How do you spark creativity?

musicismylife78

"I want to draw something that means something to someone! You know, I want to draw blind faith, or a fading summer, or just a moment of clarity. It's like when you go and see a really great band for the first time and nobody is saying it but everybody is thinking it. We have something to believe in again." "I want to draw that feeling... but I can't. And if I can't be great at it, then I don't want to ruin it. It's too important to me." Peyton quote from One tree Hill

---

I have spent the better part of 3 years now, gorging on art. Watching movies, a ton of movies, anything I could get my hands on. I have listened to a ton of music. At my local music venue nearest my apartment, I try and go to literally every single show. Not just for bands I know or like, I evengo for bands I may not be into. I have read a ton of books. And have watched a ton of tv shows.

I am at the point now where I want to physically manifest something. Express myself. I want to express it creatively, through art. Being able to say how I feel, in writing, in music, or through music is a dream of mine. I just dont know how.

I have long had a talent for writing, but I dont know how to express how I am feeling. And I just can't seem to get myself to write anything, despite having purchased some notebooks for said use. And I recently, days ago bought an acoustic guitar and hope to actually learn this time, after having tried a few years back, and never getting past that point...playing for two weeks then not returning until when I got my acoustic the other day

So, how do I spark my creativity? Do I need incentives? Like do I tell myself, "you can't watch another movie until you write for half an hour and play guitar for the same"?

I have literally spent thousands of hours now, watching hearing and reading others express themselves. How do I do it?

I also feel like its something I NEED to do. Its not like I necessarily want to learn guitar or be a better writer or become a filmmaker, its like I feel like I HAVE to. And thats two seperate issues.

I look at my writers notebook or my guitar, and all I see and feel is writers or guitar block. Nothingness. I dont get it. Its not like I dont have something to say, as people on this board no doubt can attest to!

bettielee

I'm an aspiring writer, and I'm a member of a writer's board. This board's philosophy is that there is no such thing as writer's block. "Writer's block" is simply the act of not writing.

For any kind of artistic or creative release, you have to DO the thing you are moved to do. If you call yourself a songwriter or musician, you must write songs, you must play. Every writer out there will tell you to write, you must write. The muse isn't going to come out of the aether and do it for you. You must put finger to pencil, finger to guitar string, voice to music, paintbrush to paint. In the beginning, you may well write, compose, sing or paint utter total crap. That doesn't matter. What matters is the act of performing your craft, until the fear that is blocking you falls away and you begin to express yourself.

Remember that you are creating art for fun, and doubt and fear hold you back from that. First and foremost, your art is for yourself, or you are no artist. You aren't going to be a genius overnight.

I wish you luck.

FinsburyParkCarrots

I would investigate whether there are any creative writing workshops in your area. Some would-be artists refute the idea that their talent might be contrived via anything other than some spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, but these people often lack the necessary humility to develop essential writing skills. Many good writers of prose fiction, poetry and drama have found that the sorts of brainstorming exercises taught in classrooms have aided their ability to emphathise with all kinds of human experience necessary to make good literary art. We all have a good story inside us, but writing exercises can help us see how refining our talents in observation of internal and extermal worlds makes for being able to tell better tales.

As for grasping the technical complexities of narrative form, this comes with practice.

With songwriting, again, everyone has a song inside them and I think if you can find some musician friends, the practical experience of listening to other people and swapping ideas is invaluable in developing confidence of approach.


Art doesn't exist in a vacuum, and this is why I think to be creative you have to engage with the world around you. The important thing is to be critical of your work. There's a lie that people who can't do, criticise. This is the worst barrier to art there's ever been. All good artists theorise and criticise the constituents of their work in relation to their peers and the world around them. You shouldn't judge an artist's canon as an organic, exclusive body of work. Think how artificial it seems to compare Ten with Avocado, without outside reference. You should compare it with the work of other people from the period, in order to work out if it has any relevance to literary and non-literary discourses of the time. Does it voice the ideological tensions of a moment in history through its uses of ideas and stylistic devices? Does it try to find ways to say "emergent" or subversive viewpoints? Does it unwittingly follow the status quo even in trying to be poltically committed? If so, how? These are questions you must consider about your and everyone else's work. The more you think about what you have to say and how to say it, the more you have to say and the better the approach you have in being able to say it.

If you want your work to be relevant, think of my suggestions. Creative writing classes for prose. Jamming with others, for song craft.

justam

Try practising everyday. Musicians practise, writers write, artists draw. The more you do it, the better you get.

IamTom

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is a wonderful book that may be of use.

Yield

I'm in the middle of reading "A Whack on the Side of the Head" How you can be more creative. So far so good, it's been around for a long time and it's highly recommended.