Flow

Daily writing prompt
How are you creative?

Most often as I sit at the piano and doodle– try to devise a progression of chords that makes some sort of sense and is maybe even melodic. Other than that, and on rare occasions, I feel like I zero in on what I’m feeling inside as I write in my journal or in here. I could never be a fiction writer– I feel like I have a stunted imagination. Or maybe it’s just a paucity of experiences.

In any event, every once in a while, thoughts and feelings get translated to a page the way I want, almost as if the passage writes itself, words somehow materialize.

Intangibles

Daily writing prompt
How are you creative?

Another tough one. I don’t feel that I’m all that creative. I think the closest I come is when I’m sitting at the piano and stumble on a tuneful riff using my rudimentary knowledge of chords and chord structure.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, and creativity might be something born of desire and opportunity. But I also believe there’s something magical about it, that real creativity can’t be forced or manufactured. It magically flows. It’s organic. People are born with something extra, with proclivities and inclinations and curiosity in search of expression or a catalyst. Solutions in hand or mind, searching for problems to be solved or beauty to be revealed.

This isn’t to say that we can’t learn to do things, to refine a craft– whether it’s writing or drawing or dribbling a football. In the extreme, I guess I’m imagining that a group of people can’t sit down at a table and just say, “Let’s be creative.” There might be a bit of synergy, something spontaneous, but I’m thinking more along the lines of a Da VInci or Jobs or Chopin.