Strive Notes

1. Bookmark ‘creativity’ in del.icio.us.  Make it a place to keep things that tickle your imagination.  Tag cartoons, jokes, quotable quotes, pearls of wisdom, whatever gets you thinking. And, when you need to get those creative juices flowing take a few minutes to dip into your fave gems.

2. Pick up a pen.  Sick of sitting at your desk staring at the screen and praying for inspiration? Grab a pen and paper and go sit in the park.  Stroll down to your local coffee shop.  Find a bench at the beach. Changing your situation changes your mental attitude and gets you writing again.

3. Laugh!  Review your 10 favourite funny YouTube clips and have a good ol’ belly laugh.  A hearty giggle can break the tension and unleash creativity.

4. Break the rules.  Spend 10 minutes writing a discriptive piece in which sentences end with prepositions, participles are left dangling, conjuctions introduce paragraphs…you get the picture. Defy the constraints of perfect prose and really let it rip.  

5. Take a break. You don’t have to write a story in one sitting. If you hit a snag break off and go do something else. Then come back to your project when you feel refreshed.

6. Read up on creativity.  Mind Mapping by Tony Buzan is chock full of good techniques to drive creativity. Lateral Thinking by Edward De Bono is also very good.

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