For many years, I led creative writing workshops. Early on I noticed that some writing prompts tended to keep people entrenched in their thinking mind… and their subsequent writing was heady and dry. These writing prompts often involved using a word or newspaper headline to write from. Their writing might have been slick and witty, [ Read more … ]
albert einstein
Making Friends with Your Imagination
Imagination is indirect, nonlinear, and fuzzy. It’s more about taking you to a “new place” and providing a fresh perspective than providing a numerically clear solution or quick fix. Further, when we open up our imaginations, we challenge traditional norms. Our creative process comes up with ideas that are often at odds with standard procedures. [ Read more … ]
Five Disconcerting Qualities of Creativity
Newsweek magazine just came out with a cover article on creativity. Apparently, a poll of 1500 CEOs said that creativity was the most important skill of the future. Authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman write, “The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed.” The article goes on to lament that creativity scores are declining and we [ Read more … ]
Unraveling Genius
I’ve been thinking about this topic for awhile now, but have held myself back from writing about it because genius has such elevated connotations. We confer that term to people (usually men) after they have accomplished a large body of work, and typically after they’re dead (Einstein, Da Vinci, Picasso….) But what if genius was [ Read more … ]
What Prompted this Blog
I’ve always been interested in the idea of creating space. For years I had a note attached to my computer that read, “Create Space for Spirit to Speak.” If we don’t have the space for it, we can’t do anything new or creative because our life is already filled up. A simple example is writing–one [ Read more … ]