TECH: Creativity Step-by-Step (Part 3)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting 16 Sep 2010

Writer's Digest, December 2007, pages 42-45, has an article with the title "Blinded by the Light" by Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant. This is an article about another part of the creativity swamp, what Leigh Anne calls Too Many Ideas Syndrome (TMIS). This is the problem of having so many ideas that you just don't know what to do.

Leigh Anne suggests nine strategies that might help with picking an idea and getting on with it.

1. The red dress theory. When you go to a party, lots of women wear black dresses. A few wear red dresses. But, you're more likely to notice the ones wearing red dresses. They stand out, they get your attention. When you got too many ideas, look for the ones in red dresses. The bold, brash ideas. Those are most likely to be inspiring, motivating ones.
2. It's the stupid idea, stupid. Sometimes crazy, stupid ideas are the most fun. Go ahead.
3. This idea has legs. When you're overcome with ideas, take a walk. Without the lists and sheets of paper and all the other distractions, what stands out?
4. The assignment is due. Set your own deadlines. "Too much time often exacerbates confusion and indecisiveness, especially when you're faced with too many ideas. I've taught five-minute writing exercises in my classes for years and found they produce highly creative writing."
5. Mind over mind. Use a metaphor -- your imagination -- to cure TMIS. One writer thinks of writing as a garden. Some ideas, like weeds, need to be yanked, while others get watered and fertilized. Another writer thinks of writing as cooking. Ideas are like pots on the stove. Lift the lids, look inside, and see which one is closest to being ready to serve. Write that one first.
6. Give in to passion. Which ideas make you the most excited? Go with the ones that bring you the most pleasure. Go with the ones that you really want to do.
7. Organize visually. Many writers prefer cards on a bulletin board. Move them around, take down the ones you don't need, and see what's left. Color coding can help.
8. Go (meta) physical. Doctor Northrup, who writes nonfiction health books, uses tarot cards to help sort through ideas. "There's no magic in these cards; their intuition tool and help me get in touch with what my intuition is trying to tell me."
9. That's what friends are for. You need some friends you can bounce ideas off comfortably. Try pitching your idea to a friend.

That's the advice in the article. I think of these as various suggestions for selecting among ideas. Once you've got several ideas, screening them and picking out "the good ones" can be a hard job. These are some approaches to helping you with that.

[p.s. traveling this week, which means things are kind of wild and wooly about connections, but... start thinking about how to spend the next month, roughly? November is nanowrimo, right? So should we start planning how to scribble for a month? Who's doing nanowrimo this year, anyway? Come out, come out, wherever you are, and see the young witch... whoops! Later!]

TECH: Creativity Step-by-Step (Part 4)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting 28 Sept 2010

Writer's Digest, December 2007, pages 46-49, have an article with the title, "Mapping Out Of a Block" by Greg Korgeski, Ph.D. This is basically an article about mind mapping or concept mapping. The basic notion is to let yourself record and organize words and phrases in a visual . Some people do it on paper, some people use whiteboards or Post-it notes, and there are various software programs available.

Greg starts by suggesting three guidelines for your idea mapping.

1. However you do it, think about convenience and aesthetics. Paper, sticky notes, software -- whichever works for you. It should be easily accessible, and fast and easy for you.
2. Do a brain dump. Some people start in the middle, with the keyword phrase your question, and then work out from there. Or you can just start putting ideas down, randomly scattering them. Circles, boxes, arrows, question marks, use whatever helps you to think. Write down all the bits and pieces you can think of related to your project or question.
3. Sort and organize. With a lot of ideas laid out, you'll start to see ways they fit together. Draw lines, use a red pen, move things around. Add labels to lines. Tinker with it until you've got clusters and some kind of sense. Relationships, patterns, connections often pop out of this.

Greg also suggests using mind mapping at different levels. He gives three examples -- a single piece of writing, a writing program, and thinking about your writing career. You can use a mind map to build an outline. Or when you've just got too many ideas for one piece of writing, lay out a program. Let the clusters on the mind map be multiple pieces. Finally, you might want to try mapping your writing career. Look at the things you'd like to write about, look at the things you've already written, look at your areas of expertise, and look at your dreams or goals or passions. What kind of a mind map, what patterns, and links, and points of intersection come up?

Some of the mind mapping software available listed in this article includes:

Curio http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/
final draft http://www.finaldraft.com/
mindjet mindmanager http://www.mindjet.com/
scrivener http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html
supernotecard http://www.mindola.com/
tinderbox http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/

So here's a way to organize your ideas, using visual clustering.