Hmm…
.-= Andrew Lightheart´s last post … The 10 unconscious beliefs of the interrupter =-.

I seem to be at my most creative when:
- I’m driving long distances and am not in a hurry
- I’m feeling melancholy
- I’m feeling joyful
- I’ve been reading books with new-to-me thoughts or ideas
- I’m brainstorming with a group of people working towards a common goal
- I’ve exercised, especially hiking
- I’m eating well
- I’ve had new and interesting experiences
- I’ve had interesting dreams
- I’ve watched movies that spark my imagination

My creativity is diminished by:
- an unsupportive work environment
- feeling disinterested in everything
- having too many obligations
- overworking my creative processes
- not getting enough sleep

I will say that my new most requested (and never before requested) feeling is to feel relaxed in my body and my mind. In the past I’ve asked to be able to pace myself, have the quiet I need, be sustainable, but this is the first I’ve asked specifically to feel relaxed. I’ve already made a leap into a new project, so it looks like I’m creating my first threads of an answer.

Wishing you a joyful vacation that is as productive and unproductive as your heart desires.
.-= Mahala Mazerov´s last post … Summer of Lovingkindness Invitational =-.

SPACE! I would physically create a lot more if I had real room to work and somewhere to put what I’d built.

Quiet. Not soundless per se, I like music for some things, often certain types, but no chatter in the background. So ideally, a house to myself.

A view of nature. Being out in it can be good but depends a lot on seasonal allergies, sometimes it’s better to view it from inside.

Comfy clothes.

Feeling uninhibited. Again, house to self rocks that. Working on how not to let other people’s presences affect my flow of thought.

Exercise.

Sleeping well.

What I wonder is how inspiration ties into this. When you mention your most creative periods, were you particularly inspired then or particularly productive?

Creativity and inspiration are tied together for me, but the days I felt awesome with inspiration are not necessarily the periods I was most creative on whole. Hard to say. Inspiration can be fickle and hard to manufacture.

I tend to think along the lines Naomi Wolf describes in The Treehouse. If inspiration is rain and you can collect it in a bucket, you’ll get some if you go out every time it’s raining. But if you regularly put out the bucket whether it’s raining or not, i.e. write/draw/paint/what-have-you even when you’re not inspired, you’ll ultimately end up with more inspiration.
.-= claire´s last post … Less thinking- more photos =-.

sensory details + being in my body [movement, music, being outdoors] + expression [writing, dancing, singing, art] = happy flow love state

It is astonishing how quickly I forget this (again and again) and also how it completely BOWLS ME OVER whenever the epiphany reasserts itself.
.-= Tracy´s last post … All my work is in progress =-.

- The tiny beginnings of my creative ideas seem to appear when there’s water involved: in the shower, doing the dishes, staring at the waves of the sea.
- My creative ideas are brilliant in my head, but not so much when I try to make them tangible outside of my head. Maybe the ‘real world’ is made of constrictions rather than possibilities in my mind?
- Lately, I’ve found that when I’m having lively conversations with other people – like-minded, opposed or interested but uninformed ones – my ideas get tangible quite quickly. Sometimes, I hear myself say things out loud that I’ve never consciously thought before, but once I hear them come out of my mouth it is a Thing I can explore and play with. The people I am talking to add new perspective that I may not have considered before. Maybe I shouldn’t always think so much before speaking (most of what I say has been edited in the head, perhapse more than once), but I do need a safe environment in which I can speak my mind, then tweak what I’ve said or take it back. This is really new to me and deserves more exploration, especially since I tend to do the opposite when the going gets tough: withdraw from social interaction. Maybe I’ve just never had the right people to form a safe conversation environment with, or maybe I’ve become less impressed by All The Things People Could Do To Me when I’m me. I say: time for experiments!

New mantra: be me out loud – be creative out loud. And find the right, safe, audience/sounding board.

Thanks Havi, for making me think about this. Brilliant idea to analyse situations that, maybe only in hindsight, were right for us so we can set the stage for more good things to happen.