One Little Spark of Inspiration...
 

I'm always looking for ways to get the creative juices flowing, especially when tired or "blocked".

I found these awesome "handouts" designed by an award-winning design artist, and they've been very helpful so far.

What do you do to spark your creativity?

Listen to music.
Force myself to produce. Anything. Just to get over the inertia of doing nothing.
Make myself accountable to someone (e.g., pair up with someone and commit to sharing some form of output every day/week/whateve)
spark up something else.
learn something

I take a shower. For some reason, I get some interesting ideas for stories or whatever in the shower. Sometimes while I shave. Sometimes on the john.

Just sayin'.

I just solved some problems I was having with some writing while taking a nap.

Yeah, I have problems writing while I nap too.

I've never had much creativity and I've never gone out of my way to spark it.

Or rather, the area in which I am most creative pretty much requires me to just sit back and wait for the situations to arise.

Most of stories and poems I compose in my head come while I'm driving. Or sparking. Or while out in nature. But mostly while driving. It usually happens that i see something or someone while I'm driving around and a story forms -- usually rather quickly. I probably only write one story for every ten that pop into my head, and most of those never see the light of day beyond Word on my computer. I'd write more but I'm lazy, and busy. In fact, I'm so lazy i usually don't edit my stuff. I just let it flow and hit save, or submit, or whatever.

LSD always does the trick for me.

^That's cheating.

While I am working out, running, walking, dancing, biking......the trouble is that I can't take NOTES while doing these things and I have this trouble with remembering what was so wonderfully clear...

Like something my son said about religion is like Mythology. I told him that I had that very thought today....but I couldn't remember why.......

no sparky....no drinky...no hallucinogens.....

Journaling helps - clears my mind of distractors and gets me focused
Engaging in aesthetic experiences - listening to music, seeing art, architecture, dance, performance, reading etc.

I think by biggest nemesis is simple time management, making the time to actually do something instead of just pressing the refresh key.

Then there's giving myself permission to fail - or to put it more positively, permission to play - though I find, if I use "play" to much, it's easy to be sacrificed to more "important" activities and get bumped in the priority list (see time management above)

Naps or meditating (usually the same thing) work for me. Also, surrounding myself with creative people and ideas for inspiration is a bit help.

Ditto to that surrounding self with creative people and ideas.

I go in cycles between very productive and hardly productive. And the most creative I ever am is when I am making regular dates.

These dates might involve being creative with friends, or just talking about creativity with friends.

Or they might be regular creative dates with myself. Sometimes they're to gather inspiration... like walking in a park, or going to a museum, or just taking a random road trip, turning onto another road when the song changes on the iPod shuffle. Sometimes the dates involve processing that inspiration into my own work - setting aside time to meet myself at the computer to write, etc, or taking myself to a cafe to work on my project. I have to be pretty vigilant, or I won't do it.

Speaking of which, I make deadlines. I tell people "hey, we're going to read my play on this day." Or "hey, I'm going to direct a scene at my birthday party." Then I have to be accountable for what I'm working on.

My favorite creative resource is The Artist's Way, a book by an admittedly new-agey woman with much to say that doesn't exactly jive with my point of view. But somehow, whenever I'm following her guidelines or doing her exercises, I feel so, so much better. About everything. I highly recommend it, and actually, if anybody would be into doing it, I'm always happy to go through with you simultaneously. (I've gone through it a few times now, and it always brings insight to my daily creative habits.)

Precisely why we need to celebrate your birthday every month. ;)

I'm so up for a regular monthly park creativity day!