How do you be creative? Thread

So, I was reading a great book that just came out (59 Seconds: Think A Little Change A Lot), and there's a chapter on it about becoming more creative. Some tips they recommend are:

• placing greenery into your room
• staring at an unconventional picture in your room
• lying down

Apparently, statistics show that these are great ways to be creative.

But, I wanted to know if other people had any other suggestions on how to be more creative!

As a game designer, I really struggle to come up with good ideas, so I'd like to try as many ideas as possible.

personally, my creativity is directly linked to my enthusiasm. If I do or experience something which just ignites my passion, or captures my willpower then I just get this burst of creativity, almost like an adrenaline rush.

That doesn't mean to say I can't work creatively for causes/purposes I don't really have any passion for, but the more I genuinely care about a topic, the easier I find it to be creative.

For example I love sharks. Every now and again I'll go out to work with great whites, and just a few hours at sea with my mind completely clear, working with the animals I love always, always give's me a fresh incentive to push my creativity. If you find something you really give a shit about, it can be an endless source of inspiration.

I'm not saying this particular example can work for everyone, but it's definately a good thing for both your work and personal life to be involved with something you're passionate about.

I also find it helps to resist settling on an idea too early in development. It's good to have a clear goal in mind, but make the most of a conceptual period to sketch out as many different, varied possibilities as you can.

Edited by: Koroshiya_Ichi

Koroshiya_Ichi wrote: personally, my creativity is directly linked to my enthusiasm. If I do or experience something which just ignites my passion, or captures my willpower then I just get this burst of creativity, almost like an adrenaline rush.

This.

Creativity is directly linked to my emotional state. If I am excited and engaged by a particular thing, there's a very good chance I will start creating stuff relevant to what excites me.

external factors can modify it - Environment, Intoxicants, etc.

But they take a second place to the "spark" which is the passion itself. Without that, I tend to do work that is by-the-numbers. Falling back on experience with my medium , rather than innovating.

Edited by: AJ_Quick

But, don't you guys ever start a project and then lose steam after a while?

It's like when you're making a video game, you're all excited at the beginning. Then, you get to the long days of coding and bug tracking and think that you should just give up...

It's for moments like that, that I was asking the question.

jrjellybeans wrote: It's like when you're making a video game, you're all excited at the beginning. Then, you get to the long days of coding and bug tracking and think that you should just give up...

To me, that's the real difference between true professionals and wannabe's. The wannabe's love the idea of building something, but as soon as the reality kicks in (the reality being that nothing worth having comes easy or without serious effort) they generally turn tail, more often than not starting a new project with renewed enthusiasm which they 'will definately finish this time', only to repeat the process. The professionals are the ones who understand and appreciate the bigger picture, know what their aiming for, manage themselves accordingly and are thus able to fight through those hard times.

Dont get me wrong I'm not saying you're a wannabe or that its unprofessional to sometimes lose a little drive, we're human, it's going to happen, and expecting yourself to be 100% creative and 100% enthusiastic can do more harm than good (especially when you're taking on projects which may take years to complete). I went self employed purely because I wanted to focus my efforts towards what I'm passionate about. It hasn't been easy, and there's often times when I've sat with my head in my hands, seriously considering whether it's going to be worth the effort, or if I should just get myself into a nice secure job, with set hours, little responsibility and just play it safe. But then I'll take a break from what I'm doing, go back to the roots of why I do what I do, why I got into it in the first place, and what the bigger picture is. I do this and ask myself "is it worth it?", and everytime its a resounding yes. This alone often gives me the push I need to fight through the boring/annoying/hard aspects of development.

If you want advice for maintaining enthusiasm etc all the way through a project, then i think alot if its about management, and especially knowing when to take a break. It's good to be a hard worker, but never giving yourself time off to reflect/chill out effects your judgement, can destroy your enthusiasm and ultimately make you resent what you're doing.

For example, I know I'm most creative at the start of a project, so I make the most of it then. Once preproduction is over and it's a case of 'crunching' out content, it's not so much about creativity as it is willpower, and as mentioned before - passion.

However, understanding whether you're genuinely passionate about a subject is a different matter entirely

Edited by: Koroshiya_Ichi

To me three things are most important:

- a good overview about my day's work (structure your work, write lists)
- getting up early and taking a break midday (splits the day in two and you have twice the power)
- laying down when I feel like I'm stuck (alternatively: going for a walk; both refresh my willpower)

Being creative is about fighting with yourself for purpose in your life. If your purpose comes from your relation, from your dayjob or another hobby, then there is no way you can fixate yourself enough on that singular experience, which I call writing, others call painting or coding, or game-designing...

I think every artist has times when he's not able to continue doing what he thinks about, but personally I get a really bad temper when I can't fullfill my goals, which puts me back at the table and starts me to write again. Creativity is not a constant "emotion" like happiness or sadness. It can't really be triggered by anything except adherence to a task. It's simple but difficult: if you don't give up before the end, you will have a result.

