Rituals of Creativity

I begin my creative process by actually… doing something different - something that is mindless and mundane such as going for a walk, emptying the dishwasher or taking a shower. Creativity, for me, is the art of spontaneity, and I find most of my creative ideas spontaneously pop into my head when I least anticipate them. Yet, at the same time, creativity needs to be intentional and thoughtfully employed to deliver a meaningful message. That’s why I go for a walk, empty the dishwasher, or take a shower on purpose, trying to create pressure-free moments when my creativity can freely and leisurely travel all over my mind.

The only problem with this ritual of creativity preparation is that creativity can go as spontaneously as it comes. Often, when a stream of fresh ideas flows through my mind unannounced in the midst of my walk or shower, I am unprepared to contain it and store it in a safe place. I have no notebook nor pencil as I do sitting at my desk. This sometimes leads to the leaking of ideas; I have lost some of what I came up with by the end of the walk or shower. There is nothing worse than losing the sought-after creativity that was there - in my mind - minutes ago. What I do to fix this is not to let myself stop thinking as soon as the creative ideas arrive. I need to continue to think about them and elaborate on them. The goal is to develop the raw, sketchy ideas into more concrete, organized concepts so that they can stay fresh and vivid in my mind. Not only does the continuous interaction with ideas help me save them from drifting away, but it also prompts more ideas to come. When I finally sit at my desk with notes and pen in hand, I have a “headful” of exciting visions ready to become reality.

Creativity, as I have learned, is one of the things to which you need to respond immediately the moment it knocks on your door.

And I won’t tell you how many walks I took in order to finish writing this mini blog post the way I want it to be done…