Creativity workshop

19 November 2012

Some were privileged to be able to attend a creativity workshop with renowned Writer and Poet, Kirpal Singh yesterday at the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA premises in Swanbourne.

I took away three useful things that I had forgotten, and which might also help with your quest for greater creativity:

Say Yes
Have Courage
Trust.

(Please excuse my extravagent use of Capital Letters!)

'Yes' is something that enables kids to play. When children play make-believe, it always goes best when they get lost in the imaginative world that is being created by avoiding the critical (or fearful) stance, or the tendency to default to the 'No' position.

Yes, there is a big giant, and Yes it is a girl, and Yes she lives in a castle made of edible flowers and Yes she can fly and arrive on the other side of the world in half an hour etc etc. The same applies to the world of improvisation (or adults called actors playing). To say 'Yes' is to allow the improvisation to develop, extend and take flight. To say 'No' is to block off the possibilities, to frustrate, to give the message that your idea is not as good as mine, or my idea is not good. One is called improvisation and the other is called competition or politics.

In writing, a largely solitary occupation, how often do I say 'No' to myself. 'No, that's not going to work.' Again this position blocks the path to something as yet unknown. 'Yes' allows me to follow the path to discover something that would have otherwise remained hidden.

I say, play with the text. Have fun with it. Write silly stuff. Be a clown. Allow yourself the freedom to use cliches and banalities, or the wierd and the wonderful. Soon, something will emerge. The business of writing is too important to take seriously. Be courageous and trust yourself.

Being courageous and trusting accompany the  Yes that allows creativity to flow, that allows the words to flow, and ultimately that finds something new.  Caution at the initial stage is an anathema to creativity.

Of course once something is down on the page, it can be shaped and honed, but the raw material must come from a kind of anarchic energy (albeit, I believe, with an underlying intention of love, goodwill towards others, and a deep desire for the well-being of us all).