The Fuel for Creativity

In a former life when I had a publishing deal as a songwriter for Word Entertainment in Nashville (only for six months, I hated it), I got a great piece of advice from a publisher I worked for.  He said the key to being really creative is to be prolific.  You just have to crank out a ton of material.  Most of it will suck.  But that's cool.  The only way to find the diamonds is to dig through lots of dirt.  But make no mistake the diamonds are in there.

Barnabas Piper writes along similar lines here:

Creativity and the creative process get a lot of play these days in articles, books and blog posts. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of tips out there on how to be create, how to write.

Read a lot. Read widely. Write every day. Find new locations for inspiration. Write with noise. Write in quiet. And so on. These are great ideas, really helpful. I abide by them semi-religiously because they work for me. But you know what they’re not? A formula. Creativity doesn’t come with a one-size-fits-all formula. If it did everyone would be creative and therefore no one would be.

What makes creativity creative is uniqueness and personality. Are you expressing those ideas and expressions that are yours with a voice that is yours?

Of course then arise the questions. “How do I find my voice?” “How do I know when I’ve found it?” “How do I know if my ideas and expressions are really fresh and really mine?” “Am I any good, and is this really creative.”

Here’s my answer: Just do stuff.

Read the rest.

There is no substitute for disciplined hard work.