Creativity

Creativity is once again on my mind. I watched the movie, Saving Mr. Banks, which dealt with creativity, and how ideas are generated and fostered. On one hand, it showed protecting creativity, and using materials from early life, as in taking some of those real-life snapshots and embellishing them. On the other hand, it clearly spoke of being so deeply, personally imbedded in a memory, sometimes taking on an ownership or responsibility not rightfully your own, and causing almost a self-imprisonment. (I’m thinking here about how one little girl loved her father so much she never got over his death, and how he honored her creativity and the two became inseparable.) The sharing of our creative selves is a difficult one. Yet, it can also be cathartic. Some have even spoken of it as walking naked in public, or bleeding onto the page.

We all have a different view of childhood memories, but there are so many ideas for story from our own youthful memories or imaginations. Just ask your siblings. What might have appeared frightening to one sibling could have been exciting to another. An issue may have been huge to one sibling and shrugged off by another. When you mine your life for material, you have to ask, whose story is this? If it’s yours to tell, you will do it justice, if it’s someone else’s story then maybe it will be a mere observance.

I worked with a man once (he was my boss) who asked the question at a brainstorming meeting: “How do you compensate someone for an idea?” The general consensus was: “You can’t.” So our ideas at planning meetings were free-floating, and somehow as a group we tossed around thoughts and generated a new plan, which was then put into action with nobody getting any credit. Except for the boss, who was a giant idea stealer and always accepted the praise from higher management. : ) There were some truly creative people in that group, but often an idea was so solid that credit should have been given to one person.

Do you ever wonder about people who come up with slogans, or commercials, that are fabulous? Were those ideas from a group effort, or did they come from one individual? Who got credit, the company? Is the tapping into ideas or imagination a part of the job, so that salary covers all? I must have too much time on my hands to be worrying about such things. But, I’m curious. Especially now that I’m watching the new advertising sitcom, The Crazy Ones, starring Robin Williams, and they often show the brainstorming meetings.

As authors we’re protective of our ideas. We spend hours and hours batting around not just a story or plot line, but thinking about theme, building characters in our minds until they become fully realized, and then structuring our chapters, scenes, paragraphs, sentences, and word choices. It’s a never ending process. No wonder so many of us burn out after a few books. I’m intrigued by multi-published authors and how they continue to tap into their imaginations and write story after story.

Do you think there is a special way to nurture that kind of creativity? I guess what I’m asking is, is there a way to enhance creativity? How do we keep our minds active so that we can continue to produce new and interesting information? When under pressure to produce, how do we keep our ideas fresh and new?

                                       

          Robena Grant is Australian by birth but now resides in California. She is the proud mother of two adult children. She loves reading, writing, red wine, and karoke…but she can’t sing a note. Oh, my! Her recent release Gone Tropical is an Aussie rainforest adventure and is available on kindle only http://amzn.com/B00HJE3UAC

She had a ton of fun writing this one, and it will go to POD and worlwide release in April 2014. Robena may be contacted at www.robenagrant.com where she blogs once a week, or find her on FB, Twitter or Google+