Finding one's muse

January 11, 2016 6:41 PM

What are some of the best strategies - and best practices - for rousing one's creativity?

Let's just say that my internal creative "beast" is feeling a bit domesticated these days. I'm trying to relearn how to feed it, play with it, show it love, and of course know when to give it space - as well as when to let it nap.

Some strategies I currently use to stir my creativity, and have found good success with at times:

1. Writing morning pages
2. Oblique strategies
3. Waking early and leaving the house in twilight (driving nowhere in particular); or going out for a long, solitary walk
4. Temporary sensory near-overload: taking in my favorite scent, while listening to my favorite music, while looking at a book of beautiful artwork or photos, while wearing clothes that feel good on my skin, while taking in a favorite food or beverage

I'd love more ideas in the vein of #1 and #2 - there's a loose structure there that I find appealing - but also welcome creativity-boosting techniques, strategies and experiments that are more akin to #3 and #4.

posted by nightrecordings to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

Not an option for everyone, and depends on the legality in your area, but I find that using marijuana, specifically a sativa strain, really helps stimulate my creativity. For me, my yoga practice and cooking are my two main creative outlets, so when I'm experiencing a creative slump, I'll set aside time and a physical space for whatever I want to do, partake a little bit (I prefer to use a vaporizer), and then let just myself play. I think that part of the reason this helps is that I tend to be anxious and stressed, so it helps me de-stress and just allow my brain to go where it wants to go without worrying about everything. If nothing else, though, be sure to enhance the space where you want to spend your "creative time"- make sure it's clean, well-lit, and cozy feeling. Candles, palo santo, and houseplants help me keep my space feeling inspiring and nurturing.
posted by sparringnarwhal at 6:50 PM on January 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Find natural places with a strong aesthetic appeal and return to them again and again at different times of year, times of day, or choose a particular time of day to always visit. Be receptive to your environment sense it find identity in the place, whistle back at birds. Find inspiration in corners, shadows, gestalts of things. Listen to your internal dialogue about what you see. Take some of it into your imagery. Get comfortable with your take on things, be true to your identity, and good to yourself in the creative process, be your best ally; then your process will have the quality of comfort and safety, to stand up to the act of creating.
posted by Oyéah at 8:23 PM on January 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't remember where I read about it, but I'm a big fan of filling the well- I do this by reading, listening to podcasts, and watching TV/movies, both within my wheelhouse and without. I especially love history, since that gives me all kinds of fun rabbit holes to jump down.
posted by Tamanna at 9:20 PM on January 11, 2016

Also came to say: be a culture vulture. Consume a ton of other people's art. Read a ton. Always be reading. Go to the theatre. Poetry reading. Art exhibit. It's like taking lessons from the masters.
posted by Jason and Laszlo at 9:48 PM on January 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

If you are a musician, League of Crafty Guitarists and Los Gauchos Allemanes alum Steve Ball just now created Crafty Cards - for you! and others just like you! In the flavor of Oblique Strategies.

- Work with a new drummer. I dunno the analog to that for you.
- Performance Challenge: create a new <typeOfWorkYouDo/> for public display performance by some reaally impossibly close deadline.
- More constraints
- Fall in love with someone separated from you by too much distance, age, or temperament.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:01 PM on January 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know if it works for everyone, but whenever I have been required to learn a new language for work, I have always experienced an explosion of creative energy after a couple of weeks. Something about the new pathways and cross-connections in the brain.

Also, the other element of the Artist's Way, in addition to morning pages, is the weekly artist's date. Treat yourself to something fun and novel for an hour of two each week.
posted by rpfields at 3:04 AM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I took a critical thinking class at work last year, which ended up having a lot of strategies for creative thinking alongside critical. I'm trying to remember the techniques and/or find my notebook (maybe I should have taken a Better Memory class instead!!)

One of the techniques that might work for you is the Six Thinking Hats technique, developed by Edward de Bono. You look at your problem or scenario and imagine yourself wearing 6 different hats while you think about it. The hats are:
White - data/information
Red - feelings/emotions
Yellow - positive view/benefits
Black - caution or criticism
Green - creativity/ideas
Blue - overview/meta-thinking

The idea is to shift your perspective and get out of your default view, which will allow your brain to go in different directions.
posted by CathyG at 10:29 AM on January 12, 2016

1) Consume lots of different art and culture, the variety of connections will help spark your own ideas.
2) Schedule time to do your art. Make it a priority.
3) Make bad first drafts and push them through to completion. Worry about making them good later.
4) Cultivate other artists as friends/beta readers/critique partners. Push each other to do new things and really work at them to get better.
5) Try to do things that are too hard for you. If you keep working on stuff you can do effortlessly, it gets boring. If you try to do something hard, you'll get better.
6) Try variations on a theme, or a trope inversion. Come at your project sideways. Think of an outlandish project and then try to do it.
posted by oblique red at 2:41 PM on January 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, while this won't be for everyone, I find reading art/lit/cultural theory is HUGELY helpful in terms of coming up with ideas. It can be 'huh that's an interesting idea (narrative as corrosive/identity as performance/reality as constructed) I wonder what that would look like in a THING' or, sometimes more productively, 'holy fuck is this wrong and I'm going to prove it wrong by making a thing'. For me it's partly feeding my brain, partly distracting it so that a different part can play freely.

Not sure what to look at, then see if you can get access to a university library and browse. Otherwise, check out undergrad/master programmes reading lists for things you find interesting.
posted by litleozy at 11:07 AM on January 16, 2016