I write for a living, I take photographs as a hobby, I studied design in school and even worked as a 3D artist. And I think I’ve done some decent work in these areas, if I may say so myself.
At the same time, if anyone were to ask me about what makes a person creative, my truthful answer would make them think I’m nuts.
Creativity in 2 Parts
I believe that creativity lies in 2 parts: the muse and the work. The muse is the source of inspiration for all creative work, and the work is the getting-your-hands-dirty act of making things.
Making anything good requires both inspiration and work. Inspiration without work is daydreaming, work without inspiration is dreary. The tricky part is when people use the lack of either as an excuse not to do anything.
But Where Does Inspiration Come From?
I have no idea.
I work my ass off and suddenly a divine idea springs into my head from out of nowhere, just begging for me to help bring it to life. And when it’s done, all I can do is look at it and go “I did that?”
In her TED talk, Elizabeth Gilbert describes this as a ‘genius’, an age-old idea that creative genius doesn’t lie inside the person, but from an external, divine source. Sounds kinda kooky, but I think every creative person will tell you how much it rings true. In any great creative work, there are strange moments where you happen upon an idea that doesn’t feel so much thought up, but given to you from somewhere.
One of the perks of being a tech reviewer is getting the newest toys and trying them out for free. One of the non-perks is doing a ‘shootout’, getting a bunch of said toys together and trying them all out at the same time.
So there I was, trudging up Bukit Timah Hill at an unprecedentedly early hour on a weekend (yes, working weekends, woot), trying to get decent photos for publishing with six cameras. A couple of them were excellent; easy to use, fast and responsive, like extensions of my eyes. A couple were average. A couple were bricks; using them to take photos was like using a rock to write.
(At some point, I wanted to hurl said bricks down the hillside, just to see them go crunch against the rocks.)
About halfway up the hill and over a hundred pictures later, I discovered something interesting: I was actually taking better pictures with the cameras I enjoyed using. Big duh right – would you do better using a big granite slab to write or a pencil – but you know what? It brought home closer to me that using the tools you love not only help you love what you do so it makes you do more, it also helps you do it better.
See those cartoons to the right of this column (if you’re reading via an RSS reader, click to go to 21 Dragons)? They’re all drawn by Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes wise, Hugh’s work is always original. And if you haven’t already guessed, I’m a fan.
So I was really excited when Hugh announced that the most popular series on his blog, Ignore Everybody – on how to be creative – was going to be published as a book. So excited that I pre-ordered two copies, one for me, and the other as a birthday gift for a friend who works in the creative industry.
Having read my copy of Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity twice over already, I love the book. (My aforementioned friend who works in the creative industry as a 3D artist called me to tell me how he loves the book, and called it ‘life-changing’. Real story.) Here’s why.
5 Reasons Why I Love Ignore Everybody
1. Ignore Everybody is Real
Ignore Everybody isn’t full of politically correct quotes. In fact, some of the cartoons are down-right cynical. But they’re honest. And honesty connects.
You’ll never see a cartoon like the one below in any motivational book. But it is oh so true. Hugh isn’t a motivational speaker, he’s an artist. There is a difference.
When I was a design student, there was a particular sketchbook I loved to use. You could only buy it at two places in the entire country, and sometimes they would sell out. It was meant for children, and the cover had a cute, colorful drawing of happy zoo animals, so it was more suitable for a kid to carry to kindergarten than for a teenager to be seen drawing it out of his bag in public.
But I absolutely loved it.
It was the texture of the paper, which was recycled. It had a rough, unfinished quality, and I loved the way it felt on my pencil. Every other type of drawing paper felt too smooth to draw on, but this paper was entirely inviting. I remember spending the entire month of one of my school holidays at the library, just sketching my way through a book.
That sketchbook with the colorful cover taught me one thing: when you use tools you love, you’re inspired to do more.
MUJI 0.38mm gel ink pens, another tool I love that inspires me.
HOWTO: 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog with Credibility! a SxSW ‘09 panel by Merlin Mann and John Gruber, has been on my repeat play-list for the past few weeks.
Merlin Mann and John Gruber are wildly successful web authors. They are both amongst my favorite writers; this is their first recorded panel together and it is insanely funny. Despite the tongue-in-cheek title, not only is it full of great advice about how to blog well, but when you replace the word ‘blog’ with any creative endeavor – like ‘photography’ or ‘3D animation’ – the advice translates across disciplines and gives insight about creativity, ownership and how to make something you can be proud of.
The first time I listened to the end of this one-hour recording, I forwarded it to my creative friends, because I knew they would get so much from it. But I was afraid they wouldn’t get the many (hilarious) Web 2.0 in-jokes and be turned off by the heavy blogging overtones.
So this short summary is for my friends; the makers of things.
Note: Quotes in this post are thanks to Jordan Cole’s full transcription.
1. Find Your Obsession and Your Voice
The core of the panel can be summed up in one simple phrase: find your obsession and your voice. Mann says: