Creativity 101

 

If you search online for «how to write?» you’ll get a lot of results ranging from using a pen and paper to rules of proper grammar, but no good advice about the creative part of writing, which is what most people struggle with. I admit, it’s not easy, but there are some tricks that help.

Most, if not all, things that we enjoy are just good writing: from movies to music, even those silly YouTube videos we watch when we’re bored. That's why sometimes I like to look into the process behind them and how they were made.
A Hitchcock film appears to me as something divine, that could have only been sent to him
in a dream by the Gods of writing and ideas. But when I started looking into it I realized
that he started off with a very basic idea. Then, many things were added and others
scraped off when he realized they didn’t fit, and he slowly kept polishing as he went further into the creation.

Therefore the process of creating such a movie didn’t come in one session, in fact it wasn’t even done when the writing part was over, they kept adding and removing and changing all the way through, during the writing, the casting, the filming and the editing.
And so, whenever I want to start writing I remind myself that expecting perfection from the first pen stroke gets me nowhere, and that I need to make the rough shape of my creation and keep polishing it as I see fits.

But the question that everyone poses is «HOW DO I START?»
Well my answer is « I  D U N N O ».

But I can tell you what helps me personally: having a general idea about where I’m starting and just writing an intro expecting to go back and change it when I write the rest.
But what do you do when you want to write but don't really know what to write about?
That’s where I implement an advice I heard so many times but only understood when I
needed to write: less is more. Put limits for yourself and you’ll be able to focus more on
one aspect of the creative process instead of everything. When the possibilities are
endless it’s hard to find a starting point. That’s why some artists limit themselves to one or two materials to use in painting, that’s why some limit themselves to certain musical instruments or certain scales. Contrary to your expectations, it gives more possibilities of creativeness. One thing I like to do is use a random sentence generator and write about whatever it gives me, you can try it yourself and use it as practice, sometimes great ideas can emerge.

Try to find inspiration in everything around you, from people and events, write what you
know. One becomes a writer by writing, but one becomes a good writer by reading and
observing the world around them. I can’t count how many times I felt inspired looking at a painting or reading and thinking I could write something better, sometimes I just mishear something, and when I realize that’s not what was said I find myself wondering what could’ve been if that first idea was true.
Don’t be ashamed of getting inspired by other works of art, the rule that nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed applies to art too, every novel is a remix of the dictionary, so go ahead, read everything you can, listen to everything you can and make your own interpretations, let those misunderstandings fuel your creativity.

As for the ending, you will reach a point and know just when to stop.

Youssef Toumi

“Artistic expression is like a cough, you have to let it out to relieve yourself.”