In writing what is particularly annoying is the re-drafting (I guess it compares to bug-tracking). You start out really loving a story and understand why exactly it is so great. You're enthusiastic about it and go through all kinds of shit to finish it (bad dayjob, meager relations to your friends, no love-life, no holiday). However when you're finished writing a piece you are not really finished. I have to count 1 year onto every script I write just to get it error-free and really presentable. A lot of things play into this: character, dialog, plotpoints. The bones are finished, but next comes the flesh.

In the end you have the greatest possible feeling of accomplishment to reward yourself. You look at your work and possibly at what's been done with it (by directors and producers) and you rejoice! If you have never finished anything you won't know how good that feels - so keep on keeping on! The reason why I won't write for advertisement any more is that it lacked that feeling of having done something good. It felt just like watching advertisement, no matter how much the struggle to get it done cost me. But that's a realization that comes much later. At first you should be pretty happy just to get something done. There is a reason writers usually start with simpler prose in their life and then work up to scripts or novels. Never try to jump a skyscraper from the ground up. Take the stairs and let every level be a milestone. That's the only way I know not to get frustrated with being creative

Creativity comes in many forms. I find when i go to bed i always come up with ideas as i'm relexed and just chilling out so i tend to not end up sleeping and sit writing ideas down on my whiteboard lol. Read books for example fantasy novels etc these are a great way to get your creativity going i read a lot of books and keeps me coming up with great ideas.

spend a few hours on Garry's mod....you might not necessarily be any more creative then, but after seeing other people with their creative unique little things...
it may spark something inside that gives you a brilliant idea.

worked for me

good luck

Creativity, for me, consists of three elements, and each of them presents a different kind of problem.

1. Inspiration. This can be tough for a lot of people, but I'm one of those people who has far more ideas than I know what to do with. I have a list of projects that I would like to complete, and I continue to refine each concept over time as I work on completing other projects. I get ideas from books, movies, walking/driving, listening to music, and surfing places like ModDB and TESNexus.

2. Implementation. This is a really thorny issue for a lot of people, myself included. By implementation I mean, having the skills required to execute the task. This is really what kills most people, I think. They just don't know how to go about doing what they want to do. When they realize how much work is required and just how much there is to learn a lot of people get discouraged and just give up. I'm fortunate in this area as well, since I love to learn, but it's still very frustrating not being able to start implementing ideas as soon as you have them just because you don't know how to model or animate.

3. Repetition. Some people hate this part the most, and other people don't mind it at all. Repetition is the part of your project where you know what you want to do and how to do it and just need to follow through and complete it. This is the revision part of writing, modeling your one hundredth model, tweaking your eighth level, etc. This is where the real enemy is boredom. I try to avoid getting bored by changing what I'm doing. If I find myself getting bored with landscaping I'll switch to writing dialogue for a quest or modeling a prop. I find this always helps to keep me motivated with a project.

Something else I do for inspiration, when I'm feeling lazy, is study the work of other artists and writers who were masters in their field. It's hard to justify being lazy when you look at da Vinci's sketches or read Proust. People have done and continue to do amazing things. And I want to be one of those people.

I'm just dropping in to say a single line. I don't know if it's considered appropriate, but I'm still posting it:

I've heard certain drugs can improve creativity. So if you have to deal with a lack of creativity and you don't have any problems with drugs, you could give it a try. (Nope I'm not talking from my own experience, some guys told me)

If this ís inappropriate, feel free to delete this post.

I doubt that's considered inappropriate here, it's related. There's a thread debating the legality of marijuana on the forums anyway.

The arts usually make me feel more creative. You are what you eat, both literally and figuratively - whatever you have more of you'll generally begin to feel, I believe. Be it looking at a painting, listening to music, or playing a game, I generally find inspiration from the arts. Of course, bad experiences with those things turns me off creatively sometimes.

The biggest key to creativity to me, as well as productivity, is healthy eating & sleeping. Ironically, I rarely practice either, but when I do I feel great. Also, the environment you work in is key too. If you're a bedroom modder, look around your room. If it's dim, smelly and messy you're not gonna feel very creative. Often my mind works best when my room is clean - sounds weird, I know. Also, if it's a nice day, open the window.

Whenever you find something that stunts your creativity, avoid it. For me, that's organised education - it's just mind numbing and uninspiring. Unfortunately for me though, I'm in my last year of college! So, what do I do? I try and make other arrangements to study / pick up work so that I can do it in an environment where I feel more productive. I still have to sit through hours of a teacher reading out of a textbook to me half the time, but I'm actively trying to avoid it where possible.

The suggestions from that book are BULLSHIT! Putting plants in your room and staring at a picture. If those suggestions are scientifically proven, then scientists are idiots. To be creative, you must have the motive to become the best. Think crazy and try to break all limits that seem to oppose you. You have a idea that you like? Expand it into a universe of its own. However, don't forget other ideas as well. If you're going to be more creative let other ideas flow instead of that one idea.Your idea sounds like another idea that's been used? Modify it so it is your original idea. Basically what I'm saying in a nutshell is think past all boundaries of what you consider possible and build something so small into a entire universe. THAT'S the best way to be creative(in my opinion) NOT that stupid excuse for a book. Just look at people's original works ie:books, mods, art, games, and you'll get the picture.

To me its simple...music in, eyes closed, pencil on paper.

It seems to be the most effective way to put ideas onto paper is to just let them happen.