Monday, March 26, 2018

Creativity vs Intelligence

If you believe only smart people can be creative - you need to kick that myth right out of your head immediately. Trust me, smart people can and do come up with some really dumb ideas. On the other hand, innovation comes from breaking the boundaries. In other words try not to limit yourself to what you already know. There are times to escape and be fully aware that creativity is actually intelligence having fun, so says Albert Einstein. 

Einstein's level of intelligence is far greater than most all of us. It is used synonymously with the word genius. Because I know that I am not anywhere close to a genius, I adore the quote from Einstein that is at the top of this blog. 


I don't feel as if I am bragging, however, I do feel as if I am a creative person. I do know that creative people believe it to be rare and that most creative people actually do not feel inspired all of the time. It is not something that I can clap on/clap off like the "clapper" that is advertised on TV. My creativity does not work like that. Most people's creative side does not work this way either.

Whether you feel that you are or that you are not creative, you should feel happy that it is a learned skill/art. For real! It takes training to think creatively. You need to get on board so that you can begin the journey of thinking more creatively and not become a part of the humdrum beat going on around you.

Creativity is not just for artists  -  it is critical to everyone. It will measure how large your world can grow. Look at it this way...do you want to be like the hamster in the wheel spinning around and around and always going the same way, looping the same loop over and over?

If you can be inspired by your own creativity and follow up with actions, you can make your world grow and gain new experiences. This was my very own, "A-ha moment!" All ideas happen to be the product of processes. What I am exposing myself to will then influence a thought, and this random thought turns into an idea and WALLA...creativity explodes.


Good ideas are truly random. When writing my novel, I must say it is a product of years of hard work, endless rewrites. When it gets published (and it will) people will assume it was great from the start. Maybe one random idea; the rest of it had to be followed up with actions, lots of them.

Some examples:


  • watching and observing everywhere I go
  • reading time every day (other novels and materials both in my genre and outside my genre)
  • listening to others, especially those who have accomplished what I desire to do
  • outline and storyboard to help clear the clutter of all the random ideas and thoughts that I want to go into my novel
  • continually looking at editors and publishers who are interested in my kind of genre and how they want it submitted
  • research - yes even fiction needs research depending on what you are writing about
Out of all of these examples, none of them, can be forced. It is a full time job if you let it be. For me, my creativity sparks when my mind, body and soul are all in harmony.






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