Blog Dis
The fluidity of creativity
2025-02-04
Well, it's true, many a writer would imbibe copious amounts of alcohol to ease the pains of filling blank pages. I find my particular choice of weapon is a good bottle of red wine, a very cold Corona with lime and in days past, when I lived near Ottawa University, I'd indulge in a frothy pint of English Newcastle Brown Ale, in my favourite British pub on Laurier Street called The Royal Oak, which I nicknamed, The Royal Yoke.
But when it comes to writing, I can't pour booze into my brain to come up with ideas. The creativity well for me must be pulled up late at night when I'm ready to head for bed. I typically write between two periods, oscillating between both, either a 'review read', what I call taking time to review what I wrote the day before, such as I do when I'm on my lunch hour, and I'll shape and re-shape, sort of like writing, but not really. Or, after work in the evenings (what my schedule was like prior to the pandemic) and more lately toward end 2024 on Sunday afternoons. Sticking to a defined writing schedule is difficult to do when you work full-time. So, I squeeze in my writing time whenever I can. Fresh ideas come to me after the laptop beast has been closed and shut-off. Convenient? Oh, of course not. But when is it convenient to accomplish anything worth doing?
In the late 1990s, McGill University (Montreal) held a seminar on the nature of creativity - how cool is this? We pay our academics to think, so over the course of days, in a nutshell, a group of professorial attendees determined that there are really only three kinds of creativity:
#1: Combinational Creativity - the act of combining two elements that wouldn't normally be paired with one another. This is best exemplified in poetry and music, such as when Paul McCartney added the cello to the pop song song Yesterday, to wonderful effect.
#2: Transformational Creativity - when one element has the power to transform all other elements it comes into contact with, such as when the astounding French painter George Seurat had painted Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte with colour dots, instead of broad colour strokes, thereby transforming how the world viewed painting and, in so doing, he had founded Neo-impressionism (pointillism).
#3: Explorative Creativity - working within a confined space and applying creativity to make changes with that said space. This kind of creativity is typically found in science. The best example is a 500 ml bottle of perfume. You can change the shape of the bottle so long as it remains within the 500 ml limit.
You may be nodding your head yes, or shaking your head back and forth, telling yourself, "No!" But the nature of creativity is not as simple as forming ideas out of nothing. I've heard some artists speak like this... "Oh, I just got the idea out of thin air." No you didn't. You didn't pluck the idea out of thin air because you're not the genius you think you are, to be blunt. Nor have you been divinely inspired by some deity in the sky. Every idea that has been conjured is already present in the world. And, if you were to take a moment to reflect, you'd soon recognize that your so-called original idea could be categorized into one of the three aforementioned categories I've detailed in this post.
But if we insist on deluding ourselves, to believe that we came up with an original idea, that it had somehow magically popped into our heads, it might feel even better than glugging a glass of wine or a pint of beer or whatever. Ever true to its nature, the mind never stops, even when at rest or asleep. When I've written myself into a corner, and I've no idea how to write myself out of it, or if I fight over a particular plot point and I haven't a friggen clue how to work around it, I take a step back and rest assured that my creative brain will ultimately employ one of these three methods, if only on a subconscious level, that is to say: combinational, transformational or explorative and within these parameters my creativity will come up with a solution.
Whew! Wasn't this fun?
Read fiction or non-fiction or the back of a cereal box found under the smelliest garbage bin you can find and maybe you just might stimulate your brain to new creative heights. Because, and after all, the creativity you seek currently exists in the world, all around you, just waiting to be shaped into something exciting, something that might be heralded as bold and brave, as your adoring readers will happily tell you.
So now, you've been set straight on the nature of your creative thoughts, and how to compartmentalize them into a workable understanding.
[Image: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884 by Georges Seurat; The Art Institute of Chicago]
But when it comes to writing, I can't pour booze into my brain to come up with ideas. The creativity well for me must be pulled up late at night when I'm ready to head for bed. I typically write between two periods, oscillating between both, either a 'review read', what I call taking time to review what I wrote the day before, such as I do when I'm on my lunch hour, and I'll shape and re-shape, sort of like writing, but not really. Or, after work in the evenings (what my schedule was like prior to the pandemic) and more lately toward end 2024 on Sunday afternoons. Sticking to a defined writing schedule is difficult to do when you work full-time. So, I squeeze in my writing time whenever I can. Fresh ideas come to me after the laptop beast has been closed and shut-off. Convenient? Oh, of course not. But when is it convenient to accomplish anything worth doing?
In the late 1990s, McGill University (Montreal) held a seminar on the nature of creativity - how cool is this? We pay our academics to think, so over the course of days, in a nutshell, a group of professorial attendees determined that there are really only three kinds of creativity:
#1: Combinational Creativity - the act of combining two elements that wouldn't normally be paired with one another. This is best exemplified in poetry and music, such as when Paul McCartney added the cello to the pop song song Yesterday, to wonderful effect.
#2: Transformational Creativity - when one element has the power to transform all other elements it comes into contact with, such as when the astounding French painter George Seurat had painted Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte with colour dots, instead of broad colour strokes, thereby transforming how the world viewed painting and, in so doing, he had founded Neo-impressionism (pointillism).
#3: Explorative Creativity - working within a confined space and applying creativity to make changes with that said space. This kind of creativity is typically found in science. The best example is a 500 ml bottle of perfume. You can change the shape of the bottle so long as it remains within the 500 ml limit.
You may be nodding your head yes, or shaking your head back and forth, telling yourself, "No!" But the nature of creativity is not as simple as forming ideas out of nothing. I've heard some artists speak like this... "Oh, I just got the idea out of thin air." No you didn't. You didn't pluck the idea out of thin air because you're not the genius you think you are, to be blunt. Nor have you been divinely inspired by some deity in the sky. Every idea that has been conjured is already present in the world. And, if you were to take a moment to reflect, you'd soon recognize that your so-called original idea could be categorized into one of the three aforementioned categories I've detailed in this post.
But if we insist on deluding ourselves, to believe that we came up with an original idea, that it had somehow magically popped into our heads, it might feel even better than glugging a glass of wine or a pint of beer or whatever. Ever true to its nature, the mind never stops, even when at rest or asleep. When I've written myself into a corner, and I've no idea how to write myself out of it, or if I fight over a particular plot point and I haven't a friggen clue how to work around it, I take a step back and rest assured that my creative brain will ultimately employ one of these three methods, if only on a subconscious level, that is to say: combinational, transformational or explorative and within these parameters my creativity will come up with a solution.
Whew! Wasn't this fun?
Read fiction or non-fiction or the back of a cereal box found under the smelliest garbage bin you can find and maybe you just might stimulate your brain to new creative heights. Because, and after all, the creativity you seek currently exists in the world, all around you, just waiting to be shaped into something exciting, something that might be heralded as bold and brave, as your adoring readers will happily tell you.
So now, you've been set straight on the nature of your creative thoughts, and how to compartmentalize them into a workable understanding.
[Image: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884 by Georges Seurat; The Art Institute of Chicago]
