This is one of most interesting pieces of this article. So, it is naturally longer than others, which also means that I would need to split it up into at least 2 sub-parts.
When I started to appreciate writing and wanted to do some on my own, this was the first question that was big in my mind. This question is applicable not only for writing, it is applicable for any creative art like sketching, music composition, choreography, modelling, theatre and even design of new software, games etc. During my childhood, I grew up seeing and appreciating cartoons that used to appear in newspapers by the renowned Indian cartoonist R.K.Laxman. His cartoons often had only a few strokes of pen, with which he vividly described the person he is targeting to depict. But, more than his sketches, I really liked the way he brings in subtle humour and through it, a true representation of life in the whole country. I used to wonder, doesn't this man run out of ideas? What does he do, when he doesn't have anything to publish for tomorrow's column? I believe, the same question is equally true for any journalist as well. Don't those people who are regular columnists in the newspapers or magazines, as well face such situations? I am sure, this is the single-most fear in most of the people, who imagine to get creative in a short run. I thought about this, and over the years, I found something that resembles an answer to this question. I will list out my findings...
Understand first that creativity doesn't have a shortcut. One can't imagine to get creative from tomorrow, with no prior experience or preperations to it. Preparation is the key. So is, practice. Once you start on your mission, don't stop, whether you are tied up with something else, whether you feel unconfortable...Most of those are just excuses to ourselves, and can be overcome with some effort from our side. But, if you feel stressed, stop it immediately because, creative juices won't flow freely when you are stressed. Let me list out here some thoughts and ideas about how to generate ideas...I won't talk about each of them much here, for there are many. I may discuss each of them separately in future posts.
Since there are many, I will list here in this post only a few, which i regard as the most important. I will follow it up, in my next post with more...
- Focus. Lot of times, things happen right in front of your eyes and you don't see it. It is because, you really don't focus on it. It is because, you may not be interested in it. Focus or concentration at work, is of prime importance to get ideas.
- Observe. Observe carefully each minute details of what you see daily in life. While you drive, while you are at work, while talking to people, while surfing the net, anything. Ideas often hide behind these minute details.
- Think through. Often there are non-obvious stuff about anything you do, or others do. For those who work in software projects, project post-mortems are very familiar. These are group discussions conducted by the project team members, after the project is delivered, with the intent of finding things that could've gone wrong. Do similar brain storm sessions, yourself. At this stage, don't involve others in these brain storm sessions. We are much more capable and effective when it comes to thinking, if we do it on our own.
-Identify the best time of your day, to think peacefully. To me, the best time is the early mornings. I believe, it is the same for most people. Get up early and spend sometime for yourself. You may like to take a nice morning walk, when you can think through the happenings of yesterday, or plan for today. I bet, you will get lots of new ideas at this time of the day. It just needs some little practice. In case you think, evenings will work out better in your case, that is OK as well. It is very imporant not to stress yourself too much in any case.
- Talk to people and listen to them. It is another good way, which will help in building up relationships too. Fundamental benefit of a team working together on something is that they often generate much more than the sum total of each one's individual capacity, provided they gel together enough. It is possible, because not all people think exactly the same, and hence could generate various (but congruent) ideas that will take us towards the final goal. Like- minded people gel together easily and are best suited for team work, let's say in a project of any kind. But, we don't necessarily need only like minded people to get us ideas. Infact, just the opposite will serve us better.
I have some more ideas about getting ideas... I will talk about those, in my next post.
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