How Creativity Happens

The Readers And Advocates Program

On Sunday I went to a Build Your Readers and Advocates program. As a result of the morning session, I began to toy with an idea relating to the picture book I've been working on for months and will, no doubt, be working on the rest of my life.

Add Writers' Group

Then Monday night I went to my writers' group with that picture book manuscript that I had thought, until I printed it, was in pretty good shape. But by the time I was stapling it together, I was unhappy with the lack of voice. And reading the thing aloud made clear there was some structural problems. (Little aside--Writers' groups hear your awful work.) I came up with an idea for a big revision.

Add Tuesday Morning's Workout

Actually, for a couple of years now some of my workout time has gone to yard work, because ours is kind of overgrown. (And that, lads and lasses, is another example of a multiplier--a task that addresses two goals.) So I was dragging a rake through the periwinkle Tuesday morning when I had a breakout experience. Which was:

If I was going to do the big revision I'd decided to do at writers' group on Monday, anyway, I could revise in such a way that I could use the idea I was toying with at the workshop on Sunday!

Bringing together different parts of your life or different experiences to make something different...X + Y = Something New.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content.