Long ago, at the beginning of time, the Creator held a council with all of the animals he made. He promised to give each animal a tail the next day. The first animal to come to him would have his first choice of tail. All the animals were excited, but none was more excited than Coyote. He wanted to be the first to get a tail. So Coyote built a fire and tried hard to stay awake all night. But after many hours he fell sound asleep. At the first light of day the other animals awoke and went to the Creator to choose a tail. Each one picked the tail he liked best. Red squirrel chose a bushy tail. Beaver chose a flat tail. Rabbit chose a short, fluffy tail. Every creature had a wonderful tail. At last Coyote woke up and race as fast as he could to the Creator. There was one beautiful tail left, and the Creator gave it to Coyote. But Coyote was angry about sleeping late. He was angry that he didn't get to choose from among all of the tails. He was so angry that he dragged his new beautiful tail through the coals of his fire, burning the hairs off of it. And that is why Coyote has a skinny, ugly tail to this very day. (Yurok folk tale)
I recently attended a conference in Telluride, CO. It was called the Risk and Reward Conference. This was a high energy, thinking outside the box, the future is wide open kind of a conference. I learned many techniques for generating ideas for my job as a librarian. Of course they will help fire up your brain for all kinds of creative work. I know they will help me as a writer, too. If you are trying to do something creative and find that you are a little stuck, maybe these ideas will help you.
The Long List - Give yourself a short time limit, say 15 minutes, to list as many ideas about your question as you can. You will probably come up with 10 or so right away but keep going. Then they will become far-fetched, even silly or illegal. Keep going. Try to get to 100 ideas. Some of these will be gems you can work with. Most of the good ones will be at number 80 or later.
Role Storming - We tend to filter our own ideas, immediately dismissing them as stupid. This stifles creativity. So instead, pretend you are someone else. While in character, brain storm away! No idea is stupid because hey, it's Yoda's idea, not your own. You will be surprised at the unusual and really good ideas that will come out of your brain while you are not you.
The Opposite- Take a problem and think of a normal solution to it. Now think of the compete opposite to that solution. Would that work? Why might it be even better? You may come up with a very "outside the box" idea that will start you on a whole new adventure as a writer or artist.
These techniques can help you get past the block and get you creating again. One idea leads to another, and you find yourself tweaking and combining ideas until something clicks for you. The idea you choose will probably be quite different from the one you first came up with.
So now it is your turn to fire up your brain. Share your story! Please add a comment on this post to let me know if you used one of these creative techniques for your project.
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