Creativity - what is it for you?

Started by Nico, November 08, 2013, 01:08:32 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Nico

This is a question that always floated around my mind. About time I make a thread about it! ~laughs~

Hrm. It is, indeed, very difficult to express with words, what it is for me. The best way to explain it, for myself, it.. creativity is a state of mind. It just happens for me. I don't know why, or how, and I seriously never questioned it, because it has always been a part of who and what I am, for as long as I can think.

Maybe it is like a song, constantly playing in someones mind, something you know so well and by heart, each word, each single note, and it never gets boring, and it never seems like it would repeat itself over and over again. It is something you are so very familiar with already, something that is always there, in each breath and in each heartbeat.

But, I think, for me, creativity just... is. Questioning it usually brings me back to the question "What is it?" after a while. And maybe this is creative in its own way.

Okay, I am done! Really! ;D

kylie

         I think you are onto something there, in the parts where you say creative doings are somehow original, surprising, and yet compelling -- and often, based on some  material that is somehow still recognizably familiar in part. 

Creative ways are somehow different, nonstandard...  They do something more than just fulfill a task.

They may use the question or situation at hand to also talk about "another" one entirely. 

Sometimes they present an answer that society at one level says is completely "wrong" or just never quite done...  But at another level, many people might realize, if they stop to think about it enough, is very interesting logically or emotionally...  There is a kernel of truth or justice there somehow, so when people see it actually put up on offer or acted upon, something dramatic happens.

They may play on words, using words or suggestions that fit perfectly well here -- but have some other meaning(s) or implications.  Sometimes they like to be sneaky about this.  Sometimes even the author may not realize how this is buried in plain sight.

They may cross genres, at least momentarily.  Being funny or ironic where normally seriousness is called for...  Tossing magic into places where no one speaks of it as they normally live (sometimes in rather subtle ways, sometimes not). 

They often play a sort of "what if" of their own, in response to the problem.  They may hint at, what if one or another response (or some reference, some trend maybe out there someplace) was taken to an extreme....  And then step back just a little from that 'abyss' and make a story.  Or I suppose, they can go flying over and past the abyss sometimes?  It may be just a hint, a lingering question, a tease line, a brush with one character who's different, or maybe a whole new world.

Sometimes, they hint at things we know about ourselves but don't usually talk about.  What happens when you personify parts of the body, for example?  Are those "us" or "not us"?  Why do your eyes leap to somewhere in curiosity, or your fingers twitch in a tense situation?  Did you mean to?  Did you think about it?   Did you even notice you did it?  And regardless, what did someone observing you guess about "you" or perhaps, about where your body has been?  "Things" (such as bodies - not limited to those, really) we generally speak as if they were neat and under control, things that are supposedly "basic" to who people are and what society is...  Nothing is really spelled out in the personifying itself, but it becomes so poetic if we happen to catch the ambiguity, the intensity and tension it raises. 

And maybe part of creativity can be, leaving open questions for the reader that were not there before.  Questions that aren't easy, but may be exciting.

     

Chris Brady

Questioning it, to me, is like focusing on breathing.  It ends badly for me.  So I don't bother and let it happen.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Beguile's Mistress

To me creativity is finding new and different ways of doing things.  Adding a new ingredient to a recipe, using colors to tell a story in an afghan I knit or crochet, seeing a connection between two characters when I write that I haven't seen before are some examples.  It can also be using the talents we already have to open up the world to ourselves and others. 

These are just some of my thoughts about creativity.

meikle

creativity is what you find at the bottom of a bottle of jim beam
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A