If you’re a writer wondering how to be more creative, adopting “kaleidoscopic creativity” might just be your answer.
Kaleidoscopic creativity blends multiple creative practices, making writing and your entire life not only more creative, but also deeply enriching.
I am a proud multi-passsionate creative. While I’ll always be a writer first, every one of my varied creative pursuits helps to bring more creative thinking to my page, as well as my entire life.
What Is Kaleidoscopic Creativity?
Kaleidoscopic creativity is all about adopting a variety of creative practices in order to serve your creative life as a whole.
Imagine your life as a kaleidoscope.
Inside this kaleidoscope, are all of your creative artefacts—the things you actually make as well as the creative things you consume.
These could be:
- Writing.
- Visual arts.
- Music (both making and listening to).
- Photography.
- Dancing.
- Needlepoint.
- Watching movies.
- Books.
- Long walks.
- Looking at leaves.
- Cloud gazing.
- Museums.
- Cooking.
- Playing board games.
Anything and everything that lights up some kind of inspirational fire in you goes into your kaleidoscope.
Your collection of pursuits and interests don’t have to make cohesive sense.
For example, you can weld massive industrial artworks and also crochet tiny baby clothes if that appeals. You can write horror flash fiction and long romantic family sagas, if both light you up. In a kaleidoscope, the pieces are different sizes, shapes and colours, and that’s what makes such mesmerising displays.
One practice serves the other.
As you live your life and create your work, the kaleidoscope turns and all of those elements create wondrously colourful patterns, all reflecting from you.
The more practices you add, the more vibrant and expansive your creative world will be.
How Does This Approach Make You More Creative?
Provides A Mental Refresh
Different forms of practice act as a cognitive reset button, refreshing the mind after a period of focus in another area.
Helps Emotional Balance
A stressed out brain is not a creative brain. Engaging in enjoyable creative practices can help regulate emotions, foster calm, and simply spark joy – all of which make you more creative. For me, nothing calms stress and dysregulation better than quietly sitting with a drawing or crochet project.
Idea Generation
New ideas often come when we step away from our main project. Many writers find their next big idea or breakthrough while painting, walking, or listening to music, anything that creates a gentle flow state. This is when the subconscious has a chance to process and deliver our “aha!” moments into conscious thought.
Albert Einstein called this process of multidisciplinary inspiration “combinatory play”. He was known to step away from the science and play the violin, during which time he would often have incredible mental breakthroughs.
How to Be More Creative Using Kaleidoscopic Creativity
Identify Your Creative Outlets
What interests you beyond writing? You don’t need to be a professional or even very good in any of these other creative areas; simply engage in what brings you joy.
Practice Consistently
Don’t pressure yourself into making regular time for your non-writing creative practices, just go with what comes naturally. But do beware of putting these things off, and do try to make time for them at least semi-regularly. It can help to look for areas in your life where you are practicing creativity without realising it. For example, how creative can you get while making your nightly meal? How creative are you when decorating your home?
Process Over Product
The power of multidisciplinary kaleidoscopic creativity isn’t in what you make, but the process of making it. I never care how many drawings don’t turn out as expected, or how much crocheting I have to undo and redo, it’s in the practice of the making where the magic lies.
Play Over Perfection
Playing without expectations is a wonderful way to explore your creativity without limits. Just like Process Over Product, it’s the process and the practice not the completed thing that matters.
Cross-Pollinate Ideas
After engaging in one creative activity, reflect on how it might inspire your writing. For instance, you might draw something that appears in a scene, or hear a piece of music that captures the exact vibe you’re trying to create in your novel. A recent experimental drawing saw me draw an owl. One of the owl’s eyes turned out not-quite-right, and I scribbled over it with the intention of throwing the drawing out. Until the idea of a blind owl crashed into my mind, and now there’s a blind owl in my current novel-in-progress (and I finished that drawing to make it an intentionally blind owl).
Embracing kaleidoscopic creativity is about enhancing every part of your life.
When you make space to nurture everything that interests and excites you, you gain a truly unique perspective that influences every aspect of your writing. It’s pure creative authenticity.
So, the next time you’re wondering how to be more creative, consider adding a new art form or a new practice to your day. Dive into the kaleidoscope, turn the tube, and watch how the colors, patterns, and inspirations blend to make your creative life fuller, richer, and infinitely more satisfying.
