The concept of how to increase creativity is a paradoxical one.
Creativity is an infinite resource, and the more we use, the more we have.
Yet, creativity also requires replenishment. It drains out of us the more we use it.
We increase creativity by draining it and then replenishing it in a constant cycle.
So, how is creativity depleted?
And how do we replenish creativity once it’s spent?
Increase Creativity – Fill The Cup
In psychological wellness conversations, we hear a lot about “filling the cup”.
In the creativity space, we often talk about “filling the well”, thanks mostly to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for making us understand well filling a vital practice for the creative.
The essence of the metaphor is the same in both. It’s the idea that there is this metaphorical receptacle inside of us that holds this indefinable spirit that is creativity, or in psychological space it’s more like a “life force” – but we creatives know these are part of the same whole.
That receptacle (the cup or the well) empties, and we need to keep it topped up in order to live our best lives, to write our best words, to be our best selves.
How each writer replenishes their creative well is unique. But to understand how to increase creativity by filling that well, we first need to think about how that well works.
Understanding The Creative Well
I think for writers, we’re talking about two vessels, or more accurately, a single vessel with two compartments.
1. The vessel of ideas and
2. The vessel of energy.
Think of the vessel of ideas as a big bucket full of things we might write about. It includes plot ideas, character profiles, little snippets of scenes, a sense from a genre we’d like to write in, and the rest of it.
We increase creativity in this side of the well by consuming stories. We read other books, fiction and nonfiction. We watching movies, play video games, listen to song lyrics, poetry, observing life around us. These are all the common ways we writers fill up our ideas cup.
The other side of this vessel is where we get our physical and mental energy to manifest these ideas into our books.
Sure, we get energy from doing these pleasurable things like reading books, watching movies. But our energy comes from different places too. Connecting with our loved ones, activities we enjoy, like gardening or other hobbies, and other creative endeavors that aren’t writing.
Play is also energizing. We all have our different definitions of how to play. It could be playing with children in their games, or doing something fun like learning to surf for the sake of it (not for me, personally!), or dancing around your living room (more my style).
Energy also comes from taking care of our actual vessel, our bodies, with nutritious food, exercise, sleep and other forms of rest.
The most effective way to increase creativity is to fill up both sides of that cup.
Fill up your ideas. Fill up your energy.
Fairy Tales – An Anecdote of How I Found A Creativity Increase Overload
I was reminded of this recently while travelling. By pure chance and what felt like a gift from the universe, I was visiting Brisbane (Australia) at the same time as the Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art opened a special exhibition of fairy tales.
It was a showcase of all manner of art, from high tech augmented reality installations, to historical oil paintings, abstract sculptures, priceless curios such as paper cutouts made by Hans Christian Anderson himself, the Cottingley Fairy photographs, costumes and props from magical films including Labyrinth, Where the Wild Things Are, and Beauty and the Beast. All explored the ideas along that edge of fairy tales where whimsy, humanity, and darkness combine.
It was enchanting and amazing and awesome in every sense of the word. I was moved to tears at one point, being immersed in these feelings. And while I was there, immersed in the experience, I felt a visceral reaction to my enjoyment, my wonder, the overflow of ideas I wanted to take into my writing, and just how very ME the whole thing was.
It was also a quite restful experience. It was far from my day-to-day life. My husband and kids were at a theme park (the very antithesis of a fun or restful experience for me, personally!). To be alone (in a gallery of strangers), taking a day that was all about what I love, at my own pace, in a cool, quiet, dimly lit place while an extreme summer raged outside across a busy city – every cell in me softened into the experience, while my imagination and everything in my creative spirit tingled in rapturous delight.
I came out overflowing. My creativity was topped up, my physical energy was so great I felt like I was floating, and spent the rest of the day on a high.
But that feeling never lasts.
The cup always empties. Even though I carry the memory of that fulfilment with me, and can touch upon its edges from time to time in the books I bought there, the photos I took, it’s not the same.
I wrote more about this exhibition on my blog at katekrake.com.
The Opposite of Increasing Creativity – What empties our cups?
Just like with what fills an author up, what empties the cup will be different for everyone.
For most of us, it comes from the energy of regular day-to-day living, the inevitable dramas, mishaps and obstacles that pop up. Relationships take their toll, even the good ones and especially the challenging ones. Poor food, dehydration, not enough movement, feeling sluggish in our bodies saps our physical and mental energy. Stress. Worry, anxiety, misery, fear.
Even writing, while it is a creative pursuit that fills us up, empties us at the same time. The creative practice itself is creatively replenishing. Yet, for many writers, reaching the end of a project is a time of total creative depletion. We are totally spent and usually require an outside form of replenishment.
Creative replenishment is an ongoing practice. To keep the cycle moving, to continue increasing creativity, find those rare things that fill you from both sides, your physical cup and your ideas cup. Take time for both types of fulfilment, even if they’re not in the same single practice.
