I put my headphones on because
Gardner describes the creative individual as follows: “The creative individual is a person who regularly solves problems, fashions products, or defines new questions in a domain in a way that is initially considered novel but that ultimately becomes accepted in a particular cultural setting” (Gardner, 1993, p. 35). As I understand this, a creative individual is one who seeks out problems and states or solves them in a way that no one else has previously. Such inno...
Shaughnessy, M. F., & Wakefield, J. F. (2003). Creativity: Assessment. In N. Piotrowski & T. Irons-Georges (Eds.), Magill's encyclopedia of social science:Psychology (pp. 459-463). Pasadena, CA: Salem Press.
Thomson, P. & Sefton-Green, J. (2011) Researching Creative Learning : Methods and Issues. Oxon, Routledge.
In their article, “The Creativity Crisis”, authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explore the urgency of the downfall in the public’s “creativity quotient.” Bronson and Merryman emphasize the necessity for young children to be imaginative. Through an IBM poll, they verify that with the decrease of creativity in our society comes an array of consequences seen in the work field. The authors remind readers of another reason for the importance of creativity; they argue that creative ideas can solve national matters. Hence, Branson and Merryman believe that original ideas are key for a better world. Though I concede that creativity is a vital key to the solution of many national problems, I still insist that teaching creativity,
Time and good ideas will make for a good paper because when I begin writing a paper or an
... Runco, Mark A., and Steven P. Encyclopedia of Creativity. San Diego, California: Academic Press, 1999. Print. The.
mind keeps on slipping into other thoughts. I dont know if this happens to lots of people,
Creativity is a key component of success in later adulthood for problem-solving and cognitive abilities (Plucker, 2010).
Most of my writings have been those of the classroom assignment variety. The assignments consist of free writes, essays, research and term papers, but none of these come to mind as an experience worth noting. I never had a writing published or received any type of an award. I seldom did any wrtiting out of school, or writing for leisure as some might say. The bottom line is, I just don't have te time to write for leisure, with a full time job, attending night school, and raising two children, my day are consumed rapidly. If I did have the time to sit down and write, I'm not sure that I would write. I keep most of my thoughts to myself, not on paper. Although it does feel nice to express my thoughts and feelings onto the page. I can see my thoughts unfold, and I can organize them to develop new ideas.
Since we are born we have imagination and as we grow up this imagination may increase or decrease. Creativity strongly relies in our imagination. Depending on different circumstances people learn to express their creativity openly while other people close themselves and believe they do not have creativity. Creativity is a natural talent that every single human has. Creativity can be used to solve a complex problem in a different manner or just to find innovative ways to have fun. Creativity is thinking out of the box. Even though creativity cannot be taught from scratch there should be a class that is specific for creativity.
Kirby, G.R. & Goodpaster, J.R. (2007) Creative Thinking. Fourth Edition Thinking. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Some creative ideas are amazing, simple and others complex. Creativity is a process, and it improves when a person continually work hard and come out with new ideas. Harris (1998)